Aaron David Miller

So I'm thinking, and I have had no conversations, no contact with any of these people, that in essence, you have a dysfunctional national security decision-making apparatus

And I think the results seem to be pretty clear.

Richard Wagner Yeah.

I mean I co-drafted this piece with my friend and colleague Dan Kurtzer, former ambassador to Israel and Egypt.

Look, the semester isn't over yet, right?

So we base that analysis on what we've seen.

And let's be clear, these are very heavy lifts.

You could get my former boss, James Baker, bring Henry Kissinger back, and they'd have a hard time with these negotiations.

But the president has deployed his best friend and his son-in-law to mediate three of the world's most difficult and intractable problems.

Russia-Ukraine, failing.

Israel-Palestine, Gaza failing.

The 20-point plan succeeded in releasing hostages, ending the war, even though the kinetic activity, the Israelis are still striking.

Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in those attacks.

But the rest of Gaza remains divided, dysfunctional, and sporadically violent.

Those negotiations are dead, at least for now.

And then you have, in the lead up to the June war, five rounds of negotiations with Steve Witkoff and the Iranians and a couple sets before this war.

So, no, I don't think they're doing a good job.

Again, hard conflicts.

But you need a structure.

You don't need professional diplomats.