The breathtaking intensity and variety of speculation on the future of the Middle East sparked by the signing of the nuclear technology and sanctions agreement this week between Iran and the P5+1 powers (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany) has been matched by an equally impressive lack of consensus on any of the central issues being discussed. Is Iran a threat to the Arab world because of its hegemonic aims, as some Arab states believe? Will its increased power and influence in the wake of this accord be used to “destabilize” the region? Will the United States slowly make Iran a major regional ally and recalibrate its relations with Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey and Egypt? Will Iran cheat during the years of the accord, and then sprint to build a nuclear bomb in its wake?

The discussion in the Middle East of these and related issues is much more nuanced than the debate of these issues that I have followed closely in the United States, especially this week. More troubling are the condescending, mistrustful, derogatory talk, attitude and tone about Iran from many American quarters – officials from the president on down, much of the mainstream media and most of the political establishment. This risks seriously derailing the implementation of the agreement, and with it perhaps the prospects of a more rational and peaceful political order in the Middle East.

Strangely, this mean-spirited, adolescent-like American behavior is 100 percent contrary to the noble, generous and sensible actions of the U.S. and Iran during their long negotiations.

The core problem here is the constant litany of accusations and veiled threats against Iran from those who assume that Iran is a lying, cheating, belligerent regional predator that cannot be trusted and must every day show evidence of its good behavior. This might very well be true; but to accept it as true we really need more evidence than the collective ignorance of hundreds of provincial American politicians, the money-sniffing obsequious pandering of American presidential candidates and the accusations, assumptions and concerns of many journalists and analysts whose knowledge of Iran, the Middle East and history is heavily shaped by the talking points and policy memos they get from increasingly hysterical (and isolated) American right-wing extremists, Christian Zionistcrackpots and powerful political lobbying circles close to the Israeli prime minister.

This hyperdemeaning broad-brush negative portrayal and mistrust of Iran in the American public political sphere and the accusation that it is a dangerous and untrustworthy party run totally against the constructive principles that saw these historic negotiations succeed. If this mood persists and hinders implementation of the accord, preventing this historic dynamic from gaining greater traction across the region, that would represent a terrible waste.

This agreement is an effective, practical way to address the most important issues that matter to both sides – the world powers’ desire to stop Iran from securing a nuclear bomb, and Iran’s desire to remove the sanctions so it can live like a normal country. The negotiations and the accord comprise an important precedent in several spheres.

First, how to negotiate with your enemies or people with whom you disagree;

Second, how to make a negotiation possible by dropping the failed practice of using threats, sanctions and intimidation to achieve one side’s aims (as the U.S., Israel and other powers did to Iran for years, which only spurred the expansion of Iran’s enrichment capabilities);

Third, how to craft a negotiating process that credibly addresses the critical bottom-line issues for all sides, and thus increases the likelihood of success;

Fourth, how the two negotiating sides can make substantive concessions in order to achieve the gains they covet;

Fifth, how to implement more or less simultaneously the key gains that both sides achieve, rather than keep one side’s gains hostage to the other side’s mistrust.

The implications of this successful negotiating methodology could be immensely relevant for other tensions and conflicts in the Middle East, including domestic battles (Iraq, Bahrain, Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon), regional proxy wars (Syria, Yemen), cross-regional tensions (Israel-Iran or Israel-Turkey), Arab-Iranian confrontations and global tensions that touch on relations with the U.S., Russia, Europeans, or China or India.

The most important reason the negotiations succeeded, in my view, is that they were based on mutual respect that saw the concerns and rights of both sides as equally worthy of being addressed and met – which only manifested itself in 2013 or so. The United States now is behaving publicly with mostly insulting disdain towards Iran – treating it like a delinquent or a serial criminal certain to carry out dangerous deeds, even when under intense international inspections.

This is bizarre, more bizarre than the usual chaos-producing American weirdness and wildness to which we are accustomed. Political psychiatrists and buffalo herd behaviorists must help us out here to figure out why this schizophrenic American behavior toward Iran is taking place. Or maybe the American political sphere should grow up and embrace the fact that it did something heroic and peaceful for once in the Middle East.