Several leading former Republican national security officials voiced concerns about Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff’s ability to negotiate a nuclear agreement with Iran — while sounding deeply skeptical that the Islamic Republic would cooperate in halting its nuclear program.  

Speaking on a JINSA webinar on Tuesday, Elliott Abrams, former special representative for Iran during the first Trump administration, said “it looks as if he [President Donald Trump] plans to have Steve Witkoff do it [negotiate with Iran]. The problem is that Witkoff doesn’t really know anything about the details here.” 

“That is, if you think of [Witkoff] negotiating on Ukraine, that’s an easy problem compared to the Iranian nuclear question, which I would argue takes a lot more detailed expertise about what we want, what we should be demanding from Iran.” 

Responding to recent reports that Russia has expressed interest in mediating these talks, Abrams said, “Having the Russians involved in this seems really crazy to me.”

The panel, moderated by JINSA’s Vice President for Policy Blaise Misztal, also featured Eric Edelman, who served as undersecretary of defense for policy under President George W. Bush, and Steve Rademaker, formerly assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation in the George W. Bush administration.

Edelman agreed that he had reservations about Witkoff having the capacity to manage his  expanding diplomatic portfolio. “I had been a little concerned at the beginning of the administration that there was a bandwidth problem with regard to Iran. … In the first 53 days or so, you would be hard-pressed to say this was at the top of the agenda.”

Edelman added that Witkoff “has not only been tied up with the Ukraine negotiations but has also been tied up with the Gaza negotiations, which now seem to have collapsed over a potential extension of the first phase of the ceasefire, and we’re now back in a combat phase in Gaza. So Witkoff’s time is heavily already committed in other areas, and whether he even has the bandwidth to be the Iran negotiator, I think, is an open question.”

Abrams warned that the likelihood of reaching such an agreement is low. Given that the U.N. snapback mechanism — which allows the reimposition of sanctions lifted on Iran under the 2015 nuclear agreement — expires on Oct. 18, 2025, “time is on their [Iran’s] side,” he said. “Time will run out on snapback and also, of course, as time passes, they build their nuclear program, certainly with respect to the amount of enriched uranium they have and how much they have and how protected and dispersed their nuclear weapons program.” 

Later, Abrams said that if the U.S. “did a deal in which they [Iran] gave up the kind of ‘Death to Israel, death to America’ [rhetoric], … they gave up the nuclear program, they gave up their support for proxies, support for terrorist groups, then, you know, will the regime survive? In a sense, those activities are really at the heart of the regime. … So we’re asking him to give up a lot, which is why I think I am at least pessimistic about the possibility of a successful negotiation.”

Critical to any successful negotiation, the experts agreed, is a credible threat of military force against Iran. The recent U.S. strikes against the Houthis, Edelman said, are “of course related to the transit of the Red Sea, but it’s, in my view, much more related to sending a message to Iran that, you know, there is not endless patience with regard to the question of whether Iran does or doesn’t engage in negotiations, and that there is a military potential option against them. And that is a difference, I think, in what we’ve seen previously, frankly, from not just the Biden administration, I would say even from the first Trump administration, in that sense.”

To bolster the legitimacy of this threat, Edelman advised, “I think we probably need additional joint exercises with Israel while we’re negotiating. I know that for those people who want to prioritize the Indo-Pacific what I’m about to say is heresy, but I think having two carrier strike groups in the region while the negotiations are going on probably makes sense, and there are probably other steps we could be taking … in terms of providing Israel with tanking capability and replenishing or revert more reserved stocks that have been drawn down in Israel because of the fighting in Ukraine and elsewhere.” 

Asked how Israel may view renewed negotiations with the Iranian regime, Abrams said, “Things have changed a lot for Israel, more than they have changed for us in the last couple of years, in the years since Trump has been president. And that’s a new factor, whether the Israelis are willing to sit by and watch Iran play out the clock.”

The Iranians “may want these negotiations in part, to tie the hands of the Israelis. That is, they may be thinking that the United States, while negotiating, will say to the Israelis, don’t do anything.” Abrams continued. And if Israel told the U.S., “We made a decision, we are going to hit the Iranian nuclear program, the United States would say, no, no, we’re in the middle of negotiations, wait, wait, wait, wait. That’s something that the United States and Israel are going to have to work out as well.”