Well, well, well. For all the head-scratching that it initially occasioned, President Trump’s hasty abandonment of ‘Project Freedom’ – his grandly titled plan to open the Strait of Hormuz – turns out not to be so mysterious after all. Trump’s reversal, NBC News revealed late yesterday, came at the behest of America’s Gulf allies, foremost among them Riyadh, which told Washington that it would suspend the US military’s right to use its airspace. Now Trump, who has described his current exchanges with Iran as ‘very good’, is breathing optimism about a one-page peace memorandum that he claims will be completed by the end of the week. Iran, by contrast, merely says that Trump’s proposal is ‘under review’.

Trump is demanding, among other things, that Iran agree to a 20-year moratorium on nuclear enrichment, that it dismantle the Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan nuclear facilities, and that it surrender its enriched nuclear material. It seems unlikely that Iran, a past master at conducting negotiations at a glacial pace, will accede to Trump’s wish-list.

Iran has scant reason to capitulate

Iran has scant reason to capitulate

Who has the cards? The damage that Iran has........

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