The United States has put itself at the centre of nearly every recent major diplomatic effort in the Middle East, from the war with Iran, the conflict in Lebanon, and the genocide in Gaza. The results have been thin. In 2026, after months of war, the US and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding that set a 60-day window to negotiate wider peace, and it collapsed within about a month. In Gaza, a US- backed ceasefire was meant to move in stages. The second stage, which covers complex matters of Gaza’s governance, has stalled. Time and time again, a ceasefire is announced but never turns into lasting political settlement. The gap between announcement and outcome is failure, and can be attributed to two things – the people doing the diplomacy and the policies they have built.
The People
Who is doing the negotiating? A special envoy is a representative appointed for one specific mission, such as brokering a ceasefire. Unlike an ambassador who is posted to one country, an envoy can be chosen directly by the President and can be anyone – with or without diplomatic training. The US has leaned heavily on two: Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, real estate businessmen with no prior government experience.
That matters most on issues like Iran’s nuclear programme, where a deal only works if the technical details are right. The Arms Control Association, a research group focused on nuclear policy, said Witkoff lacked the technical knowledge for those talks, and Republican Senator Thom Tillis said the arrangement “doesn’t make any sense”. Across the table in these talks was Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, who helped negotiate the 2015 nuclear deal. The Stimson Center calls him one of Iran’s most professional diplomats. Iran’s team reportedly included three deputy foreign ministers and career diplomats, while the US team was led by Vice President JD Vance alongside Witkoff and Kushner.
The question of who the envoys answer to matters as much as their expertise. A mediator is only useful if every side believes they are acting for their government and not for themselves. Democratic lawmakers have raised concerns that Kushner’s investment firm, which manages Gulf money, was seeking $5bn or more while he served as envoy. Witkoff’s 2025 disclosure, the annual financial report that senior US officials must file, reports $106.9m in distributions from a holding company that owns real estate alongside entities tied to World Liberty Financial, the President Donald Trump-linked crypto firm he helped launch. The filing does not break down how much came from crypto, and the White House says he has since fully divested. The issue at hand is a conflict of interest, not proven corruption. When envoys’ business interests overlap with the region being negotiated, every party has grounds to question whose interests are being served, and diplomacy depends on trust.
The US diplomatic service behind the envoys has also been weakened. Ambassadors are usually a mix of career diplomats, who work their way up through the foreign service, and political appointees, who are often donors or allies of the President. About 80% of ambassadors appointed in Trump’s second term are political appointees. Historically, only about 30% have been political appointees, with roughly 70% as career diplomats. As of 1 October, 92 of 196 ambassador posts were empty, including Qatar and Pakistan, both of which helped mediate the US-Iran talks. In 2025, 1353 State Department staff were laid off.. Career diplomats are more likely to carry out the deals that envoys agree on and preserve institutional memory. With fewer of them, deals are more likely to be announced and then never carried out.
The Policies
The people are one half of the problem; the other half is what they have produced.
Talking while force is on the table: Negotiation only works if both sides believe the talks are safe to attend. In June 2025, the US and Iran were due to hold a sixth round of talks in Oman when Israel struck Iran, and the talks were cancelled. The US claimed it wasn’t part of those strikes. In February 2026, the current war began with joint US-Israeli strikes while talks mediated by Oman were still under way. Whatever the intent, Iran has little reason to trust talks that keep being followed by attacks.
Mediation with bias: A mediator needs both parties to trust that they will be treated fairly. Diplomat Itamar Rabinovich argues that successful US mediation depends on being seen as impartial and credible. March 2025, as the first stage of the Gaza ceasefire was ending, Witkoff proposed a short ‘bridge’ extension of that stage. Hamas said the proposal was a way to avoid the agreed second phase, and the Times of Israel reported that Witkoff had accepted Israel’s reluctance to move to phase two. When Israel resumed conflict, Witkoff said ‘this is on Hamas’ and that the US stands with Israel. While Hamas did reject the extension, a mediator who openly takes one side cannot be trusted to broker between both. The same tension appears in Lebanon, where Israel has been fighting armed group Hezbollah since a March 2026 escalation. The US brokered a framework there that Israel’s ambassador said replaced the Iran MoU on Lebanon, even though Iran understood the MoU to require an end to that war. In effect, the US brokered two deals that contradicted each other.
Deals built like business propositions: The Iran MoU was written loosely. Joey Hood, former acting director of the State Department’s Office of Iranian Affairs, told Al Jazeera it ‘gave Iran the chance to interpret the MoU as giving it sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz and the future of Lebanon’, and that professional US diplomats ‘never would have allowed Iran that wiggle room’. Gaza got the same treatment. Kushner presented a $25bn ‘New Gaza’ plan with a seaport, airport, and waterfront development, without mentioning plans for a path to Palestinian statehood, while President Trump said ‘I’m a real estate person at heart’. Kushner said himself that ‘peace is a different deal than a business deal, because you’re changing a mindset’. The plan did not act on that. It treated Gaza as a site to develop, not a conflict to settle. Business deals can leave details vague because courts and markets enforce them; peace deals have no such backstop, which is why the Iran MoU’s loose wording is a problem.
Solution?
A solution to the US diplomacy failures doesn’t necessarily mean removing the President’s trusted envoys. It requires creating a structure around them, and the 2015 Iran nuclear deal shows what that looks like. The US team was led by Wendy Sherman, who spent two years on the talks. From February 2015, it also included a specialised physicist serving as Energy Secretary to handle the technical side. Sherman described the result as ‘quite detailed, specific commitments that can be monitored and verified’. That is the opposite of the loose wording that sank the 2026 MoU. A handful of changes could move US diplomacy in the right direction.
Put experts at the table: pair political envoys with career diplomats and technical specialists, and fill empty posts such as Qatar and Pakistan, the countries mediating between the US and Iran.
Address conflicts of interest: the TABOO Act (S.5357), introduced in August 2026 by Senator Jeff Merkley and eight Democratic colleagues, would require financial disclosure and divestment for anyone negotiating for the US. The act is currently in committee and should be made into law to ensure conflicts of interest do not impact conflict resolution.
Plan for implementation: research finds implementation is key but often neglected, so agreements need clear sequencing, monitors, and dispute processes before anyone signs. And peace talks only work if both sides feel safe in turning up, so the US should keep them separate from the threat of force.
