Iran Isn't Going to 'Stop and Eliminate' Its Nuclear Program

Trump’s envoy has the unenviable job of being sent to go through the motions of negotiations when his boss has no interest in real diplomacy.

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.

Trump’s envoy has the unenviable job of being sent to go through the motions of negotiations when his boss has no interest in real diplomacy. No matter how well or how poorly the indirect “talks” go between the U.S. and Iranian teams, there is nothing that the negotiators can do to get around the fact that the American position is absurd. Telling Iran that is has to “stop and eliminate” enrichment is an open admission that the Trump administration doesn’t want diplomacy to succeed and it never did.

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.

“A deal with Iran will only be completed if it is a Trump deal,” Witkoff said, and we can safely assume that the Iranian government isn’t going to agree to any deal that Trump finds acceptable. As the trade war proves, a “Trump deal” is worthless and can be cancelled at a moment’s notice, and this president will trample on existing agreements without a second thought.

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.