Would Trump really bomb Iran?

00:00 06:55

Paul Wood has narrated this article for you to listen to.

A satellite picture shows six American B-2 Stealth bombers parked on the runway at Diego Garcia. The planes – each with a distinctive flying-wing shape, like a bat – are sinister, otherworldly, and seem like a portent. Surely that’s the idea. Donald Trump has warned the Iranian leadership there ‘will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before’ if they don’t agree to limit their nuclear programme. The US is also sending a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East and anti-ballistic missile batteries to Israel. This is Trump’s ‘coercive diplomacy’, and so far, it’s working.

In his first presidency, Trump resisted the war hawks, such as his national security adviser John Bolton

President Trump wrote a private letter to the Iranians last month demanding talks. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, replied publicly that Tehran would not be bullied into negotiations. Threats wouldn’t get the Americans anywhere, he said, and if they tried to hurt Iran, they’d ‘get a hard slap’. The Iranian President, Masoud Pezeshkian, said they wouldn’t negotiate under duress, telling Trump: ‘Do whatever the hell you want.’ Yet last weekend, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, was in Oman for talks with Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff.

The Iranians cavilled about whether the discussions would be face-to-face or indirect. For much of the two-and-a-half hours, Oman’s foreign minister shuttled back and forth with messages between the two sides, who were in separate rooms. At the end, Araghchi chatted for a reported 45 minutes with Witkoff. These were still ‘talks about talks’, to agree a framework for substantive negotiations. But Araghchi was able to say that ‘no inappropriate language was used’ – Witkoff can be direct – and another meeting is due to be held on Saturday in Rome.