How Ignorance and Obscurity Ended Nuclear Negotiations with Iran

Negotiators had reached agreement on key issues despite the Trump team’s peculiar approach. Two days later, the war began.

Among the many bizarre exchanges that occurred before the joint US-Israeli attack on Iran, perhaps the most unexpected was Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff’s invitation for Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to join him and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner on a visit to the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group.

The idea that Araghchi would abandon negotiations in Oman over the future of Iran’s nuclear program to visit a ship sent to the Persian Gulf in an attempt to overthrow his government seemed eccentric, to say the least.

But it was symptomatic of the unorthodox way in which Kushner and Witkoff approached nuclear negotiations that spanned last year and this year, and which were twice interrupted by Israeli and American airstrikes.

A Gulf diplomat, who has direct knowledge of the negotiations and is furious about the behavior of Witkoff and Kushner, described the pair as “Israeli agents who conspired to force the US president into a war from which he is now desperate to get out.”

Witkoff does not pretend to be an expert on the region – in one of his recent interviews, he referred to the Strait of Hormuz as the “Gulf of Hormuz”. Likewise, he admitted in an interview that his knowledge of the Iranian nuclear program was superficial, but insisted that he “was competent to discuss it, as he had studied it.”

However, in the five sessions of last year’s first round of talks – held before the 12-day June war – Witkoff rarely took notes and brought with him only Michael Anton, a hardline essayist and political philosopher with no expertise on the Iranian nuclear issue. Anton was supposed to have an unnamed technical team in Washington, and sometimes, like in May 2025, that team was able to present concrete technical demands, but that level of expertise was never present in the negotiations.

When negotiations resumed in Oman on February 6, Witkoff, in a breach of protocol and to the surprise of Omani Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, arrived in Muscat with Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of American forces in the Middle East, dressed in full naval uniform. Witkoff’s explanation was that “he just happened to be around.”

Cooper was politely asked to withdraw from the negotiations by his Omani hosts.

In contrast, the Obama administration sent 10 senior officials from four different departments to talks with Iran in Vienna in 2009. The talks effectively spanned three 24-hour days, and negotiators were in constant contact with Washington to verify the details of the proposed deal.

Why these indirect negotiations failed is not just a matter of historical curiosity, or a retrospective exercise in assigning blame for starting such a disastrous war; is relevant to determining whether a standalone nuclear deal is viable or whether a broader agreement is now necessary.

This is important because after the war, if Iran’s government survives, domestic calls for nuclear weapons will inevitably increase. Last week’s purported statement by new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei made no mention of the validity of the fatwa prohibiting the use of nuclear weapons, promulgated by his late father. Protesters in front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tehran demand that negotiations with the United States not be resumed.

Those involved in the negotiations claim that misunderstandings about the workings of Iran’s complex nuclear program – including, for example, the purpose and uranium needs of the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR), the scope of Iran’s planned future nuclear program, and the offer for American companies to participate in the Iranian economy – contributed to the path that led to war.

Witkoff also reduced the time available, so that on February 17 he held talks with Ukraine, giving the Iranians just three and a half hours. Because, at the request of the Iranians, these talks were being conducted indirectly, the exchanges of information were frustratingly short.

The Iranians now say they believe the negotiations were a sham all along, designed to create space for the US to marshal its military power. Witkoff, in turn, said the Iranians were being “deceitful,” “full of subterfuge” and “smell the whole thing suspiciously.”

One Gulf diplomat said: “More time and expertise would not have guaranteed a deal, but it would have helped. What I can say is that in all explanations of what happened, it is the Iranians who have typically been telling the truth.”

Geneva’s offer

Iran never published its seven-page written proposal for a new deal, including the annex, which was presented to Witkoff during the final round of negotiations in Geneva, despite domestic calls for it to do so. Araghchi said he hopes the truth about what happened on the last day of negotiations, February 26, will be revealed soon. He could do this himself by publishing the Iranian proposal – a proposal that Jonathan Powell, the UK national security adviser present at the negotiations, considered worthy of consideration. Kushner admitted that a better deal than Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal could have been presented.

It may also have been a mistake not to allow Witkoff to keep a copy of the offer, since he could at least have shown it to more technically competent officials in Washington. Witkoff would later describe their reluctance to hand over the document as a sign that they were not interested in a deal and were merely biding their time.

