At face value, it’s clear what President Donald Trump wants to accomplish via U.S. negotiations with Iran. “I want Iran to be a wonderful, great, happy country,” he told reporters on April 12. That was one day before his diplomatic envoy, Steve Witkoff, flew to Oman for the first round of talks. Trump then added, “But they can’t have a nuclear weapon.”
The problem is that even if the president is blunt about his goals, his administration is still divided about how to proceed. Indeed, it appears that Trump’s team disagrees over how a new Iranian nuclear deal should be structured, what concessions the U.S. is prepared to give up, and how far Tehran will be expected to clamp down on its nuclear activity. This is a problem because while debate about various options is an integral part of the policymaking process, the debate should also be settled before Washington begins talking to the other side. Instead, the White House is negotiating with Iran while at the same time negotiating with itself.
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Before former national security adviser Mike Waltz was exiled to New York as Trump’s next ambassador to the United Nations, he went on television and talked about a complete dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Waltz is no longer running national security policy at the White House (if he ever was). Nevertheless, he will continue to have influence as any agreement will likely have to pass muster at the U.N. Security Council. Waltz’s version of a good deal is to give Tehran an ultimatum: either you rip out your centrifuges, ship out your entire uranium stockpile, and open up every single facility for inspection and destruction, or you will face the full force of the U.S. military.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio isn’t as absolutist as Waltz is, but he has stated at least twice in public that Iran can’t be allowed to operate an indigenous uranium enrichment capability. If the Iranians want to operate nuclear power plants, they can do so as long as the fuel is sourced from other countries. “Iran simply needs to say we’ve agreed to no longer enrich, we’re going to have reactors because we want nuclear energy, and we’re going to import enriched uranium,” Rubio said last week, adding, “This is an opportunity for them if they take it.”
Witkoff, the man running point in these talks, has gyrated between Rubio’s “no enrichment on Iranian soil” position and a more pragmatic arrangement whereby a strong, intrusive verification regime is established and strict caps are placed over the quantity and quality of enrichment, the size of the nuclear stockpile as well as the number of centrifuges in operation. If this sounds familiar, that’s because it is: what Witkoff originally outlined was similar to the very Iran nuclear deal Trump ripped up during his first term. This might even be why Witkoff changed his tune.
The fact that Washington and Tehran have concluded three rounds of good-faith, serious nuclear talks is a step in the right direction, particularly considering that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, remembers the experience of the first Trump administration very well. That said, a fourth round of discussions scheduled for the weekend of May 3 were cancelled by Oman. Iranian officials are blaming Washington for unhelpful actions — Trump threatened to impose secondary sanctions on any country buying Iranian crude oil. This is a minor cause for concern and reflects the delicate nature of this entire process.
But there is a nuclear deal available if both parties ditch maximalism. While it’s a cliche to say neither party will get everything they want, it also happens to be true. Iran isn’t going to get the sanctions relief it desires unless it reopens its nuclear program to international inspectors, dilutes the 60% enriched uranium in its inventory, cooperates with the International Atomic Energy on its past and present nuclear work and provides the necessary assurances so the world is confident about the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program.
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The U.S., in turn, will have to understand that some level of enrichment on Iranian soil is unavoidable if it wants diplomacy to work. Assuming Iran implements its end of the bargain, Washington will need to give assurances to the Iranians that Trump won’t withdraw from the deal yet again. U.S. sanctions must be lifted, and just as importantly, the Treasury Department will need to give businesses, large and small, concrete, easy-to-grasp guidance about what is and isn’t allowed in terms of trade and investment with Iran.
However, none of this is possible unless the Trump administration has a collective theory of how to handle this very hard case. Securing that unity of purpose should be Trump’s first priority.