Iran’s proposal puts Trump in a bind

The gap between the US and Iranian positions is widening. Whatever understandings existed have vanished. Driving the widening of the gap are US inflexibility, the increased influence of Iranian hardliners due to the war, and the expectation that domestic and economic pressure will force the other to blink first. The question is whether the widening gap takes on a life of its own, with a renewal of hostilities making a return to negotiations in the near future next to impossible, or constitutes brinkmanship to push the other to concede first. Which way the pendulum will swing hangs in the balance.