President Trump asked his point man, Steve Witkoff, "Why, under this pressure, with the amount of sea power and naval power over there, why haven't they come to us and said, 'We profess we don't want a weapon, so here's what we are prepared to do'? And yet it's sort of hard to get them to that place." The 'they' in this conversation is, of course, Iran. If the underlying sentiment is any indicator, the chances are that a real war against and around Iran may well be averted.

Only, the Iranians need to play it sensibly. Give Trump a face-saver of sorts and help him retain his prestige. Even more importantly, save Iran from devastation triggered by an injured ego. In which case, Iran alone will suffer, perhaps badly; the US and Trump will barely save pride, but Israel will relish the opportunity and the carte blanche in wreaking as much havoc as it can on Iran, and push the US to do the same.

Iran, of course, will respond, but to a certain extent. It can play the regionalisation of the conflict as a card and push the regimes around to save themselves from Iranian reprisals by forcing the US to retract from what would be another unnecessary war. But will injured pride listen, or to what extent will it go to save its esteem? These unknowns are a fast-slipping slope, rendering the region's geopolitics highly precarious. This ties into the equation a continuing interplay of interests between nations of the Middle East, including Israel, the US and nations surrounding Iran in West Asia. That includes Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkey. Turkey lies at the edge of what is West Asia and will most likely escape the entanglement, but the rest will slowly........

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