How Incompetence, Theatre, and Misaligned Incentives Killed the Iran Deal

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The Iran nuclear talks did not fail because the gap was too wide.

They failed because the process was shaped—at every stage—by forces that do not produce agreements: incompetence, theatre, and misaligned incentives.

Individually, each can be managed. Together, they make failure not just possible, but likely.

By the time war began—two days after the final round in Geneva—the outcome was less a shock than a culmination.

Incompetence: Negotiating Without Mastery

Start with something deceptively simple: the people running the talks did not appear to fully understand the file they were handling.

Steve Witkoff, the central figure on the American side, never claimed deep expertise in Iran’s nuclear programme. That, in itself, is not unusual—envoys rely on teams. What was unusual was how thin that support appeared to be when it mattered most.

He took few notes.
He travelled light on technical backup.
At times, the expertise required for the discussion simply wasn’t in the room.

Compare that to earlier nuclear negotiations, where teams of specialists worked in continuous loops with their capitals, refining positions in real time. Here, complexity was handled with a degree of informality that bordered on improvisation.

The result was not dramatic failure. It was something quieter—and more damaging.

Issues resurfaced not because they were unresolved, but because they had not been fully understood the first time. Key elements of Iran’s nuclear programme—the Tehran Research Reactor, future enrichment needs, even the structure of economic incentives—had to be revisited, re-explained, re-negotiated.

This is how incompetence shows up in diplomacy: not as collapse, but as motion without accumulation.

Theatre: When Optics Replace Strategy

If incompetence slowed the talks, theatre distorted them.

At one point, Witkoff invited Abbas Araghchi to leave negotiations and visit the USS Abraham Lincoln—a carrier group deployed to pressure Iran.

It was an extraordinary suggestion. Not because it was provocative, but because it revealed a mindset in which symbolism was bleeding into substance.

The pattern repeated.

He arrived at talks in Oman accompanied by Brad Cooper in full military uniform—an unexpected and diplomatically jarring presence in what were meant to be indirect exchanges. He was asked to leave.

These were not isolated missteps. They were signals.

They suggested a process that was not being treated as a disciplined, technical negotiation—but as something looser, more performative, occasionally even improvised.

Even time was handled this way.

On one occasion, just three and a half hours were allocated to indirect talks with Iran—compressed between other diplomatic engagements. In a process already slowed by intermediaries, this was not efficiency. It was self-imposed friction.

And in negotiations, friction accumulates.

Misaligned Incentives: A Deal No One Fully Owned

The deepest problem, however, was not incompetence or theatre.

It was intent.

Not stated intent—but revealed intent.

Because despite everything, the talks were not stalled. By the final round in Geneva, they were edging toward something workable.

·         International Atomic Energy Agency oversight would return

·         Iran would reduce its stockpile of highly enriched uranium under monitoring

·         Significant sanctions relief—reportedly up to 80%—was within reach

Even officials who saw Iran’s proposal believed it was serious. This was not a maximalist position. It was a negotiating one.

And yet, at the moments that mattered, progress did not convert into closure.

On the final day, Iran offered a three-to-five-year moratorium on enrichment—stretching beyond Donald Trump’s presidency. It was a politically calibrated compromise.

After consulting Trump, Witkoff returned with a demand for ten years.

That shift did more than widen the gap. It changed the nature of the negotiation.

It raised a question that never quite went away:
was the objective to reach a deal—or to preserve room around the idea of one?

When Process and Purpose Drift Apart

By this stage, a pattern had hardened.

Progress was made—but not consolidated.
Openings appeared—but were not pursued.
Flexibility surfaced—but was publicly undercut.

Inside the talks, movement.

Outside, rigidity.

This disconnect was not just confusing. It was corrosive.

Iran began to suspect the talks were buying time for something else—for military positioning rather than diplomatic closure. Witkoff, in turn, accused Iran of deception.

Both sides used the language of bad faith.

But only one side controlled the structure, pace, and coherence of the process.

Time Was Not Neutral

While the negotiations drifted, time did not.

Washington leaned on familiar tools—pressure, sanctions, signalling. But Iran did not treat time as a constraint. It treated it as leverage.

Its nuclear programme advanced incrementally. Not dramatically, not provocatively—but enough to ensure that delay changed the baseline.

So even as talks continued, the deal being negotiated was slowly being overtaken by events.

The Moment That Should Have Mattered

Perhaps the most revealing moment came after the Geneva talks.

Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi believed the sides were close—close enough to warrant urgent intervention. He travelled to Washington to convey just how narrow the remaining gap was.

His concern was not just the substance.

It was that the reality of the talks—the proximity to agreement—was not being fully understood at the top.

There were doubts about focus. About attention. About whether the process had the political weight required to conclude it.

At one point, an attempt to brief Trump reportedly drifted into a discussion about shoes.

It is a small detail.

It explains more than it should.

Not a Breakdown—An Outcome

Two days after the Geneva round ended—with both sides acknowledging progress—war began.

The talks did not collapse in a moment of irreconcilable difference.

They ended because the process that carried them was never stable enough, disciplined enough, or aligned enough to deliver an agreement.

The Real Lesson

It is easy to say that diplomacy with Iran is difficult.

It is harder to admit that, in this case, difficulty was compounded by how the diplomacy itself was conducted.

·         Incompetence ensured that issues were not fully mastered

·         Theatre ensured that the process was not consistently serious

·         Misaligned incentives ensured that progress was not converted into agreement

None of these alone would have doomed the talks.

Together, they made failure the most likely outcome.

The Iran deal was not lost at the negotiating table.

It was lost in the way the negotiation was run.

Part of the “Geopolitics Made Simple: The Complete Masterclass for India and the World” series.

Next Read: The Myth of Multipolarity: The Illusion of a World That Feels More Divided Than It Is.

About the Author

Manish Kumar is an independent education and career writer who focuses on simplifying complex academic, policy, and career-related topics for Indian students.

Through Explain It Clearly, he explores career decision-making, education reform, entrance exams, and emerging opportunities beyond conventional paths—helping students and parents make informed, pressure-free decisions grounded in long-term thinking.