There is an update at the end of this post written on Sunday morning following the US bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities.
The first round of high-level diplomacy geared to persuading Iran that the game is up and that it should accept the strictest limits on its nuclear programme took place on 20 June in Geneva between European foreign ministers and their Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi.
The talks ended with European claims that the discussions had been constructive, Iranian insistence that nothing could be done until Israel abandons its aggression, and President Trump suggesting it was all a waste of time. It wasn’t that he was opposed to diplomacy, or even a ceasefire.
His point was that only direct talks between the US and Iran would make any sense. Israel was not involved in any of these discussions, although it did participate in a fiery debate at the United Nations. Otherwise its main contribution was to remind everyone, and in particular Iran, that it was prepared to keep up its campaign for some time.
If Trump had looked more carefully at what the Europeans were saying he would have appreciated that they were also urging the Iranians to talk to the Americans, and on a much broader agenda than before. Not only will they need to make major concessions on its nuclear programme, of the sort they were unprepared to make at the start of the month,
but they will also need to restrict their missile programme and activist role in the region. These concessions will only happen, if at all, when the Iranians are not only convinced privately that they are losing but that they are prepared to acknowledge it publicly. This moment may not come as long as they can keep firing missiles into Israeli cities.
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