Inside Trump’s Diplomatic Failure With Iran

This article appeared in The New York Times on April 13, 2026

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In late March, Jared Kushner sat woodenly on the stage of a Saudi investment conference in Miami. It was 26 days into the Iran war. He was introduced not as President Trump’s unofficial envoy but as the founder and chief executive of Affinity Partners. The host of the conference — the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, via his personal think tank — has thrown billions at Affinity Partners through his sovereign wealth fund. In recent months, Mr. Kushner has sought to raise even more money from the crown prince at the same time as Prince Mohammed has reportedly pushed for a protracted war with Iran.

The moderator wanted to know what Mr. Kushner had learned as a “deal maker in peace.”

“I think peace is not that different than business,” Mr. Kushner said. “Both things are puzzles, and I try to think about every challenge that I’m faced with as a puzzle.”

It was a remarkable exchange: Here was Mr. Kushner, onstage at an investment conference, as bombs were falling on Tehran and as the Strait of Hormuz was being booby-trapped by mines. The inability of Mr. Kushner and his partner in diplomacy, Steve Witkoff, to reach a deal with the Iranians in the weeks leading up to the war has led to a catastrophic series of events, with America and Israel killing more than a thousand Iranian civilians, Israel intensifying its attacks on Lebanon and the war expanding across the Middle East.

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Read Jonathan’s full piece in The New York Times

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