Saturday’s U.S.-Iran proximity negotiations highlighted the choice between two very divergent futures for Tehran’s nuclear weapons program. One path would have Washington re-enter witless negotiations with the ayatollahs, with no evidence they have made a strategic decision to abandon their decadeslong quest for weapons of mass destruction. The alternative is military action against Tehran’s nuclear facilities or the regime itself to eliminate any chance of Iran becoming a nuclear weapons power.

By agreeing to further negotiations next week, President Donald Trump’s delegation took at least one step down the first path. This will prove to be a serious, perhaps deadly, mistake.

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The Obama and Biden administrations also followed the first path, leading to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, perhaps the most flawed international agreement in American history.  The deal’s central error was allowing Iran to continue enriching uranium with an illusory commitment not to advance to weapons-building. Iran’s conduct since 2015, particularly extensive weaponization activities, is graphic proof that its strategic objective was and remains achieving nuclear weapons production capabilities.  

The first Trump presidency withdrew from Obama’s deal in 2018 but failed to take the next critical steps. Although declaring a campaign of maximum economic pressure against Iran, the pressure was obviously inadequate. Trump himself never embraced the only sure way to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons, namely overthrowing the ayatollahs or destroying their program by kinetic action.  Even today, we do not know what Trump has the resolve to do.

We do know Tehran is reeling and thus delighted to start endless negotiations to buy time to save its nuclear program. Israel is decimating Iran’s terrorist proxies. Syria’s Assad regime has fallen.  Last October, Israel crippled Iran’s ballistic-missile manufacturing facilities and destroyed its Russian-supplied S-300 air defenses, and later, after Assad’s fall, the S-300’s in Syria. Of course, the ayatollahs want a break, which is why they have offered an “interim” nuclear agreement and asked for sanctions relief during negotiations. These are both ploys to create even more delay.

Special envoy Steven Witkoff, leading America’s delegation to Oman, said beforehand that Saturday’s meeting was “about trust building.” But there is no trust to be built with the ayatollahs. They have consistently sought the best of both worlds, committing to abandon their quest for nuclear weapons in exchange for tangible benefits like relief from sanctions but never actually doing so. Iran has followed North Korea’s playbook, which has certainly worked well for Pyongyang. It is nothing less than madness for the U.S. to repeat that mistake.

Witkoff says that “our position begins with dismantlement. … That is our position today … ” but there might be “other ways to find compromise.” Earlier, he said, “We should create a verification program so that nobody worries about [Iranian] weaponization. … ” These positions are all flatly wrong. There is, or should be, no compromise on denuclearization. It is not just Washington’s beginning position but the middle and ending position as well. The 2015 deal’s verification terms were utterly inadequate, as Tehran’s continuing progress in weaponization, among other things, proves.  More Iranian progress will come while the talks continue. The only acceptable verification program would necessarily be so intrusive and transparent that it would threaten the very viability of the ayatollahs’ regime. If Iran isn’t prepared strategically to denuclearize and to prove it palpably, not just verbally, then destroying the nuclear program or the regime itself is the only alternative. 

To be clear, what Witkoff is describing is the Obama-Biden policy. If that is what he signaled in Oman on Saturday, then Trump has done a U-turn even more dramatic than last week’s about-face on tariffs.  To be clearer still, the result of such a contemporary Obama-Biden-Trump policy will be at least as harmful to America and its Middle East allies as the original model.  

Israel and the Gulf Arab states have known this for years. They need no education on the threats Iran poses. Instead, they are quietly taking military steps to prepare their defenses. In a little-noticed but potentially significant military exercise recently hosted by Greece, Israeli aircraft participated for the first time ever with Qatari and UAE air force planes. Carrying possible political perils for all three nations, the foundational, if unspoken, reason for joint exercises was their common adversary, Iran.  

TRUMP IS TO BLAME FOR SELL-OFF IN US TREASURYS

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argues correctly that the only acceptable deal is “one modeled after Libya’s, where the U.S. goes in, dismantles the facilities, and destroys the equipment under its own supervision.” Otherwise, “the alternative is military action, and everyone knows it.” 

Trump should trust America’s friends, not its enemies.