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Filling in more details of an ambitious multi-part strategy Macron floated at Tuesday’s White House news conference, the French president said he is trying to create a new, smaller coalition to build on the JCPOA and make the nuclear ban permanent, ban Iran’s ballistic missile program, and contain Iran’s aggression in Syria, ultimately leading to political negotiations to end the civil war.

And on Friday, Germany’s Angela Merkel will meet with Trump for a few hours to add support for Macron's arguments to Trump on Iran, steel and aluminum tariffs and Syria policy.

first sign something could be wrong came in the May 2017 presidential election.

There are several reasons Iran’s economy hasn’t taken off in the way Rouhani had promised.

But perhaps more important than the uncertainty over the agreement are Iran’s own demographics. Half of all Iranians are under the age of 30. More people are entering the workforce each year than jobs exist or are being created. This all but ensures that a country with near universal literacy—with no gender disparity—will continue to have double-digit unemployment for the foreseeable future.

The protests were able to spread because of, among other things, the penetration of the smartphone—more than 40 percent of Iranian households have access to at least one—which enabled Iranians to use messaging apps to spread the word about the demonstrations.

Ultimately this might have been what prevented them from getting bigger.

This is ultimately what could imperil the Iranian regime. Rouhani’s economic promises have yet to materialize.

“The Islamic Republic,” Takeyh warned, “is entering a period of prolonged transition where it will no longer be able to proffer a theocracy with a human face.”

Negotiations continue in Vienna to see if both the U.S. and Iran can re-enter the deal, which limited Tehran’s enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. Iran and the U.S. aren’t directly negotiating, however.

He also acknowledged Iran’s upcoming June 18 presidential election could mean new faces at the negotiating table. So far, Grossi has been dealing with the administration of the relatively moderate President Hassan Rouhani, which clinched the nuclear deal. Analysts believe hard-liners have an edge going into the vote.

Later, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Mark Milley, said the nature of the missile damage at the targeted bases suggested the attack was intended to take US and allied lives.

A few hours after the president spoke, the fortified diplomatic area in Baghdad, the Green Zone, was hit by two rockets. Initial reports suggest they were fired locally, and caused no casualties, but they were a reminder of the threat of Iraqi militias, some with close ties to Tehran.

Trump’s speech was notably more sober than his more bellicose statements and tweets in the immediate aftermath of Suleimani’s killing, in which he threatened to bomb Iranian cultural sites, a potential war crime. The United States, in recent days, deployed 3,500 paratroopers to the Middle East and Americans were urged to leave the region over safety concerns.

Trump said the United States would continue evaluating options “in response to Iranian aggression” and that additional sanctions on the Iranian regime would be imposed.

Iran is already so heavily sanctioned that few experts believe that further US measures would make much economic difference.

The president stressed the considerable power of the United States military but said that his administration did not seek conflict.

The president, who is campaigning for re-election in November, has faced fierce criticism from senior Democrats in recent days over his administration’s handling of the standoff.

“There were so many important questions that they did not answer,” said Democratic senator Chuck Schumer. “As the questions began to get tough, they walked out.”

Republican senator Mike Lee called it “the worst briefing I’ve had on a military issue in my nine years” in the Senate, according to CNN. Lee called the administration’s handling of the crisis “un-American” and “completely unacceptable”.

On Thursday, the House of Representatives will vote on a war powers resolution that demands an end to US military action against Iran without congressional approval.

Iran launched more than a dozen missiles at Iraqi bases hosting US and coalition troops. Al-Asad airbase in Iraq’s Anbar province was hit 17 times, including by two ballistic missiles that failed to detonate, according to the Iraqi government. A further five missiles were targeted at a base in the northern city of Erbil in the assault, which began at about 1.30am local time on Wednesday.

the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations, Majid Takht Ravanchi, described the strikes as a “measured and proportionate” act of self-defence permitted under the UN Charter, adding that Iran “does not seek escalation or war”

However, while both sides appeared to step back from confrontation in the short term, analysts have warned that the standoff may continue to play out through proxies in the Middle East. Security experts have also warned of possible Iranian cyber attacks on critical infrastructure.

The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, said the “final answer” to the assassination would be to “kick all US forces out of the region”.

In his Wednesday address, Trump again vowed that he would not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon and urged world powers to quit a 2015 nuclear accord with Iran that Washington abandoned in 2018 and work for a new deal, an issue that has been at the heart of rising tensions between Washington and Tehran. Iran has denied it seeks nuclear weapons, and rejected new talks.

Trump also said he would ask Nato to “become much more involved in the Middle East process”, without elaborating. Trump in the past has repeatedly criticized the alliance and further alienated his European partners by failing to warn them about the Suleimani killing.

Ned Price, a former CIA official who also worked on the National Security Council during Barack Obama’s administration, said that the speech had moved the United States somewhat away from the brink of war with Iran.

