Witkoff’s statement reveals both a misunderstanding of history and a misreading of how the Islamic republic makes decisions. In response to his musings, and just ahead of the resumption of the indirect US-Iran talks in Geneva, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian and its senior security official Ali Shamkhani promised that “Tehran won’t develop nuclear weapons” in line with supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s stated ban on weapons of mass destruction. The introduction to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — which Trump himself later tore up — also states: “Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons.”