(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff acknowledged on Tuesday that he doesn’t know how the war with Iran will end as US-Israeli airstrikes on the Islamic Republic and Iranian counterattacks continue.
“I don’t know, Sara,” Witkoff told CNBC host Sara Eisner when asked how the conflict ends. “I know this, that President Trump is the wrong guy to go up against. That’s what I know.”
Witkoff and Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, led the negotiations with Iran in the weeks leading up to the opening of US-Israeli attacks on Iran, which began days before more talks were supposed to be held, marking the second time within one year that Iran was attacked while engaged in negotiations with the US.
After the war started, Witkoff claimed that during the first round of talks, Iranian officials said they had enough nuclear material to build 11 nuclear bombs and that they were “proud of it,” but a diplomat involved in the negotiations said that never happened.
“I can categorically state that this is inaccurate,” a Persian Gulf diplomat involved in the negotiations told MS Now.
Witkoff was referring to Iran’s stockpile of uranium that’s enriched to 60%, which is believed to be buried under rubble following the June 2025 airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and is still below the 90% needed for weapons-grade uranium. The night before the US and Israel began bombing Iran, Oman’s foreign minister, who mediated the negotiations, said Iran was willing to give up its stockpile of enriched uranium to reach a deal.
During the negotiations, Witkoff also made the false claim that Iran could have material to make a bomb within a week despite the fact that Iran is unable to enrich uranium following the June 2025 strikes that President Trump said “obliterated” Tehran’s nuclear program. Trump has also repeated similar claims and said on Monday that he launched the war based on the advice of Witkoff, Kushner, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“In my opinion, based on what Steve and Jared and Pete, and others were telling me, Marco, that I thought they were going to attack us,” Trump said. The day after the US and Israel started the war, Pentagon officials told Congress that there was no indication Iran was planning to strike the US or Israel without being attacked first.
This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.
