Witkoff and Kushner Get an F in Diplomacy |
Foreign & Public Diplomacy
The recent failure of U.S.-Iran negotiations in Oman and Switzerland and the rush to war are painful reminders of just how hard it is to deal with Iran. But they also reveal that the negotiating structure that U.S. President Donald Trump has created to deal with conflict is a hot mess.
There’s no precedent in the annals of U.S. diplomacy for a president turning the efforts to resolve three historic conflicts simultaneously over to his best friend and his son-in-law. Former U.S. National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger pulled off a trifecta in the 1970s: the opening to China; the Paris peace accords on Vietnam; and three disengagement accords following the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. But suffice it to say that Steven Witkoff and Jared Kushner are no Kissinger. And when it comes to strategic thinking, Trump is no Richard Nixon.
The recent failure of U.S.-Iran negotiations in Oman and Switzerland and the rush to war are painful reminders of just how hard it is to deal with Iran. But they also reveal that the negotiating structure that U.S. President Donald Trump has created to deal with conflict is a hot mess.
There’s no precedent in the annals of U.S. diplomacy for a president turning the efforts to resolve three historic conflicts simultaneously over to his best friend and his son-in-law. Former U.S. National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger pulled off a trifecta in the 1970s: the opening to China; the Paris peace accords on Vietnam; and three disengagement accords following the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. But suffice it to say that Steven Witkoff and Jared Kushner are no Kissinger. And when it comes to strategic thinking, Trump is no Richard Nixon.
There’s an upside, of course, for turning U.S. diplomacy over to Trump’s family and friends. And that’s the personal access and trust that mediators have with the boss and how that access allows them to gain entry to principal decision-makers. But the downsides, particularly the absence of adult supervision in the Oval Office, far outweigh those advantages. Trump’s three-ring negotiating plays are failing, and here’s why.
U.S. policy in all three conflicts—Russia-Ukraine, Iran, and Israel-Palestine—is rudderless, with no overall strategy and little coordination between means and ends. Trump has shown a deep bias against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and an equally deep unwillingness to press Russia, the clear aggressor in this conflict. Whatever minor pressures have been applied on Russian entities via sanctions pale in comparison to the pressure that Trump has put on Ukraine by having Europe pay for U.S. weapons for Ukraine and denying Kyiv long-range strike capability. U.S. negotiators are hamstrung by a president who is not willing to press Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop the war. On the face of it, Putin’s war aims make any deal almost impossible. And yet, Kushner and Witkoff, directed by........