alt Hacker NewsYou've never met a stupid employee who doesn't use all of the tools available in their organization?
Decisions are made by people, not by countries. People have limited capacity in their wetware and frequently take shortcuts in their work, particularly if they are just doing a job and face little personal consequences for lazyness.
I've met all kinds of people, but the most likely explanation for people doing something they said they were going to do and had the capability to do is that they did it.
Twisting yourself in knots to pretend it's more likely that the US has paid no attention to Iran for 13 years than it is that they did the thing they said they would is not rational.