However, Kelsey Davenport, director of nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association (ACA), said it was understandable that the Iranians did not want to reveal their negotiating position, given Trump’s history of publishing classified material on his Truth Social online platform.

“If I were Iran, I would assume that Trump would share details of the negotiations on Truth Social and with [Benjamin] Netanyahu, and that there would be even greater pressure from the Israelis to undermine the diplomatic process,” Davenport said. “So it doesn’t surprise me that Iran didn’t want to share.”

But the essence of what was proposed in Geneva is slowly emerging. British officials briefed on its contents considered it a good deal, and something to be improved upon, in part because, unlike the 2015 nuclear deal, there were no sunset clauses.

A plan for a US-led regional enrichment consortium, which had been central to the previous round of talks, was scrapped. A broad agreement was reached for the return of full oversight by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Under monitoring and verification by the IAEA, Iran would dispose of its stockpile of 440 kg of uranium already enriched to 60%. The stockpile, now believed to be under the rubble of the Fordow plant, would not be exported abroad, as had previously been proposed, but rather diluted, a process recognized as largely irreversible.

The biggest obstacle was that Iran refused to abandon its insistence on the right to enrich uranium for its future nuclear program, which would eventually require permission to operate 30 centrifuges, a much smaller number than it currently has. The threat they posed depended on the quality of the inspection regime. Iran accepted that due to the destruction of its Fordow and Natanz enrichment plants, there would be a multi-year pause in enrichment. On the final day of negotiations in Geneva, Iran offered a moratorium of three to five years, extending the pause beyond the end of Trump’s term, but after a telephone consultation with Trump during a lunch break, Witkoff insisted on 10 years. The US said it would pay for nuclear fuel to be imported during that decade.

On that final day – two days before the US and Israel launched their attack – the two negotiating teams also reached an agreement on lifting 80% of the sanctions imposed on Iran, according to a source involved in the negotiations. Oman said it would take at least another three months to work out the details.

A search and rescue team member sits in the rubble of a damaged building in Tehran on March 12. | Anadolu/Getty Images

Certainly, the situation was closer to an agreement than the maximalist demands of the US on May 29 last year, two weeks before Israel began the 12-day war against Iran on June 13.

Before the final negotiations, Iran made it clear again that the US would get an “extraordinary deal” if it accepted the deal. Hamid Ghanbari, deputy foreign minister, told Iranian businesspeople this month that “common interests in the oil and gas sectors, including joint fields [com países vizinhos]as well as investments in mining and even the purchase of civil aircraft, were included in negotiations with the USA”.

As soon as the Geneva talks ended, with both parties signing only a declaration on progress made, it became obvious to Oman’s foreign minister that war was imminent, and he rushed to Washington to explain how close he felt both sides were to a breakthrough. But his proposal for zero stocks did not have the same strength as that of zero enrichment.

The quick crossing of the Atlantic reflected Oman’s belief that Witkoff and Kushner, consciously or unconsciously, were not informing Trump about the progress of the negotiations. There were also questions about Trump’s focus. A previous attempt to talk to Trump about the progress of the negotiations failed when the president changed the subject to one of his favorite topics: shoes. In retrospect, it might have been better to send a higher-ranking emissary to try to keep Trump’s attention. A day later, the war began.

‘So many problems could have been solved’

Since the start of the war, Witkoff claims that Iran suffered a “Perry Mason moment” in negotiations when it was revealed that the country had been caught secretly stockpiling highly enriched uranium in its research reactor. This evidence, however, had been in the public domain for a long time.

Reports released by the US since the start of hostilities also revealed inconsistencies over whether Iran’s ballistic missile program was a red line that needed to be included in negotiations.

Katariina Simonen, an associate professor at the Finnish National Defense University, said: “The Trump administration is very impenetrable. It’s a closed circle. The U.S. arms control community has struggled to offer expert advice on nuclear physics, but the Trump team doesn’t seem interested. Probably the biggest frustration is that this deal would have allowed the IAEA to return to Iran, and many issues could have been resolved.”

Originally published by The Guardian on 03/18/2026

Por Patrick Wintour