President Trump wants a new deal with Iran to replace the nuclear agreement he pulled out of, and he’s turning to one of his most hawkish confidants to help do it. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is working in close coordination with senior Trump administration officials who focus on Middle East policy to find an alternative to the Obama administration’s Iran deal, four people with knowledge of the efforts tell The Daily Beast. Part of that effort includes fielding ideas from outside actors, including foreign officials, two of those sources said. Graham’s developing role in the Trump administration’s Iran strategy comes as the State Department, Department of Defense, and other government agencies try to manage the delicate relationship between Washington and Tehran.

Why Graham, someone long known for his eagerness for military action against Iran? Is there something he offers that actual diplomatic professionals and people with expertise on Iran don’t? If you think it’s because Trump has a well-thought-out strategy to which Graham is essential, you don’t really know Donald Trump.

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No, the far more likely reason is that Trump is just casting about wildly, without any strategy at all, buffeted between hawks such as national security adviser John Bolton, who has wanted to invade Iran for years, and others in the administration warning that doing so would be a catastrophe. Graham happens to be one of Trump’s most enthusiastic lickspittles, so that’s a good enough reason as any to deputize him in this effort.

And it comes not long after we learned that Trump did the same thing with the much less interventionist Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), giving Paul his approval to seek a meeting with the Iranian foreign minister in an attempt to move toward a new nuclear agreement. In that case, it apparently had a lot to do with Paul convincing Trump to let him get involved over a round of golf. What are Graham and Paul going to accomplish with their seemingly opposite perspectives? Probably nothing.

Try for a moment to imagine this from the Iranian perspective. I know that’s something people like Trump and his supporters are loath to do, but it’s actually a key part of successful negotiation (not that the president would know, since, despite what he says, he is in fact the world’s worst negotiator):

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After about a year of painstaking negotiation, you came to an agreement not just with the United States but also with Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany and the European Union, to restrain your nuclear program in exchange for an economic package that included sanctions relief and the release of funds that had been frozen since the hostage crisis four decades ago.

Then Trump got elected and broke the agreement. Since then he’s been lobbing insults at you while he tries (with some success) to destroy your economy, and he’s being encouraged by his more hawkish advisers to invade your country. Now he wants to negotiate a new deal that he can put his own name on, and he’s sending American politicians with conflicting agendas to talk to you about it.

Why on earth would you trust, even for a moment, that anything any of these people tell you will hold up? For that matter, even if Trump’s signature is on some deal you negotiate, will you believe he’ll stick to his end of the bargain?

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Just to be clear, this isn’t about how much we dislike Iran. What it’s about is this. When Trump began his term we had in place an agreement that was successfully keeping whatever nuclear ambitions Iran had in check, by the acknowledgment of everyone concerned, including the International Atomic Energy Agency and Trump’s own appointees. Then Trump broke the deal. And now Iran is increasing enrichment of uranium, and we never know when another incident in the Strait of Hormuz could touch off a crisis, even one that leads to war.

So the idea that we’re going to send Lindsey Graham to offer some new threats and chest-beating to the Iranians, and that will make them say, “Yes, we will give you whatever you ask for,” seems more than a little far-fetched, particularly when the president himself is so obviously conflicted and erratic.