But Price also noted that by authorizing the Suleimani killing, Trump had “galvanized Tehran’s proxy and military forces into action”. “If history is any guide, they will seek to take on a months’ or even years’-long effort to seek vengeance for Suleimani’s death, taking advantage of their presence throughout the region and even beyond,” Price added.

Administration officials are especially bullish about that strategy in recent days, as Iran’s government contends with renewed protests and absorbs the killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani. And in an ominous turn for Tehran this week, Britain, France and Germany formally accused Iran of violating the 2015 nuclear deal, after months of effectively looking the other way at increased Iranian nuclear activity.

The administration’s current approach “contrasts in an almost perfectly polarized fashion” with Mr. Obama’s, Ms. Maloney said. That strategy, which began with Mr. Trump’s May 2018 abandonment of the nuclear deal and was followed by punishing sanctions on Iran’s financial system and oil exports, “rests on the idea that Iran only responds to really tough pressure.”Ms. Maloney and other analysts say that, like Mr. Obama’s effort at outreach, Mr. Trump’s strangulation approach may also be stymied by an Iranian government that has resisted 40 years of alternating American efforts to reshape or replace it.

Mr. Trump and his top officials insist that is not their goal — especially not through the use of force. “We do not seek war, we do not seek nation-building, we do not seek regime change,” the president said in remarks this month. It is clear, however, that administration officials hope to undermine the Iranian government. Early in Mr. Trump’s presidency, a memo that circulated in his White House written by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish Washington think tank, suggested “a strategy of coerced democratization” for Iran.

"If the US leaves, people across the region will think that despite his flowery rhetorical devices, Trump does not really have a strategy for the Middle East and at the end of the day will fold and go home," Gerges said.

Watling questioned what Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran was aiming to achieve. Iran's long-term strategy in Iraq, on the other hand, is paying off.

Much of Iran's power in Iraq comes through militia groups that have roots in the 1980s Iraq-Iran war. Recruiting fighters from Iraq wasn't that difficult. Iraq was a Shia-majority nation led for more than two decades by brutal dictator Saddam Hussein, born a Sunni. Iran, which has long pitched itself as the world's leader of Shia Muslims, took in Shia prisoners of war and refugees, and turned them into soldiers who would go back to Iraq to act in Tehran's interests, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Some became part of what is now known as the Badr Organization, the report said, both a militia group and an anti-US political party in Iraq today.

As Iran made steady headway in the Iraqi government and military, the US' objective in Iraq has changed so many times that it's become muddy and unfocused.

According to Watling, there are now around 113,000 salaried personnel in the powerful Tehran-backed Iraqi militia group. Of those, some 60,000 are actively deployable as fighters, and of those, 36,000 are directed by Iran.

Despite achieving the regime change the US was looking for, with the capture and execution of Saddam, the US left Iraq in 2011 with an unsteady government in place. It had no choice but to send troops back to put out fires with the spread of ISIS. Iran also took part in the fight against ISIS, but it continued with its drive to boost influence in Iraq.

Anti-government protesters galvanized by deep economic grievances that have accumulated over many years have found themselves facing off with Iranian-backed forces.

Huge crowds were present to witness the rare sermon, with President Hassan Rouhani in the front row alongside parliament speaker Ali Larijani. The last time Khamenei presided over Friday prayers was in 2012 to mark the 33rd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

They come at a pivotal time for Iran, after vigils to mourn those who died in the Ukraine International Airlines crash quickly turned into mass anti-government demonstrations, with calls for Khamenei to step down and for those responsible for downing the plane to be prosecuted.

Iran's military initially denied shooting down the plane before admitting to it several days later, saying the plane was "accidentally hit by human error." Khamenei expressed his condolences to the families of the victims, but said foreign press had tried to deceive Iranians over the crash.

"In these uncertain times, it is more important than ever for all parties to remain calm and exercise maximum restraint in order to avoid escalation which cannot be in anyone's interest,"

The Guardian Council is charged with ensuring draft laws do not contradict Shi’ite Islamic laws or Iran’s constitution

Tehran would give two months to the deal’s European parties to ease sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors, imposed after Washington quit the pact between Tehran and six powers in 2018.

In reaction to U.S. President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy on Tehran, Iran has gradually reduced its compliance with the deal.

The law

would make it harder for U.S. President-elect Joe Biden

to rejoin the agreement.

Biden has said he would return to the pact and would lift sanctions if Tehran returned to “strict compliance with the nuclear deal”.

Rouhani, the Iranian architect of the 2015 deal, criticised parliament’s move as “harmful to diplomatic efforts” aimed at easing U.S. sanctions.

The deal caps the fissile purity to which Iran can refine uranium at 3.67%, far below the 20% achieved before the deal and below the weapons-grade level of 90%. Iran breached the 3.67% cap in July 2019 and the enrichment level has remained steady at up to 4.5% since then.