‘Tethered to a galaxy far, far away’: Former diplomats doubt Trump’s Iran talks can deliver in final 48 hours

Sometime on Tuesday, two New York real estate developers will walk into a hotel in Islamabad to try to end a war they helped start.

Trump administration special envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff—President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and close friend, respectively—are arriving with Vice President JD Vance for a second round of talks with an Iranian delegation that insists it is not coming to the table. Less than 48 hours remain before the ceasefire they brokered two weeks ago runs out, and Trump has said there will be no extension this time.

Fortune spoke with three of the most experienced American negotiators alive—former Ambassador Dennis Ross, former State Department advisor Aaron David Miller, and Harvard Law’s Robert Mnookin—about whether the three men can actually do this. They are, collectively, not very confident.

Miller, who served six secretaries of state over more than two decades at the State Department and helped shape American positions at Oslo and Camp David, described the administration’s process as “tethered to a galaxy far, far away, not to the realities back here on planet Earth.”

“If they were succeeding in these negotiations, my view would be much more charitable,” he hedged. 

The three experts described a situation in which two undoubtedly smart dealmakers may still be in over their heads on a deal unlike any they have handled before. Iran sees Witkoff and Kushner as unserious and too close ...