Both sides need to step back
of war are beating once again. An American aircraft-carrier strike group is steaming towards the Persian Gulf, joined by-52 bombers, after unspecified threats from Iran. John Bolton, the national security adviser, says any attack on America or its allies “will be met with unrelenting force”.
). Bellicose rhetoric has returned. Mr Bolton and Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, believe in using economic pressure to topple the Iranian regime and bombs to stop its nuclear programme. In Tehran the mullahs and their Revolutionary Guards do not trust America. They are tightening their grip at home and lashing out abroad. In both countries policy is being dictated by intransigents, who risk stumbling into war.
Predictably, rather than bringing Iran’s leaders to their knees, America’s belligerence has caused them to stiffen their spines. Even Mr Rouhani, who championed the nuclear deal, has begun to sound like a hawk. Having long hoped that Europe, at least, would honour the promise of the deal, he is exasperated.
Iran’s most important audience is America, with which it seems to be playing an old game. Iranian leaders have long seen the nuclear programme as their best bargaining chip with the West. Though they have claimed that it is peaceful,inspectors have found enough evidence to suggest otherwise. The technology is the same whether power or a weapon is the ultimate goal. Iran’s centrifuges can produce a bomb faster than sanctions can topple the regime, goes the logic of hardliners.
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