President Donald Trump has form in claiming that he is in active negotiations with other leaders, or with countries, when the other parties deny any such thing is happening, and it turns out that they were right. So it's somewhat surreal to find him making exactly that sort of claim about the Iranian leadership, when there is precisely nothing you would expect could be achieved by doing so. Except that any excuse to delay an unviable deadline gives him more time to come up with more distractions. And any excuse will give the stock market a boost and oil markets a price drop - and that's enough for today's headlines. But it's hard to see how any of it turns into the off-ramp he's now obviously seeking. Let's discuss.