The United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran following negotiations and a crackdown on mass protests against the Islamic Republic. Here are the key actors in the crisis: President Donald Trump The US president has sought to position himself as a global peacemaker, but on Iran, he has taken a consistently hard line. Last year, his forces joined Israel’s war with the Islamic Republic by conducting strikes on nuclear sites. During the mass protests that shook Iran in January, Trump warned he would hit “very hard” if authorities “start killing people like they have in the past”. In his first term, Trump was the architect of the “maximum pressure” doctrine aimed at weakening Iran economically and diplomatically. In 2018, he pulled the United States out of the international ...