One afternoon in late September, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called a meeting of the six countries that came together in 2015 to limit Iran's nuclear-weapons program. They gathered on the main floor of the United Nations headquarters, in Manhattan, in the “consultations room,” a private chamber where diplomats can speak confidentially before stepping onto the floor of the Security Council. Tillerson, who was the head of ExxonMobil before becoming President Trump's top diplomat, had not previously met Iran's foreign minister, Javad Zarif, who negotiated the agreement with the Obama Administration. Tillerson's career had been spent making deals for oil, and his views on such topics as Iran's nuclear weapons were little known. Even more obscure were his skills as a diplomat.

