RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.jns.org/will-trump-and-witkoff-repeat-obama-and-kerrys-iran-blunders/?utm_campaign=

It’s too soon to declare the Trump administration’s policy toward Iran a failure. In time—and perhaps less time than Tehran might think—President Donald Trump may resolve the open debate between members of his foreign-policy team over whether continued efforts at diplomacy are the proper course of action or if military force is needed to stop the Islamist regime from getting a nuclear weapon.

At present, however, the debate going on inside the administration about the issue and the manifest incompetence of his already compromised Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, does not, to understate the matter, inspire much confidence in a good outcome being achieved. The only reason to think otherwise is if you trust the president’s ability to tell the difference between a deal that actually eliminates the Iranian threat and one that won’t, and believe that he’s truly willing to back up his bellicose language with action.

What stands out about the situation is that it appears to be the only major issue on which Trump’s appointees are not speaking with one voice and pursuing a common agenda. And it is that division within its councils that is both preventing a decisive approach and likely causing the Iranian regime to think that it can get away with the same tactics that allowed it to emerge as the victor in past negotiations with the Obama and Biden administrations.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21563/wikoff-in-his-own-words

Witkoff, whatever his flaws, is far more honest than his PR men on X or Capitol Hill, and has never denied that he was just implementing the policies of the Biden administration.

What new solutions has Witkoff come up with? The Obama ones. Negotiate with terrorists. Pretend they’re reasonable. Give them what they want. Act confused when it doesn’t work out.

Figuring out what the terrorists want and trying to give it to them were the signature diplomatic policies of the Carter, Clinton and Biden administrations. Those are the “old-school globalist solutions,” which is why President Donald Trump is such a breath of fresh air and Witkoff isn’t.

Whatever Witkoff’s agendas are, he’s in over his head, and he outsourced his negotiations to everyone from the Biden team to the Islamic terror state of Qatar, with whom he’s done business and whose terrorist leaders he has repeatedly praised. Knowing nothing about the Middle East hasn’t given him a fresh perspective: it just made him an easy dupe for everyone who does.

It’s an honest admission. Witkoff’s defenders, who pretend that he’s a genius shaking up diplomacy by appeasing Islamic terrorist states, could at least try to be as honest as him.

What new solutions has Steve Witkoff come up with? The Obama ones. Negotiate with terrorists. Pretend they’re reasonable. Give them what they want. Act confused when it doesn’t work out.

Steve Witkoff, the real estate tycoon turned international negotiator, has become the subject of controversy with some conservatives attacking him and others rushing out to defend him.

“In a world left in chaos thanks to Joe Biden, Steve Witkoff is the diplomat America needs right now,” US Senator Jim Banks claimed this month.

Tucker Carlson hailed Witkoff as “the most effective American diplomat in a generation.”

But Witkoff, whatever his flaws, is far more honest than his PR men on X or Capitol Hill, and has never denied that he was just implementing the policies of the Biden administration.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/trumps-negotiations-with-the-mullahs/

Recently an important report about President Trump and Iran was drowned out by the weeping and wailing over the president’s Liberation Day increases on tariffs. According to Park MacDougald on The Scroll, Axios reported that the president is “seriously considering an Iranian proposal for indirect nuclear talks” . . . and “the administration is now exploring next steps in order to begin conversations and trust building with the Iranians.”

More troubling, MacDougald writes, “Phillip Smyth emphasized that the Iranians, despite holding an extraordinarily weak hand, are effectively offering the White House nothing: no direct talks, no negotiation over ballistic missiles or the regime’s support for its regional proxies, and nuclear negotiation only within the framework of the 2015 nuclear deal.”

We shouldn’t underestimate the president’s commitment to deterrence, or doubt his will to follow through on his pledge to prevent Iran from going nuclear. He has brought back “maximum pressure” sanctions on Iran, and deployed six long-range B2 stealth bombers to the joint UK-US military base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean––the only bomber able to drop “bunker buster” MOPS, “Massive Ordnance Penetrators,” 30,000-pound, precision-guided bombs capable of penetrating Iran’s underground hardened nuclear production facilities.

Also, as Smyth points out, Iran is the weakest it has been since its 1980-88 war with Iraq. Its proxies in the region have been neutralized, its economy is on the brink of collapse, its currency is approaching Weimar Germany levels of inflation, and its people are boldly disgruntled and increasingly restless. Now may be the best opportunity to end Iran’s nuclear ambition to destroy, Israel, which it mocks as a “one-bomb state.” Nor should we assume that self-preservation from a threatened repayment in nuclear kind will restrain the mullahs.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21546/iran-will-not-abandon-nuclear-program

Tehran has played this game before: Agree to talks. Make vague promises. Extract sanctions relief. Then quietly continue nuclear development under the radar. This formula has worked for more than two decades. Right now, the only reason Iran is talking is to stall, to promise just enough to prevent America from striking it — “We are almost there!” — to keep its regime and avoid seeing its uranium centrifuges and enrichment sites blasted to rubble. The regime does not want war — but it also cannot accept total nuclear disarmament.

The Islamic Republic has smoothly outmaneuvered every administration. It has accepted deals to avoid confrontation, then quietly violated them. With each round of negotiations, Iran gained what it needed — time, money, legitimacy — and gave away nothing it could not reverse.

Worse, Iranian officials have themselves confirmed what skeptics have long argued: that the regime’s nuclear program was always military in nature. Former parliamentary speaker Ali Motahhari openly admitted in an interview that the Islamic Republic’s nuclear activities were initially designed to build weapons, not generate electricity. That was not a slip of the tongue. It was a rare moment of honesty from a system built on lies.

