U.S. and Iranian negotiators remain “very far apart," Leavitt said, as Trump raises fears of an attack by sending more military forces to the region.

The White House spokeswoman says there are "many reasons and arguments that one could make for a strike against Iran".

Iran has been joined by Russia and China in deploying naval vessels for a joint live-fire exercise in the Strait

Iran’s bourgeois-clerical regime is offering substantial concessions to the US in talks, while at the same time issuing sabre-rattling warnings about the consequences of an all-out war. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi commented after Tuesday’s three-hour-long talks that a “set of guiding principles” had been agreed to.

A timely delivery of substantial numbers of Mi-28s and Su-35s would be too little too late for reversing the self-inflicted terminal decline of Iran’s armed forces.