All the cut-a-nuke-deal-with-Iran enthusiasts are marveling that Tehran’s negotiator deigned to meet face-to-face with President Donald Trump’s envoy on Saturday, and agreed to meet again a week later.
Huh: Sure looks the Iranians still mean to drag the talks out until they’ve already gone nuclear; Trump needs to ensure Steve Witkoff doesn’t get sucked into the illusion of progress.
Tehran has already enriched enough uranium to weapons-grade to build multiple nuclear weapons; it only needs to play for time.
Yet the regime is more vulnerable than it’s been in decades, its Hamas and Hezbollah proxies eviscerated after going to war against Israel while US strikes are now defanging its Houthi paws — even as it has lost its Syrian puppet with the ouster of the Assad clan.
Meanwhile, renewed sanctions threaten to spark outright rebellion even as “supreme leader” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei nears death with an uncertain succession.
And Tehran’s direct exchanges of strikes with Israel have eviscerated its air defenses.
Trump rightly would rather Tehran verifiably dropped its nuke-quest than act militarily to end the nuke threat, but the regime needs to move a lot faster to offering detailed hard commitments to a full squad of US experts, and not get away with empty symbolic concessions.
The Obama crew handed Tehran a full decade with the 2015 deal; all Iran’s negotiators need do now is stall a month or three and they can go nuclear on Trump’s watch.
Don’t let Witkoff get snowed.
