We said before the indirect negotiations between Iran and the US in Oman last Saturday that an agreement was unlikely. Statements by Trump’s chief negotiator Steve Witkoff as well as a planted story leak about a Trump situation room meeting before the second round this week confirm our assessment.
If you have been following this story, there was a brief moment we thought was too good to be true and turned out to be. The earlier hope, stirred by positive noises from both Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US envoy Steve Witkoff right after the first session, has been dashed. Witkoff had made a moderate statement about what the US wanted to happen on Fox News, presumably consistent with what he had told Araghchi. Although it was very general, it sounded as if the US was prepared to accept an agreement similar to the JCPOA that Trump had exited, with some face-saving measures, like more stringent inspections and a new end date for the snapback provisions, which now expire on October 18.1 Once the snapback is gone, Iran is not exposed to UN sanctions for non-compliance.
Trump had taken a very hard line and consistent position about Iran, which had been formalized in a memo on February 2. The Trump demands extended beyond assuring that Iran steer clear of nuclear weapons development, as it has so far, to also curb its ballistic missile program and stop backing groups the US deemed to be terrorists. Statements by Trump and other US officials about what Iran had to do to placate the US were deemed by many US experts to be tantamount to asking Iran to surrender its sovereignity. As we wrote:
There are already reasons to think the US will continue to make demands that amount to Iran giving up not just its military and civilian nuclear programs, but also its missiles and its alliances with the so-called Axis of Resistance, which is tantamount to rendering itself defenseless. Alastair Crooke and Douglas Macgregor, among others, deemed this to be clearly unacceptable.
Macgregor, in a Judge Napolitano talk mentioned in the segment above, ventured that these provision were designed to be unacceptable and rejected, just as Austria-Hungary’s ultimatum to Serbia after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand was overreaching by design, and meant, as it did, to serve as a pretext for going to war.
Hence the surprise of Trump wanting to start his insistently mis-represented “direct” negotiations.
Keep in mind that the memo authorized what it called a maximum pressure campaign, as in even more stringent economic sanctions. As we outlined in our earlier piece, it is possible that rather than backing an Israel attack on Iran, the US instead will use the snapback provisions in the JCPOA, which would need to be triggered by sometime in June so as to complete the process before they expire on October 18. Even though the US is no longer a party to the JCPOA, as a Security Council member, it can veto any favorable findings out of the snapback process (that Iran indeed, as the US intel agencies all agreed with a high degree of confidence in its last assessment, is not developing a nuclear weapon). The result would be to re-institute the very stringent sanctions on Iran before the JCPOA.
However, some commentators, such as Larry Johnson, argue that the bluster about Iran’s nuclear enrichment program is a pretext, just like WMD in Iraq. Trump badly needs a win. The Iran hawks, and Trump is surrounded with them, believe that Iran is militarily weak and will collapse like Syria if attacked. That is despite the failure the last attempt, when Iran engaged in successful, despite having been pre-negotiated, retaliatory strikes resulting from Israel’s assassinations of Hamas’ political chief Ismail Haniyeh while a guest of the Iran government and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Israel used that attack as the justification for bombing Iran. Credible accounts indicate that Israel had planned 3 waves of strikes. But the pilots in the first wave detected that Iran’s air defensive system was tracking their supposedly stealthy F-35s. They fired their missiles at a safe distance. The next two waves were aborted. Despite loud Western noises that this limited air strike had inflicted great damage, Iran and independent sources maintained the impact had been limited, such as to the radars of some air defense systems and a weapons factory.
We’ll turn the mike over to Daniel Larison of Responsible Statecraft for the current state of play. From Iran Isn’t Going to ‘Stop and Eliminate’ Its Nuclear Program:
The president’s Middle East envoy has repudiated the idea that the U.S. might be open to a reasonable compromise with Iran:
United States special envoy Steve Witkoff has said that Tehran “must stop and eliminate” its nuclear enrichment programme to reach a deal with Washington, seemingly raising the bar of US demands ahead of another round of talks with Iranian officials.
