Bill Press, the former California Democratic Party chair, believes Donald Trump's administration already knew a strike on Iran would be made while also hosting peace talks with representatives. In a column for The Hill, Press claimed a decision could have been made as early as before Trump delivered his State of the Union address.

Press wrote, "Iran didn’t walk away from making a new deal. The U.S. did — and it started bombing the next morning. In fact, there is reason to believe that the entire Geneva operation was only a smokescreen, designed to fool Iran’s leaders into thinking the U.S. was negotiating in good faith.

"Clearly, the decision to bomb Iran had already been made before the State of the Union, while the Trump administration was still pretending to be seriously interested in diplomacy." Press went on to suggest that the deal the US and Iran had discussed before the bombing was nearing a reasonable conclusion.

"It is also not true, as Trump claims, that Iran 'walked away from the table' without agreeing to abandon plans to build a nuclear bomb. In fact, as late as last Friday, negotiations between Iran and the U.S., moderated by Oman, were still underway in Geneva — with public assurances of progress being made."