Trump risks giving Tehran the final showdown it wants

In the feverish rhetoric of this new age of chaos, Donald Trump has upped the temperature dangerously close to delirium with a threat to kill the supreme leader of Iran - not yet, but maybe and Trump knows where he's hiding.

- SAM KILEY

Iran has, inevitably, hit back with a counter-threat that if the US joins Israel in its attacks, there will be all-out war in the Middle East.

Trump's language has meandered from that of peacemaker to a cowboy growl in his own reality TV show as Israel has taken the best window of opportunity it has ever had to launch its longplanned campaign to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons programme, and, it hopes, also topple the regime of the Islamic Republic.

There are lots of hawks inside the Republican Party who believe that now is the time to hit Iran. There are also hawks like that in the Pentagon, even if his own supporters inside the White House do not all agree.

His efforts to negotiate a deal with Iran to end its nuclear programme were derided by his former national security adviser, John Bolton. "It wasn't that we didn't give diplomacy a chance. Diplomacy had no chance, given Iran's objectives," said Bolton.

Bolton, now a vocal critic of Trump, has advocated for regime change in Iran for years. But there are Maga supporters inside Trump's tightest circle who are genuinely opposed to using the US military to interfere in foreign nations.