Frank Gardner
President Donald Trump's war aims have been somewhat opaque, appearing to vacillate between a simple curtailment of Iran's nuclear programme, to capitulation to all US and Israeli demands, to the total collapse of the Islamic Republic regime. So far, Iran has neither capitulated nor collapsed. But its military has been severely weakened by 16 days of relentless precision bombing.
Indirect talks between the US and Iran in Geneva in February, mediated by Oman, were making progress on the nuclear file. The Omanis say Iran was prepared to make major concessions that offered significant reassurance Tehran was not pursuing a nuclear weapon. What Iran was not prepared to discuss was curtailing or cancelling its ballistic missile programme nor its support for proxy groups around the region, like the Houthis in Yemen or Hezbollah in Lebanon.
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