New Delhi, June 8 -- The two sides negotiating an end to the US-Israel war with Iran agree on almost nothing. But on one question - who must give first - they are, improbably, mirror images of each other.

a confidence-building step without which it cannot move forward. Neither side is prepared to go second.

Trump, speaking to NBC News's Kristen Welker in an interview recorded Friday at a barn in Wisconsin and aired Sunday on Meet the Press, put the sequence plainly. When asked whether he would unfreeze any assets or lift any sanctions as part of an agreement, he said no. "Comes after," he added. "If they behave, if they do a good job, we start talking."

What that formula leaves unresolved is how a country that does not trust the United...