What’s the big deal, Mr President?

So the Iranian civilisation lives to fight another day. Just hours before Trump’s ultimatum expired, the two sides agreed to a two-week ceasefire.

They then began to negotiate a more permanent arrangement on the basis of a ten-point plan put forth by Iran. For that special occasion, her new Supreme Leader, the son of the old one, left the coma in which, according to Trump, he had been for weeks.

Or perhaps Mojtaba Khamenei was dead, I’m not sure which. If so, he rose again, which is most appropriate during this season. One way or the other, he put his signature on the ten points.

“’They are very good points –  and most of them have been fully negotiated,” announced Trump jubilantly. The deal, he added, was “a total and complete victory”.

If so, I’m anxious to find out what a total and complete defeat would look like. For, from where I’m sitting, Iran’s “good points” look very much like the terms of surrender dictated by the victor to the vanquished.

Let me stipulate straight away that we are at the beginning, not the end, of the negotiations. Hence I can comment only on the ten points that Trump likes so much that he chalks them up as yet another triumph of his tenure, possibly the best Peace Deal every SECURED by any US PRESIDENT or any other World Leader.

Sorry, I may be jumping the gun there, for Trump hasn’t yet described the ten points in such terms. But I can confidently predict he will – why break the stylistic habits of a lifetime?

However, on the basis of the information we know already, what was actually achieved during the 39 days of hostilities and endorsed by the ten-point deal to end all deals?

First, Iran agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz for the duration of the ceasefire. That’s welcome news, and the oil markets certainly think so. On the other hand, the Strait of Hormuz was already open before the war started. Moreover, oil tankers could pass through it for free.

However, according to the ten points, each will now have to pay a $1 million toll for the privilege, with Iran’s control over the waterway to be chiselled in stone. Hence, the US will lose something she had before, and Iran will gain something she never had before.

What else? The US will be obligated to compensate Iran for the damage and withdraw all her troops from the region. That sounds to me like America’s ceding a vital strategic position, one she has enjoyed for decades.

Also, the US and her allies must undertake to lift all sanctions on Iran, those first imposed by Jimmy Carter in 1979. Again, Iran’s gain is the West’s loss. As a result, Iran will get richer and stronger, with something telling me she won’t devote her new resources to strictly humanitarian ends.

And, the most glaring concession: the US and her allies must recognise Iran’s right to uranium enrichment. Granted, Iran promises not to use her newly and openly enriched uranium for producing nuclear weapons. That’s all right then – surely the ayatollahs’ word is their bond.

Still, I can’t help wondering what else Iran needs enriched uranium for, considering that the country has the third largest oil reserves in the world (trailing only Saudi Arabia and Venezuela). They have enough energy sloshing underfoot not to want to spend billions on all those reactors, centrifuge cascades and nuclear power plants.

So forgive me for sounding incredulous, but that good and fully negotiated point spells bad news for Israel first and, second, whichever Western country the ayatollahs dislike most. Why, it could even be the US, baptised the ‘Great Satan’ by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979 and going by that nickname ever since.

I think Trump should add an eleventh point to the list he likes so much: Iranians must promise not to scream “Death to America” at every public gathering and official function. If Iran agrees, that will be another triumph produced by the self-appointed Dealmaker-in-Chief.

As things look now – and again I must disclaim that we don’t know what will happen in a fortnight and what kind of agreement will actually emerge – America has suffered an embarrassing defeat, not unlike the debacle of the Vietnam War.

Then too the US won a military victory, which, however, didn’t save her from a resounding political defeat. The Vietcong was totally wiped out during the 1968 Tet Offensive, which American ‘liberal’ media malevolently depicted as a defeat.

From then on, it wasn’t Vietcong guerrillas but the regular army of North Vietnam fighting on, and the US had the means of annihilating that enemy too. Military means, that is, not the political ones and nor the will required.

When Trump was issuing his apocalyptic threats to bomb Iran into the Stone Age, destroy her energy infrastructure (something the Geneva Convention identifies as a war crime) and in general obliterate Iran’s civilisation, he was labouring under the same restrictions.

The US, ably assisted by Israel if no one else, had the military means to act on those threats. What Trump emphatically didn’t have was the will to pay the price.

Notwithstanding his deranged and obscene threats and his acolytes’ dark hints about possible nuclear strikes, everyone knew that real victory could only be achieved by a ground invasion. Trump found out what his predecessors and counterparts always knew: you can’t defeat an evil regime from 30,000 feet up in the air.

The US and Israeli air offensive on Iran was spectacularly successful as an exercise in using aerial power. The generals, pilots and weapon designers did their job, and they did it well. So, by the way, did the US Air Force and army in Vietnam. Yet that war was lost, and so – as things look now – has been this one.

It’s clear that in war as in peace Trump was flying by the seat of his pants. He started the hostilities without first setting realistic and achievable objectives. At the beginning, the possibility of using ground forces wasn’t considered even remotely.

If it had been, airborne and other forces would have been deployed in the region before the bombardment began, just in case they might be needed. But Trump, the Greatest Strategist Ever, thought he could bring Iran to her knees by aerial devastation and a popular uprising it would inspire.

The devastation did happen, but no revolution materialised. Yes, Iran’s military capability was severely degraded. But then everyone knew she was no match for US power in anything resembling regular warfare. But Iran is ruled by a terrorist regime, and it fights by terrorist means.

It can wreak havoc by firing cheap drones at America’s allies in the region, threatening to destroy their economies. It can also blackmail the world by dropping a few mines into the Strait of Hormuz and threatening to plunge the world into a recession from hell.

As for its destroyed navy, air force and industrial base, Iran will rebuild them faster than Trump seems to think. China is generous with her proxies, and Iran won’t be short of either money or technology. Plus her own revenue streams will reach maximum flow, what with the Strait tolls and no sanctions.

America, meanwhile, has lost much of her international prestige, and the cruel acronym TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) is on many people’s lips, including in America herself. NATO, the most successful defensive bloc in history (and this isn’t a Trump-style hyperbole) lies in ruins, evil tyrants such as Putin and Xi are getting more and more emboldened.

And Iran’s appetite for international terrorism is certainly more ravenous than it ever was, which is saying a lot.

Meanwhile, just hours ago, Iran stopped oil tankers reluctant to pay a king’s ransom to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, launched a drone strike on a Saudi oil pipeline and demanded Israel cease her attacks on Lebanon.  

A total and complete victory indeed. The question is: for whom?