The US opened two sets of major peace negotiations in Geneva on Tuesday, in what's best described as a form of diplomatic speed dating. The one with Iran broke up after less than four hours, as the two sides left to draw up competing draft agreements. The talks on ending Russia's war in Ukraine were only getting started and will continue Wednesday. That should come as no surprise, if only because it's a lot harder to stop a war than to avoid starting one.
That's something both the US and Iran have strong motivations to do. For leaders of the Islamic Republic, a collapse of negotiations would invite a military contest with Israel and potentially two US carrier strike groups. They might survive that, but could never hope to win. For the US, military action is also less than appealing, because after reducing Iran's nuclear facilities to rubble last year, a win this time would require regime change. And that's not only historically unlikely without putting boots on the ground, it could also produce politically toxic blowback in the leadup to November's midterm elections.
Iran is, of course, unhappy to be negotiating under the threat of attack. Its announcement of a partial closure of the Strait of Hormuz for military exercises, just as the talks began on Tuesday, was an attempt to level the playing field. But for all his bombast, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei knows the weakness of his position.
Khamenei can ill-afford a repeat of Iran's humiliating defeat in last year's 12-day war with Israel and the US. He might feel obliged this time to follow through on his last-throw-of-the-dice threats, such as hobbling world oil markets (and his own primary revenue source) by blocking the Strait of Hormuz to tanker traffic, or attacking US military bases and Gulf allies. But the more the conflict escalates, the greater the US and Israeli response and the higher the risk of regime collapse.
So Iran is now following Russia's playbook - and that of pretty much every country that has business with Washington these days - by offering Trump commercial incentives to take a deal Khamenei can accept. Iranian officials have made it broadly clear what that is, even if they're tactful enough to put it differently: Something similar to the 2015 nuclear agreement that Trump abrogated in 2018.
There's little cost to Khamenei in agreeing to a lengthy suspension of his uranium enrichment program, together with limits and verification inspections, because US and Israeli bombs already froze it. With a nation in turmoil over plummeting living standards, Tehran's deeply unpopular leaders need US sanctions eased far more than they need a rebuilt uranium enrichment program that, at the best of times, was a huge net drain on resources.
With Iran hawks in Israel and Washington champing at the bit for regime change, that may not be enough for Trump, so nothing is certain. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has made it clear that the only deal he thinks worth making would also eliminate Tehran's arsenal of missiles capable of reaching Israel and force an end to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' support for Iranian proxies across the region, from Hezbollah in Lebanon to the Houthis of Yemen.
From Iran's point of view, that would leave it unable to respond at all should Israel attack again, and would involve an inspection regime far more intrusive of IRGC military dispositions than anything a nuclear deal would require. It would amount to surrender, which Khamenei certainly deserves but won't accept. A win for Trump on Iran's nuclear threat, by contrast, is there for the taking.
And yet it's the Moscow-Kyiv talks Trump told reporters would be easy to resolve ahead of Geneva, warning that "Ukraine better come to the table, fast." It's a misapprehension the US president has labored under since he said he could end the war in 24 hours, well over a year ago.
Kyiv has been at the table for a long time. It's Moscow that insists on terms that further its war aims and leave the gate open to restarting the war at a later date, against an opponent that would emerge weakened by the terms of the settlement. The more Trump has become involved in driving this peace process, the more brutal Russia's invasion has become.
Putin hasn't hidden his intent. His officials have been signaling his inflexibility. He has sent his former culture minister and history-propagandist-in-chief, Vladimir Medinsky, to head the delegation in Geneva again, after being absent for two more pragmatic sessions. Kirill Dmitriev, a previous delegation head and the chief executive of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, was to meet separately in Geneva with Trump's envoys, the real estate developer Steve Witkoff and presidential son-in-law-without-portfolio Jared Kushner. Dmitriev's task is, put crudely, to determine the administration's price for pressing Kyiv into submission.
We've been here before. The problem has always been that Putin made his demands so clearly punitive and open to resuming the war that it became impossible for Trump to accept without looking like a Russian stooge. What's changed this time appears to lie in a sense of urgency in Washington, as November's midterms approach.
Zelenskiy may soon face the invidious choice he predicted back in November, when the US first presented Russian demands to him as a fait accompli in the form of a 28-point plan. That choice was between taking the deal or facing a very hard winter, and Zelenskiy chose the latter, which Ukraine has duly suffered since.
Now the threat implicit in Trump's warnings suggests a still worse outcome: Accept the terms on offer or fight on without the US-made air-defense missiles, intelligence sharing and communications networks that make an effective defense against Russia's still-formidable military machine possible.
Ukrainians appear willing to swallow the loss of occupied territory in exchange for peace and security guarantees, after four years of grueling war. But it isn't clear - whatever Zelenskiy decides - that when presented with the referendum and elections Trump wants Ukraine to hold in May, so as to get a ceasefire in place by June, they would agree to terms set by Moscow. Russia continues to demand that Kyiv accept caps on its military and hand over the unconquered cities that make up Ukraine's main defensive lines in the east, and that security guarantees should be emptied of NATO-member content.
That could, of course, change. After a year of circling, as Putin played for both time and whatever unilateral concessions he could extract, substantive talks are only now beginning. But while Trump appears to see the two sets of Geneva negotiations in a similar light, they are fundamentally different. A swift deal with Iran can avoid a war that doesn't need to be fought, while advancing the interests of both the US and ordinary Iranians. A quick Ukraine settlement can be reached only by rewarding Putin's invasion and forcing Kyiv to accept the unacceptable. Peace would not follow.
