Editor's note: James Jay Carafano is director of The Heritage Foundation's Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies.

By James Jay Carafano, Special to CNN

Trying to understand largely closed regimes is never easy.  Consider North Korea or Iran. How are we to understand decision-making as opaque and unexpected as Lady Gaga's dress choices?

It's always tempting to avoid the difficulty of understanding foreign powers' seemingly unfathomable decisions by adopting simplistic explanations. Enemies we think we understand are dubbed "rational." Those whose behavior puzzles us we deem "irrational." FULL POST