For reasons that have never been explained, Donald Trump decided months ago that Steve Witkoff would serve as the administration’s top negotiator with Iran. If his name sounds familiar, that’s because Witkoff is also helping lead the administration’s negotiations with Russia and Ukraine despite the inconvenient fact that he is a New York real estate developer with no relevant experience in foreign policy or delicate international diplomacy.
Nevertheless, the White House’s top amateur diplomat has, in fact, met with Iranian officials, including interactions last year that long predated the president’s decision to launch an unnecessary war. According to Witkoff’s own public comments, in one of the discussions, he talked about developing a “verification” system that might allow Iran to produce low levels of uranium for a nuclear energy program.
That wasn’t an outrageous position to take. In fact, Witkoff’s position dovetailed with elements of the Obama-era nuclear agreement, which did roughly the same thing.
On Thursday, Trump spoke with Newsmax’s Greta Van Susteren, who told the president as part of the on-air interview that Witkoff told her the United States offered Iranian officials a possible agreement in which they could enrich uranium for a domestic medical program, below levels needed for a nuclear weapon.
The president, who too often seems like a bystander in his own White House, apparently wasn’t aware of the offer — and immediately denounced it.
“Maybe it wasn’t a very serious offer because I wouldn’t have approved that,” the Republican replied. “I’m not giving them anything. I wouldn’t have approved that.”
In other words, Trump deployed Witkoff to talk to Iran; Witkoff, ostensibly representing the White House, made a substantive offer to Iran about nuclear policy; and Trump later declared that he would oppose his own envoy’s proposal.
To be sure, the president has spent the last couple of months repeatedly pushing contradictions and mixed messages about U.S. policy toward Iran, to the point that it’s impossible to have any real confidence that he understands his own goals or strategies.
But while this latest example is part of a series, it stood out because of the practical implications. Imagine you’re an Iranian official in Tehran, you’re already inclined to distrust the U.S., and you agree to negotiations that are led in part by an unqualified real estate developer who got the job because he has been friendly with the American president for decades.
Then imagine, as part of the same hypothetical, you’re an Iranian official who joins the White House’s handpicked envoy at the negotiating table, and he starts offering substantive proposals as part of a broader effort to resolve the ongoing crisis — proposals that his boss says he has no intention of approving.
Given this, what are the odds that Iran is going to take Trump administration proposals seriously? How, exactly, are negotiations with Iran supposed to produce an agreement that all parties can trust if Trump’s envoy makes offers that Trump opposes?
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