Oman Has Gone From ‘Indispensable’ Ally to Target of Annihilation
When the United States was looking for a way to talk to Iran about a nuclear deal more than a decade ago, it turned to Oman, asking the country to do something it had quietly done for years: make an impossible conversation possible. Because Washington and Tehran had no diplomatic relations, the U.S. felt that the most promising back channel to get a conversation started led through Muscat. Iran was skeptical but willing to sit down with U.S. officials, provided there was some very particular diplomatic choreography. At Tehran’s request, Oman’s government found a room with multiple doors, so that American and Iranian officials would not be seen entering together. Omani officials took the head of the table, to create the impression that it was more than a bilateral conversation. That session laid the groundwork for what ultimately became the 2015 nuclear pact. “Without Oman, I’m not sure there would be an Iran nuclear deal,” Jake Sullivan, one of the top U.S. officials involved in those talks, told me. But today, that pact lies in …
