Bellicose one moment, mollifying the next, President Donald Trump's stance on Iran in recent months has been consistently inconsistent – and has given every prognosticator plenty to chew on.
The vibe in Washington this week has shifted to a resigned consensus that US military action against Iran is coming very soon, although perhaps it will be limited in scope.
From where I'm sitting, it is unclear if Tehran has grasped how little road it has left with Mr Trump, and if Iran realises that the current round of nuclear talks in Geneva could be the last.
Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said a deal with the US is “within reach”. As he was leaving Tehran for Geneva on Wednesday night his boss, President Masoud Pezeshkian, said Iran saw a “good outlook” for the talks.
It is true that the US and Iran have spoken of progress in previous talks, but one wonders if Mr Araghchi is about to fall into the chasm that exists between the two countries in terms of their expected outcomes.
During Tuesday's State of the Union address, Mr Trump repeated the old line that the US will never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Iran has repeatedly said it is not building a bomb.
But the US also wants to curtail Iran's ballistic missile programme and all but end its nuclear enrichment processes, even for civilian use. Tehran has said these demands are unacceptable.
And Mr Trump last month painted himself into something of a corner when it comes to military action by committing to helping Iranian protesters and encouraging them to rise up against the regime as it was killing thousands of people who had taken to the streets to demonstrate against the worsening economy. A deal now would be seen as a betrayal by many and would make him look like he had been duped.
The last time talks like this took place, Barack Obama was in the White House and his administration spent about two years trying to negotiate the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. One wonders if Tehran thinks it can draw the US into another series of protracted negotiations – but that would be a mistake.
The Geneva talks are far more urgent than the protracted timeline of the JCPOA negotiations. One week ago, Mr Trump gave Iran a deadline of 10 to 15 days to make a new deal with the US. Ten days from then is Saturday.
The US has amassed more firepower in the Middle East than at any time since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and Iran's military capabilities are considerably diminished.
Not only have Tehran's proxies been severely battered by Israel and the US; Iranian military and air defences took a huge hit during last year's 12-day war and America's Operation Midnight Hammer attacks on nuclear sites.
Mr Trump at his State of the Union address on Tuesday said his preference was for diplomacy to win out in resolving the Iran crisis, a message that Vice President JD Vance yesterday repeated when he said he hoped the Iranians took the President's preference seriously in talks.
But Mr Vance also said the US has seen evidence that Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon, echoing the weapons of mass destruction casus belli language before the invasion of Iraq 23 years ago.
My own sense is that this is all lip service while the US gets its last bits of military materiel into place. I've been writing about the US military in one form or another for 20 years and have never seen the Pentagon amass forces on this scale only to turn tail and head home without firing a shot.
Eye on the White House
What it's like to cover the White House on the President's biggest day of the year
As a foreign media reporter covering Mr Trump, I take on “pool” duty at the White House about once a month, writes Jihan Abdalla.
The press pool is a small, rotating group of journalists assigned to cover the President. Each day, there are several “poolers” – one each for print, television, photos and radio. Our job is to provide shared updates and content to the wider press corps.
The day of the State of the Union address happened to be my turn.
Mr Trump delivered his annual address to Congress. It was a long one. He talked about the economy, mostly, but also a bit about Iran.
Typically, presidents host a lunch with American TV network presenters to preview the speech. Mr Trump carried on that tradition.
What's Washington talking about?
Missing The mystery of what happened to Nancy Guthrie has gripped America since she disappeared nearly a month ago. The 84-year-old is the mother of NBC's Today show co-presenter Savannah Guthrie and there has been no sign of her since a doorbell video camera captured footage of a man wearing a ski mask, backpack, gloves and a holstered gun tampering with the device. The Guthrie family this week offered a reward of up to $1 million for information.
The truth is out there Mr Trump said he will tell the Pentagon to start releasing files related to aliens, extraterrestrial life and unidentified flying objects, due to “tremendous interest” in the subject. His announcement came after he accused former president Barack Obama of disclosing “classified information” when discussing aliens.
Biblical right? Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, has said Israel has a “biblical right” to control territory from the Euphrates to the Nile. He made his remarks in an interview with Tucker Carlson, broadcast on Friday. “It would be fine if they took it all,” Mr Huckabee said, before adding “but I don't think that's what we're talking about here today.”
Spotlight: US restaurant reliant on imports from China faces new tariff uncertainty
On a weekend marked by more tariff escalations from Washington, uncertainty is once again rippling through small businesses across the US.
Mr Trump said on Saturday he would raise a new global tariff to 15 per cent, one day after announcing a 10 per cent worldwide duty following a ruling by the Supreme Court that struck down his previous programme.
The decision came after the court found Mr Trump had exceeded his authority under an economic emergency law when imposing higher rates. The administration quickly responded by grounding the new tariffs in a different law, under Section 122, which allows duties of up to 15 per cent but requires congressional approval to extend them beyond 150 days.
No president has previously invoked Section 122, and legal experts question whether the measure could face further challenges in court or resistance in Congress.
Amid the policy shift, small businesses that rely on imported ingredients are watching closely.
At the Q by Peter Chang restaurant in Bethesda, Maryland, Chinese New Year celebrations are in full swing even as tariff uncertainty continues to weigh on operations.
Read more from Nilanjana Gupta
Only in America
Andrew's arrest highlights America's justice system failing in its duty
The arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor in England is the highest-profile instance of one of Europe's elites facing consequences for their association with Jeffrey Epstein, the late child sex offender who cultivated a vast network of some the world's richest and most famous people.
The stunning development has left Britain's Royal Family facing its biggest crisis in modern times. Yet the fact remains that King Charles's younger brother may ultimately be prosecuted by the Crown, showing the UK can still walk the walk when it says no one is above the law.
Embarrassingly for the US Department of Justice, the same cannot be said of America.
On this side of the pond, powerful Americans are not being held to account to anything like the degree they are in Europe. Investigators in Britain, Norway, France, Poland and elsewhere are combing documents to see who was doing what, and when, with the financier who pleaded guilty in 2008 to procuring a child for prostitution, and died in prison in 2019 after his arrest on sex trafficking charges.
Meanwhile, here in Washington, the department appears to be sitting on its hands and has shown little willingness to investigate any Americans named in the files.
Read more
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