Witkoff’s remarks on Tuesday appear to contradict his suggestion a day earlier that the US would be satisfied with Iran enriching uranium at a low level to produce energy.
Witkoff is restating the extreme and unrealistic demand that the administration has been making for weeks. Nothing has been added to the president’s earlier ultimatum. It is the same brain-dead maximalism that we have seen on display from Trump and his advisers for years. There have been some hints that Witkoff was open to talking about a nonproliferation agreement not so different from the original nuclear deal, but the White House has given him no support when he says things like this. Iran hawks are predictably pleased that Witkoff has been forced to fall in line.
This change also amounts to retrading the earlier proposal, which is deadly to negotiations even when the two sides trust each other. The only way you get away with that is to grovel like crazy and make a concession, which is na ga happen.
Aside from Witkoff changing his position, another bad sign for the hopes of a settlement was the planted New York Times story, Trump Waved Off Israeli Strike After Divisions Emerged in His Administration. Note this confirms what Alastair Crooke had said that Monday on Judge Napolitano, that Israel and the US had agreed on a US strike package against Iran, and Netanyahu was blindsided when Trump said in their White House press conference that he was entering into [actually not] direct talks with Iran (recall the meeting was instigated by Netanyahu to get tariffs relief and a Trump criticism of Erdogan, which Trump quickly rejected). From the story:
Israeli officials had recently developed plans to attack Iranian nuclear sites in May. They were prepared to carry them out, and at times were optimistic that the United States would sign off. The goal of the proposals, according to officials briefed on them, was to set back Tehran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon by a year or more.
Almost all of the plans would have required U.S. help not just to defend Israel from Iranian retaliation, but also to ensure that an Israeli attack was successful, making the United States a central part of the attack itself.
For now, Mr. Trump has chosen diplomacy over military action.
Given that Trump has been all on board with Israel’s genocide, I would not attribute this effort to noble motives. With Trump’s self-branding as the world’s greatest negotiator looking mighty threadbare with respect to ending the Ukraine war2 and now having over-estimated his position vis-a-vis China in the tariffs row, this attempt may be more about his ego as opposed to risk aversion. And that’s before Trump not wanting to play into Netanyahu’s efforts to maneuver him.
The New York Times continues with a tale of Israel’s prowess and Iran’s weakness:
Israel has long planned to attack Iranian nuclear facilities…
But support within the Israeli government for a strike grew after Iran suffered a string of setbacks last year.
In attacks on Israel in April, most of Iran’s ballistic missiles were unable to penetrate American and Israeli defenses. Hezbollah, Iran’s key ally, was decimated by an Israeli military campaign last year. The subsequent fall of the government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria eliminated a Hezbollah and Tehran ally and cut off a prime route of weapons smuggling from Iran.
Air defense systems in Iran and Syria were also destroyed, along with the facilities that Iran uses to make missile fuel, crippling the country’s ability to produce new missiles for some time.
Larry Johnson begs to differ:
This is pure, unadulterated Male Bovine Excrement (I think I have to pay Ray McGovern royalties every time I use his artful phrase). The authors of this piece are repeating propaganda about Iran’s April 2024 attack. Iran announced it in advance and did not use its most sophisticated missiles. Strangely, the authors ignore Iran’s October 2024 attack, which featured hypersonic missiles and completely skunked Israel’s air defense system.
The authors double down on stupid by asserting that Iran’s “air defense system” was destroyed in the October 27 attack. If US and Israeli military planners genuinely believe that this is the case, they are making a huge mistake… their assumption is wrong. It is akin to believing that if you tie a sheet to your back you can fly like Superman. I tried that when I was eight years old, but I jumped from the top of an eight-foot shed. Gravity won out over my imagination.
