On Saturday’s broadcast of MS NOW’s “Velshi,” MS NOW Political and National Security Analyst Ben Rhodes responded to claims from Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi that his mention of being able to make nuclear weapons during talks with the U.S. wasn’t a threat and was communicating a large concession by stating that “you don’t have to like Araghchi’s politics to think he’s a more credible voice on these issues” than U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Peace Missions Steve Witkoff.
After viewing video of Araghchi claiming that there was progress being made in talks and claiming his mention of the ability to make nuclear weapons wasn’t a threat, Rhodes said Araghchi’s account is “very plausible to me, Ali, in part because it’s backed up by other information. And, first of all, Araghchi, the Iranian Foreign Minister, he was the lead negotiator for the Iranians during the negotiations that led to the Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA, under the Obama administration. He’s been — and this is relevant because, number one, he’s been in negotiations about the Iranian nuclear program for well over a decade, right? Steve Witkoff was selling real estate, like a year and a half ago, right?”
He continued, “And Araghchi, also, was a part of a government that could be tough negotiators, they could have shifting positions, but they actually kept their commitments under the JCPOA, right? It was Trump who pulled out of it. So, this is a guy who knows what he’s talking about on the substance of nuclear negotiations, much more than Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, who found themselves in that room for reasons that we still don’t understand. Were they just there as a smokescreen because Trump was going to bomb all along? It certainly feels that way to me, Ali, because we were moving the largest military force to the region since the Iraq War while this negotiation was going on. So, you don’t have to like Araghchi’s politics to think he’s a more credible voice on these issues than Witkoff, who seemed to not know what the International Atomic Energy Agency was before he walked into this negotiation.”
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