If there was a moment when President Donald Trump’s carefully crafted diplomatic initiative was derailed and Iran’s fate was sealed, it was on June 4, when Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,

Trump has weighed up striking Iran, possibly with a “bunker buster” bomb that could destroy nuclear sites deep underground. With the Islamic Republic facing one of its greatest external threats since the 1979 revolution, any direct challenge to its 46-year rule would be likely to require some form of popular uprising.