Back to Larison:
Some of the reporting this week claims that the administration is sending “mixed messages” on what it wants from Iran, but aside from occasional stray remarks from Witkoff the message from Washington has been consistent and terrible. If anyone is confused about what the administration is really after, that is the result of ignoring what Trump and his allies have said and done for the last three months. The president has made some very clear and disturbing threats: unless Iran yields to a far-reaching ultimatum that requires sweeping concessions, the U.S. will attack them. That is deranged and illegal, but it isn’t confusing.
Witkoff’s “stop and eliminate” comment confirms how far apart the U.S. and Iranian sides are. Many Americans don’t appreciate that the Iranian government believes that they have a right to enrichment under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Our leaders don’t have to agree with this position to understand that is extremely important to them. Telling Iran’s government that they have to give up something they consider theirs by right is never going to work. The only reason to demand such a painful concession is to provoke an angry rejection in order to create a pretext for conflict….
The administration’s national security team is full of hardliners, and they were never going to tolerate a serious effort at diplomatic engagement. While Witkoff may have been willing to consider a compromise, he isn’t in charge and he isn’t setting administration policy. As usual, Trump is siding with the most aggressive Iran hawks, and there was never any reason to expect anything else.
And the hardliners have become even more aggressive, if such a thing were possible. During his Trump meeting and afterwards, Netanyahu has been advocating the Libya solution
As one of my friends often says, if you want a happy ending, watch a Disney movie.
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1 From IranWire:
As October 18, 2025, approaches – the tenth anniversary of the JCPOA and the deadline for deciding whether to terminate or extend UN Security Council Resolution 2231 – the snapback mechanism outlined in the resolution has once again drawn attention in Iran.
UN Security Council Resolution 2231 was adopted after the JCPOA agreement was reached, and it annulled six previous Security Council resolutions regarding Iran’s nuclear program and most of the UN sanctions.
However, it included a provision that if the Islamic Republic fails to comply with the JCPOA, the sanctions could quickly be reimposed.
Britain has said it is prepared to trigger the snapback mechanism against Iran over violations of the nuclear deal.
How Does the Snapback Mechanism Work?
Any of the current members of the JCPOA – France, the UK, Germany, China, and Russia – can invoke the snapback mechanism if they claim Iran has violated the agreement.
The United States, having withdrawn from the JCPOA and reimposed sanctions during Donald Trump’s presidency, has lost its political leverage to use snapback.
However, it can request its activation through other countries. The U.S. government failed in its attempt to invoke snapback during the first term of Trump’s presidency.
Four of the JCPOA member states that are permanent members of the UN Security Council can directly activate the mechanism.
Germany, which is not a member of the Security Council, must seek activation through one of its permanent members.
In the first step, one or more JCPOA member states must send a letter to the UN Secretary-General and the president of the Security Council about Iran’s non-compliance with the terms of the agreement.
Once the letter is submitted, the president of the Security Council must inform the other members of the warning.
The Security Council has 10 days from the formal receipt of the letter to vote on a draft resolution regarding the continuation or termination of the suspension of Security Council sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
No veto power exists, and the time frame is only 30 days.
In the Security Council’s vote on the resolution, veto power was removed following a proposal by Russia, meaning no country could block the draft resolution or prevent the return of sanctions on Iran using a veto.
If a country uses its veto, it would effectively veto the continuation of sanctions relief for Iran, leading to the immediate reimposition of UN Security Council sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program.
The continuation of sanctions relief can only be approved if nine votes in favor are achieved in the Security Council, with no permanent member vetoing it.
2The US has been unable to so far to unfreeze Russian embassy checking accounts in the US and return its diplomatic property, when Russia has said that normalizing diplomatic operations was the first step. YouTubers have said that the US side came to the negotiations unprepared, with no papers and not even any understanding of what they were asking for, such as when they asked to restore the so-called grain deal. Even though Witkoff has been making happy noises about progress, the Washington Post has called out the Trump team for exaggerating. John Helmer, in latest talk with Nima, called him a hustler, which I suspect reflects how some Russians view him.
