The real novelty lies elsewhere — in two key aspects. First, the U.S. president made the announcement from the Oval Office, seated next to Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli prime minister has made no secret of his preference for a military option rather than negotiating with Tehran when it comes to Iran’s nuclear program. He had fiercely opposed the deal brokered during Barack Obama’s time in office.
But in the Oval Office, he put on a good face and didn’t oppose Donald Trump’s decision. Both men expressed agreement on the shared goal of preventing Iran from going nuclear, and Netanyahu said that if diplomacy could achieve that, all the better. No doubt he’s counting on the negotiations — scheduled for Friday — to fail, and on Trump’s promise that if talks hit a dead end, things could heat up for Iran.
Trump’s negotiator
Still, along the way, Netanyahu suffered a second setback during his visit to Washington, with Donald Trump refusing to lift the 17% tariffs imposed on Israeli products. Friendship, it seems, has its limits.
The other surprise is Trump’s choice of negotiator for the talks with Iran: Steve Witkoff, the billionaire and close Trump ally — the same man who negotiated the Gaza ceasefire and later met with Vladimir Putin over Ukraine.
Donald Trump has little faith in career diplomats, not even in the team of his own Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who now seems sidelined. He also left out the Europeans, who were key players in the 2015 nuclear deal.
To be clear: Witkoff knows nothing about Iran, just as he knows little about Ukraine. But he is a clone of Trump, relying on intuition and a power dynamic that can be forceful. That’s how he managed to twist Netanyahu’s arm to accept the Gaza ceasefire in January.
Iran’s nuclear ambitions
This, then, is the method that will be used with Iran. The negotiations were preceded by massive bombings of the Houthi rebels in Yemen and the deployment of significant American military resources to the region. A classic intimidation tactic.
It’s hard to imagine Iran yielding
Iran is obviously not in a strong position: it emerges significantly weakened from 18 months of conflict, with Israel’s strikes against its allies, Hezbollah and Hamas. However, it’s hard to imagine Iran yielding to these American pressures, and it will likely try to buy time instead.
Iran is rapidly approaching the “nuclear threshold,” the point at which it will be capable of producing an atomic bomb.
Can it back down from this goal? The leaders in Tehran know that possessing such a deterrent weapon would protect their territory, much like North Korea’s nuclear bomb makes war with that country impossible?
An Iranian official drew a parallel Tuesday with Israel’s nuclear arsenal, which, though never officially acknowledged, is indisputable. It was as if Iran, as a regional power, also believed it had a right to that status.
Given how long this question has been looming, it seems we’re approaching a turning point, balancing between negotiation and confrontation. This only adds more uncertainty to the economic chaos triggered by Donald Trump’s decisions.
