> clearly all these smart people are not involved in the decision making

Why not? Smart people can make decisions that look weird from the outside.

The foreign policy of the US been looking weird for decades to most outside parties, yet I'm sure there are smart people involved in it on a daily basis. But even with smart people involved, the US been invading countries based on false premises more than once, not sure why it would need to be different for Iran or any other country.