A war that has lasted six weeks and was 47 years in the making was never going to be ended with anything like a comprehensive sustainable settlement over a weekend, and in fact what turned out to be only 21 hours of intense talks. No one seriously expected it would, but the chances of an early breakthrough were made infinitely worse by Donald Trump’s decision to despatch to the talks with Iran two proven failures in such exercises – Steve Witkoff, an over-optimistic real-estate guy, and Jared Kushner, whose sole qualification is that he happens to be the president’s son-in-law.
Not for the first time, the US state department and secretary of state Marco Rubio have been marginalised in their core role of running America’s foreign policy – and to no great advantage. To have the US delegation headed by the vice-president JD Vance instead was also a serious misjudgement. Mr Vance could, in principle, as a possible future president, and with his own “base”, have added some considerable political authority to the discussions with the Iranians in Islamabad; but he has no personal vested interest in helping Mr Trump out of a mess of his own making, and one that Mr Vance warned him was going to happen. Even though the vice-presidency of the United States is a famously light-duties role, it would hardly have been practical for Mr Vance to spend weeks in Pakistan trying to broker peace.
