Fewer than 100 days into his second term as president, Donald Trump can so far claim at least one kind of success: He’s restarted negotiations between the U.S. and some of its adversaries, first Russia and now Iran.
On Saturday, Trump’s "special envoy” for seemingly everything, Steve Witkoff, briefly met with high-level Iranians in Oman to discuss ways to constrain Tehran’s nuclear program and avert war.
The problem — as hostage negotiators, relationship therapists and others can confirm — is that talking doesn’t always solve a problem and can even make it worse, depending on the intentions, interests and mental states of the interlocutors. The Iranians (like the Russians) are notoriously shifty negotiators. But so are the Americans, now that they’re led by Trump.
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