In the many bizarre exchanges that occurred in the run-up to the US-Israeli attack on Iran, perhaps the most unexpected was an invitation by Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff for the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, to join him and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, for a visit to the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group.
The idea that Araghchi would leave talks in Oman about the future of Iran’s nuclear programme to tour a ship sent to the Gulf in an effort to dislodge his government seemed idiosyncratic at best.
