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Hello and welcome to NewsHour.

It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service studios in central London.

I'm Tim Franks.

Later in the programme, we'll hear about the new Israeli law.

It's just been passed in the Knesset, which brings in the death penalty as the default punishment for terrorists.

Its critics say it's framed just to target, Palestinians will have more on that in 30 minutes.

First, though, one of the great cliches about war is that it's conducted in a fog, a fog for those fighting,

a fog for those of us trying to work out what's going on.

Perhaps another weather metaphor is needed for this conflict, the whirlwind of President Trump's running commentary.

Once again today, he said both that the US is in serious discussions with what he called the new and more reasonable

regime in Tehran, that there'd been, as he put it, great progress. At the same time, the

president warned that should that great progress not reach fruition, then he would conclude

what he called our lovely stay in Iran by completely obliterating all of their electric-generating plants, oil wells and

Khaag Island, and possibly all desalinization plants. For its part, the Iranian foreign ministry

spokesman has said that the U.S. proposals that have been seen are unrealistic, illogical and excessive.

So what are President Trump's military options? Should you decide to escalate the war?

Michael Eisenstadt is director of the Military and Security Studies Program at the Washington

Institute for Near East Policy. Much of the discussion is focusing on whether the United States

might seize Carg Island in order to use it as a bargaining chip to obtain freedom of

navigation through the Strait of Pormuz.

But seizing Carg Island is not the only way to deal with this problem.

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