Trump hits Iran with fresh sanctions after first round of peace talks - cue Israel with talk of it all being a trap! Right, so Donald Trump is doing that thing again where he calls it diplomacy while tightening the screws at the exact same time, and people still pretend those two tracks aren’t connected. Iran turns up for talks in Muscat, Oman calls it “very serious”, their Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi calls it a good start, and then the United States Treasury drops a fresh sanctions package on Iran’s shipping network as the talks concluded, naming vessels, naming companies, naming individuals, as if the “good start” is just a photo opportunity you do while the punishment keeps rolling. And while that’s happening, Israeli media is already floating the idea that the talks themselves are a trap, the same kind of slow lull that ends with a sudden ...