Iran-watchers are used to weighing up often contradictory statements from different power bases in the Islamic Republic. Are they watching a coordinated good-cop-bad-cop routine, or are officials really at each other’s throats? The same skills are increasingly needed for parsing US officials’ comments.

President Trump used the unorthodox forum of the Teen Student Action Summit 2019 on 23 July to give his latest thoughts on his country’s stand-off with Iran. (CONTINUED - 1151 WORDS)