The decision by US President Donald Trump to abandon the United States’ participation in the joint comprehensive plan of action (JCPOA) was widely anticipated on the strength of his repeated negative comments about the deal. He had also recently appointed John Bolton as his national security adviser and Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State. Both of those men were known to hold strongly anti-Iran views.

The perils of coming to premature conclusions before all the facts are available has been starkly demonstrated by the latest developments in the alleged nerve gas attack upon the former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the English town of Salisbury on 4 March 2018.