[W]orse yet, [the regime] could announce one day that it already possesses several nuclear bombs — and that there is nothing anyone can do about it. Will the world then be forced to live with a nuclear-armed theocracy that sponsors terrorism, oppresses its people, and seeks to export its ideology across the region? That does not sound like a cheery future to accept.

The Islamic Republic has demonstrated that it cannot be trusted to negotiate in good faith. It has lied, manipulated and deceived at every turn. Hoping for a different outcome, unfortunately, is self-deceptive make-believe.

Negotiations only serve to give Iran what it wants: time and space to complete its nuclear project. Axios reported on April 10 that “sources said the Iranians think reaching a complex and highly technical nuclear deal in two months is unrealistic and they want to get more time on the clock to avoid an escalation.”

After watching what happened to Libya after it gave up its nuclear weapons program, and to Ukraine when it gave up its warheads. Iran’s regime could hardly have any intention of abandoning their quest for the bomb. Diplomacy will not stop them. Appeasement will not deter them. The only solution, sadly, seems to be force. If the US and Israel fail to act now, we will soon be facing a world where the Islamic Republic of Iran has crossed the nuclear threshold and commands its bombs. Then what?

Negotiations for Iran’s mullahs are simply a sign of strategic necessity. The regime needs breathing room — and, most importantly, it needs to preserve what it sees as its ultimate insurance policy: a nuclear arsenal.

The Trump administration is once again engaging with the Iranian regime, this time in Oman, to encourage it to end its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs the way Libya’s late leader Muammar Ghaddafi did. As US President Donald J. Trump transparently put it: “I would love to make a deal with them without bombing them.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/04/the_do_s_and_don_ts_of_negotiating_with_iran.html

Shortly after then-Secretary of State John Kerry concluded talks with his Iranian counterpart that led to the 2015 nuclear agreement, the wizards at Google had already delivered judgment. When I typed in the phrase, “how not to buy a carpet” at Google images, the first result was a photo of the two foreign ministers and their aides, facing each other across the negotiating table in Lausanne.

The ever-smiling Mohammad Javad Zarif told Kerry three times they had a deal, but that he needed to go back to Tehran to run it by the “Supreme Leader.” And three times he came back, demanding more.

Donald Trump called the deal the United States finally signed, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), “the worst deal ever” and withdrew the United States from it in 2018. He was right.

The President’s Middle East special envoy, Steve Witcoff, recently admitted that he got “duped” by Hamas during negotiations in Qatar with Hamas-appointed Arab mediators.

Having worked in the Middle East as a war correspondent and investigative reporter for forty years, let me say it straight: if the Arabs managed to dupe Mr. Witcoff, the Iranians are going to take him to the cleaners.

So here are a few “do’s and dont’s” for Witcoff when he travels to Oman this weekend.

https://amgreatness.com/2025/04/11/will-iran-seize-its-only-chance-with-president-trump/

President Trump stunned the world this week when he announced that the U.S. would hold direct talks with Iran on its nuclear weapons program this weekend. The president has given Iran two months to negotiate a new agreement to end its nuclear program and said at the press conference, “I think if the talks aren’t successful with Iran… Iran is going to be in great danger, and I hate to say it.”

The talks are scheduled to take place on Saturday in Oman. The U.S. will reportedly be represented by Middle East Special Envoy Steve Witkoff. Iran’s chief negotiator reportedly will be Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

Trump said in response to a reporter’s question about whether he would use military force if Iran refused to agree to a nuclear deal, “If it requires military, we’re going to have military.” The President later added that Israel would “be the leader” of a military strike on Iran if nuclear talks fail.

After Trump’s announcement, however, Iranian officials indicated their nation might not engage in serious negotiations when they said Iran would only agree to indirect talks with the U.S. mediated by Oman. Foreign Minister Araghchi added that his government primarily wanted the talks to rule out the use of U.S. military force against Iran.

An administration source told me Iran’s resistance to direct and meaningful talks to end its nuclear weapons program might mean the talks will not take place, at least this weekend. This could lead to Iran suffering severe repercussions from the U.S. and possibly Israel by mid-year.

Why Trump Believes Addressing Threats from Iran Is Urgent

President Trump has moved fast to address threats from Iran because they surged to a dangerous level—especially concerning its nuclear weapons program—due to the Biden administration’s inept Iran policies that amounted to appeasement.

https://www.jns.org/the-trump-foreign-policy-teams-real-problem/?utm_campaign=

It was the gaffe that critics of the Trump administration have been praying for. However it happened, the inclusion of Atlantic  editor Jeffrey Goldberg in a group chat on the Signal App among the administration’s leading defense policymakers about an impending attack on the Houthis in Yemen, was a gob-smacking blunder of epic proportions.

It not only embarrassed participants in the conversion, like Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. It called into question the competence of President Donald Trump’s national-security team and the process by which it communicates and shares information at the highest level.

If, as appears to be the case, it was Waltz’s office that  was responsible for connecting Goldberg to the chat, it’s something he’ll never entirely live down, even if Trump is prepared to forgive him.

But as much as Goldberg’s unwitting scoop deserved the headlines and the endless discussions it generated, it was actually not the most troubling news event of the week for Trump’s national-security team.

The worst administration blunder didn’t involve the group chat about Yemen or any other issue that the president’s critics are obsessed with. Instead, it was the comments of Steve Witkoff, his special envoy to the Middle East, on “The Tucker Carlson Show” podcast. The interview made clear that the person Trump has tasked with conducting negotiations about the war in Gaza and the release of the hostages taken on Oct. 7, 2023, is utterly clueless about malign actors like Qatar, Iran and its terrorist proxies.