He has now shifted into the self-cancelling carrot and stick phase of the war. Iran is acting impervious to both. One moment, Trump is threatening “an amount of strength and power that Iran has never seen or witnessed before”. Then, roughly 36 hours later, he declares that the US and Iran have been having “very good and productive conversations”. Few took the latter on trust. It is a strange situation where the world must await a statement from Iran to check whether there was any truth to what a US president said. Iran replied that no talks had taken place. Who were we to believe?