While Washington staged its biggest diplomatic set piece of the war, Ex-JCPOA negotiator Alan Eyre pointed at the negotiation that actually matters, and it isn't the one with cameras.
Netanyahu emerged calling it one of the best conversations he's ever had with a president.
Eyre's rule for reading such statements: there is never any intrinsic correlation between the post-meeting statement and the meeting. Statements are positioning.
The work happens elsewhere.
Elsewhere, specifically, is Muscat.
Iran is talking to Oman, Oman is talking to the Gulf states, precisely the architecture the MOU's Article 5 envisioned for the strait's long-term future.
The positions are already concrete: Oman proposes a shared regional mechanism modeled on the Strait of Malacca, covering navigation, safety, environment and rescue, while Iran counters with sole control of the northern passage and shared control of the south.
No agreement yet, but these are neighbors who know how to negotiate with each other.
America keeps the final thumbs up or thumbs down.
What it cannot do, Eyre argues, is the detailed work: "a surgeon trying to do surgery wearing cooking gloves."
The superpower spent five months bombing its way to relevance in the Gulf.
The most promising diplomacy of the war began the moment it left the room.
@AlanEyre1
