On August 16, according to Axios citing three informed sources, when U.S. negotiators in mid-May tried to reach an agreement with Iran to end the war, they ran into a problem: they could not determine whether the Iranian representatives across the negotiating table truly had the backing—or influence—of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Therefore, Trump administration officials took an unusual approach—bypassing Iran’s negotiating representatives and instead contacting senior leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps directly. The U.S. chose the individual responsible for this secret communication channel: Nechirvan Barzani, president of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region. He has a very rare advantage: he enjoys the trust of both the U.S. and the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Negotiations between the U.S. and Iran proved so difficult partly because Washington could not determine who actually held decision-making authority in Iran. Although the U.S. and Iran ultimately did reach a memorandum of understanding, it quickly fell apart.