Negotiations with Iran were going swimmingly, Donald Trump told reporters on Tuesday. The US president suggested that an agreement could be reached in two or three days’ time. Two days later, though, and a deal remains just as elusive today as it was last week and the week before that. In fact, not only is diplomacy apparently stuck, but the United States and Iran are increasingly taking shots at each other.
Would a few more weeks of US bombing succeed in doing what past bombing failed to do?
The 8 April ceasefire is still in effect but resting on weaker foundations. On 9 June, Trump ordered retaliatory airstrikes against multiple Iranian targets, including air defences, ground control stations and radar sites, after Tehran crashed a drone into a US Army Apache helicopter, bringing the aircraft down and forcing the Pentagon to organise a rescue operation for the crew. The next day, Trump threatened more airstrikes. “We hit them [Iran] hard yesterday, and we’re going to hit them again hard today…We were really close to a deal, but they keep tapping us along, they keep playing us for suckers.” Overnight, he delivered on his promise: the US carried out a wave of strikes targeting military, surveillance and radar sites in Iran.
