The Irish Independent’s View: Tense two weeks ahead as world waits for Trump’s next move on Iran

Mr Trump will give the process two weeks before making a decision on whether to attack.

The dialling back in the doom and gloom offers welcome respite.

Until now, the only change we have seen has been for the worse. Any path, no matter how dense, back towards diplomacy, must be followed to the end.

News that foreign ministers from France, Germany and the UK and the EU’s high representative are meeting Iran’s foreign minister in Geneva, with an offer of “comprehensive negotiations”, is also positive. French president Emmanuel Macron said the talks must focus on zero uranium enrichment, a process that is involved in both nuclear fuel and producing weapons. Iran has previously drawn a red line here.

Israel has been claiming for years that Tehran is only months away from being able to pose a nuclear threat. How real this is, we simply do not know, but Tehran has the ability to remove all doubt.

The expansion of this conflict could light a fire that no one can control

What we do know is that Tel Aviv’s precipitate bombing before we know the full extent of the threat has turned the whole region into a cauldron.

One ill-conceived move could trigger a disastrous chain reaction. At a meeting of the UN Security Council, secretary general Antonio Guterres said the violence had set the world “racing towards” a crisis.

“The expansion of this conflict could light a fire that no one can control,” he said.

He too believes “the nuclear question” is the central issue and noted: “Iran has repeatedly stated that it is not seeking nuclear weapons. But let’s recognise there is a trust gap.” Mr Guterres has appealed for a de-escalation dialogue.

It has to be remembered that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was responsible for starting this current flare-up. Why Washington should plunge headlong into it, risking being embroiled in a hell­scape that offers no off-ramp, has yet to be explained.

They said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none

After all, Mr Trump vowed he would not see US troops sucked into “other people’s wars”.

Media reports have highlighted how, in 2016, he called the invasion of Iraq a “big fat mistake”.

He claimed it was the result of deliberate deception by US intelligence. “They lied,” he said during a Republican primary debate in February that year. “They said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none. And they knew there were none.”

Analysts have pointed out how he now sits in the White House, mulling entering a war that has an uncanny similarity to Operation Iraqi Freedom. And that he had said was a waste of “$2 trillion [€1.73tn].”

We may once again be in the dark as to how real the threat of weapons of mass destruction is.

However, our eyes must be wide open to the risks a war involving the US alongside Israel could pose to a region already on the brink from too many threats.