Tensions between the US and Iran had rumbled on ever since Donald Trump’s unwise withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear accord.
The administration had designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a foreign terrorist organisation in April 2019 and blamed Tehran for attacks on oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz in May.
But the rift finally threatened to burst into conflict when the Revolutionary Guard shot down a US Navy RQ-4A Global Hawk surveillance drone on 20 June, with General Hossein Salami saying it had “violated Iranian airspace”.
