The US just handed Iran a document that is not a negotiation. It is a capitulation order.
The Wall Street Journal obtained the American demands presented in Geneva today. Destroy Fordow. Destroy Natanz. Destroy Isfahan. Hand over every gram of enriched uranium to the United States. Zero enrichment permanently, no sunset clauses, no expiration dates. Behave for the rest of your lives. In exchange, minimal sanctions relief upfront with more only if you comply with everything forever.
Iran’s counterproposal, approved personally by Khamenei, arrived showing almost no change from the previous round. A 3-to-5 year enrichment suspension. Increased IAEA oversight. Willingness to dilute stockpiles. But zero flexibility on the one demand Washington says is non-negotiable: permanent zero enrichment on Iranian soil.
The gap between these two positions is not a negotiation gap. It is the distance between sovereignty and surrender. And no government in the history of nuclear diplomacy has voluntarily dismantled its own program, surrendered its own fissile material to its adversary, and accepted permanent restrictions with no expiration while that adversary had 500 aircraft parked on its doorstep.
The FDD’s Andrea Stricker called it a “suicide mission.” She is right, but not the way she means it. These demands are designed to be rejected. A proposal that requires a sovereign nation to physically destroy three of its own facilities and hand its enriched uranium to the country threatening to bomb it is not diplomacy. It is the paperwork you file before the paperwork becomes irrelevant.
Barak Ravid confirmed today’s talks were both indirect and direct, with a pause for consultations. That pause is the tell. When both sides need to consult after the first session, it means the positions presented were further apart than either side expected to encounter. Araghchi’s “good outlook” from yesterday has already collided with the reality of what Washington put on the table.
Now hold this against what is happening outside the room.
The demands say destroy Fordow. The F-22s at Ovda exist to destroy Fordow. The demands say dismantle Natanz. The B-2s at Whiteman carry the GBU-57s that reach Natanz. The demands say eliminate Isfahan. The Tomahawks on two carrier strike groups are programmed for Isfahan. Every demand in the document has a military equivalent already in theater. The negotiating position is a target list with diplomatic formatting.
Iran is being asked to do voluntarily what the United States is prepared to do by force. The document is not an alternative to the strike. The document is the strike translated into legalese, presented one last time before the translation becomes unnecessary.
Geneva is not where this gets resolved. Geneva is where the historical record gets established. The United States offered terms. Iran rejected the core demand. The diplomatic predicate for military action was constructed in a hotel conference room while 500 aircraft waited outside.
The curtain went up today in Geneva. But the show was never in the building. The show is on the tarmacs at Ovda, on the flight decks of the Ford and Lincoln, in the bomb bays of B-2s sitting in Missouri, and on the coral runway at Diego Garcia where the refueling corridor begins.Geneva is the intermission. The next act does not require a negotiating table.
