This past Saturday, a new round of negotiations took place between Iran and the United States in Oman, with President Donald Trump represented by his confidant Steve Witkoff and Iran represented by its Foreign Minister Araghchi.
Most of Trump’s statements, before and after the talks, pointed in the right direction, toward a complete dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program, so peace and prosperity can prevail in the Middle East.
However, Witkoff’s comments before the meeting, emphasizing only the need for effective monitoring and verification of weapons development, and afterward, announcing that Uranium enrichment must only serve civilian needs, i.e. can be up to only a 3.67% purity level, contradicted both the President’s own words and the demands laid out by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu during his last meeting with Trump.
Top US officials, particularly National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, State Department spokesperson, representing Secretary Rubio, and senators Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton, opposed Witkoff’s statements (even if they refrained from directly criticizing him). They emphasized the need for a full dismantling of all Iranian nuclear capabilities if Iran seeks to avoid attacks on its facilities and infrastructure that enable it to continue their nuclear program development.
Witkoff apparently understood the prevailing sentiment (assuming he also got new instructions from President Trump and heard the Israeli concerns), and in his latest statement, he aligned himself and declared that the entire nuclear program must be dismantled, particularly the uranium enrichment on Iranian soil.
Ahead of the next round of talks, scheduled to begin this coming Saturday, Araghchi traveled to Russia for a meeting with President Putin, hoping to gain support for Tehran’s positions. Based on Russian official statements before the meeting, which called for a diplomatic resolution, it appears that Putin may acquiesce and will propose compromises that would be severely detrimental to global peace.
Understanding both sides with such different starting points, I personally don’t understand on what basis the talks can even start.
As I, and many others, have warned, while Trump’s warnings to Iran have been severe and his vision for the final status of Iran’s nuclear program is precisely what is required, the chosen path, entering negotiations with Iran, the most sophisticated negotiator, without preconditions and real actions by Iran, seems fundamentally flawed.
Engaging in talks for a new nuclear agreement before Iran meets strict preconditions, or at least firmly insisting on a defined end-state (even if this is a flawed approach, but could be the lesser fault, if strictly adhered to), is a dangerous mistake. The key question is not what a future good deal would look like, even if Trump and Netanyahu have presented ideal demands for a “good deal.” The focus must be on the demands before entering into very detailed negotiations.
The flawed JCPOA proved this point. Negotiators began the talks in 2012 with the right demands, but the final outcome was a disastrous agreement that ensured Iran’s path to the bomb. Even if some "experts" present it as the cause for delaying the program, that’s merely an illusion. Any new agreement that merely aims to improve the existing one without requiring the early destruction of all nuclear infrastructure and achievements, by violating all agreements Iran signed, will lead to another catastrophe.
Iran agreement must dismantle three pillars of nuclear program
As emphasized in previous articles several times, any agreement must first completely dismantle the three core pillars of the Iranian nuclear program:
Missile material production: Iran must fully eliminate its enriched uranium stockpiles and destroy its centrifuges and conversion/enrichment facilities.
Weaponization development: Iran must cease all planning and development related to nuclear weapon systems, fully disclose its past activities, and dismantle all research centers involved in warhead technologies, often disguised as academic or civilian institutions.
Delivery systems: Iran must halt and destroy its ballistic missile program, designed to carry nuclear warheads.
These steps must occur before the real in-depth negotiations begin, under US leadership, verification and supervision, during and after the process. Only after complete compliance should the negotiations about what Iran will receive in return begin.
One of the greatest dangers is to fall again into the trap of "confidence-building measures (CBMs)", as recently proposed by a number of "experts." For example, A "good proposal in principle" to dilute the enriched uranium to 60% or remove it from Iran, will also be problematic, standing alone, because even if the Iranians will accept it, which is highly doubtful, it will indeed keep them several months longer away from reaching the amount of fissile material required for a bomb, but at the same time it will buy them valuable time to rearm themselves with new air defense systems and new missiles production sites that Israel destroyed, and at the same time the ability to "Snapback" and restore all sanctions will expire, during September 2025.
Judging by Iran’s responses, even to Witkoff’s flawed proposals, it is highly likely that Iran will reject such preconditions. Their reaction is expected, as their sole goal is to gain sanctions relief and unfreeze funds, while stalling for time to recover and prepare for the broader confrontation ahead.
Given all this, Israel must continue preparing for a large-scale operation to neutralize the Iranian nuclear threat, preferably with the US, but independently if necessary.
Priorities must shift: the weaponization activities and the highly enriched uranium stockpiles must be dismantled first, followed by, or simultaneously with, the destruction of enrichment facilities like Natanz and Fordow, advanced centrifuges, and underground sites currently under construction. While dealing with Iran’s support for regional terrorism and conventional ballistic missile development is very important, these issues must be addressed separately through other channels to avoid distractions from the nuclear track and prevent Iran from finding escape routes.
Despite recent reports by research institutes in the US and Europe analyzing Israel and America’s ability to strike the underground enrichment facilities, it is essential to understand that destroying the nuclear sites alone, without addressing the weaponization development and the highly enriched uranium stockpiles, would be a big mistake. Continued work on weapons systems, combined with the vast amount of highly enriched uranium and few hundred advanced centrifuges, would allow Iran to break out to the bomb at a different underground site, even without Natanz and Fordow, and possibly even demand international legitimacy, after their enrichment facilities were attacked.
Cooperation with the US is vital for strengthening deterrence and executing this complex mission, but Israel must be prepared to act alone if necessary.
The New York Times' latest report, apparently leaked by US government officials opposing the attack, is partially accurate and probably based on some intimate leaks from the leaders' meeting, but not in full. In any case, Israel must take the necessary actions to maintain its freedom of action in order to maintain its security, and I have no doubt that the United States and President Trump will support its right to do so.
The last thing President Trump wants is to be compared to President Obama, especially in light of the 2015 faulty deal, Trump rightly called “the worst deal ever,” and exited from, during 2018. “A wise man doesn’t enter a pit that a clever man knows how to get out of.” President Trump is a very wise president.
Brig. Gen. (res.) Jacob Nagel is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a professor at Technion. He served as National Security Advisor to Prime Minister Netanyahu and as acting head of the National Security Council.