This is what diplomacy by bludgeon looks like. You take a set of desired outcomes, as US secretary of state Mike Pompeo did when laying out the Trump administration’s new approach to Iran on Monday. Then you demand that the rest of the world fall in line until the results are in hand. Or else.

Washington might appear to believe that the sanctions it will impose unilaterally, in the wake of the decision earlier this month to abrogate the Iran nuclear deal, will alone force a change of behaviour. However reluctantly, other world powers will be obliged to follow America’s uncompromising stance — so this thinking goes. Iranian oil production will fall, export receipts will too, and Iran will be cut off from the global financial system. As the economy stumbles, the clerical establishment will throw up a white flag and comply with all 12 “basic requirements” on Mr Pompeo’s wish list.

Mr Trump will have the “comprehensive deal” he promised. That is: Tehran will give up uranium enrichment for good, withdraw from Syria, cease support for rebels in Yemen, pull the plug on allied militant groups — including Hizbollah and Hamas — and stop meddling in Iraq. It will also scrap its ballistic missile programme.