Forget the Board of Peace, Trump may be closer than thought to attacking Iran

Tehran may claim it will not negotiate under duress, but that is precisely what it is being required to doAlthough much attention will be given to the inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace in Washington, it is the “arsenal of war” that Donald Trump has assembled in the Middle East, and what it implies for the stately pace of Washington’s negotiations with Iran, that deserves more.The well-connected Axios reporter Barak Ravid is hated in Iran – one news site on Thursday described him as a one-man psychological war operation against Tehran – but he is widely read, as was his report that the US viewed the talks in Geneva on Tuesday as a “nothing burger”, and that a full-scale attack on Iran is more imminent than most Americans realise. The story led to a spike in oil prices and front-page pieces in US newspapers saying Trump’s military preparations would be be complete by the weekend. Continue reading...