S&P 500 (SPY) is range-bound as US-Israel tensions with Iran loom. Key levels: 6764 support, 6550 downside target. Read more macro analysis here.

Paul Salem of the Middle East Institute noted that Trump’s message has shifted sharply. While just days ago he framed potential U.S. strikes as leverage to push Iran toward a nuclear deal, his speech announcing them openly called for regime change.

Calling the Iranians a “paper tiger,” Asulin, a scholar at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA), said that the opening strike “was a lethal opening blow."

A former ABC executive and Jewish and Iranian community leaders say the network’s “facile analysis” of the US-Israel strikes on Iran by chief US correspondent John Lyons advanced ­“classic antisemitic tropes”.

By Samia Nakhoul, Parisa Hafezi and John Irish DUBAI, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Iran and the United States are sliding rapidly towards military conflict as hopes fade for a diplomatic solution to their standoff over Tehran’s nuclear programme,

Iran's attack might have the opposite effect, bringing Gulf countries closer together and enabling cooperation with the US and among themselves.

US-Iran conflict is the dominant issue, pricing in $10/bbl risk premium. Strait of Hormuz blockade could send Brent crude prices surging. Oil prices are unlikely to feel any significant pressure even if OPEC and its allies slightly raise production in April.

President Donald Trump is not asking Iran to give up anything it currently has, and in return he is willing to give Iran almost everything it doesn’t have.