Why Trump is betting on military leaders for Iran negotiations
The White House has enlisted senior US military commanders to grease the wheels of complex negotiations with adversaries, but can they help advance Trump's policy demands?
As officials from the United States and Iran convened in Oman’s capital late last week for exploratory talks on Tehran’s nuclear enrichment, observers noticed an unexpected attendee in the American delegation: US Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, the top commander overseeing all American military forces in the Middle East.
In an unusual move, Cooper joined Washington’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner for face-to-face meetings with Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr al-Busaidi, and then with Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi directly, according to sources familiar with the meeting.
The rare involvement of a regional US military commander in high-stakes diplomacy highlighted an emerging trend in Donald Trump's second term, as the president's trusted envoys have increasingly enlisted top military officials to help navigate complex geopolitical bargaining with strategic adversaries in pursuit of Trump's foreign policy priorities.
Cooper is not the only one. Last week in Abu Dhabi, Secretary of the US Army Dan Driscoll and the top commander of American forces in Europe, Air Force Gen. Alexus Grynkewich — who doubles as NATO's Supreme Allied Commander — accompanied Kushner and Witkoff in meetings with top Russian and Ukrainian negotiators over the Trump administration's proposal to end that war.
