Middle East crisis live: Trump orders US to ‘shoot and kill’ boats laying mines in Hormuz strait; Israel-Lebanon truce extended

Donald Trump has claimed that the infighting between moderates and hardliners in Iran’s leadership is so intense that Iranians have “no idea who their leader is”, but many experts questioned his analysis, saying – given the mass assassinations of senior commanders – the country had shown remarkable institutional cohesion.

Trump’s allegations of “CRAZY” splits in the Iranian leadership – the second outing for this argument in three days – is remarkable since he has previously said either he has little knowledge of the new Iranian leadership or that there has already been regime change.

Trump’s team, either through Pakistani mediators or more direct contacts, may be picking up that different factions are demanding different preconditions for the talks to restart. Trump at a minimum is implying that military hardliners have taken charge from the civilian diplomatic leadership.

It is hardly a secret that Iran has been riven for decades over how to approach the US and the wisdom of negotiations, but some Iranian academics and observers are accusing Trump of cognitive warfare: attempting to create what Mohamed Amersi, a member of the Global Advisory Council at the Wilson Centre, described as “chronic systemic paralysis in which the country’s decision-making machine becomes deadlocked”.

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