There is a particular kind of deal that feels triumphant on the day it is signed and corrosive on every day thereafter. The 14-point memorandum of understanding (MoU) the Trump administration concluded with Iran this week is shaping up to be exactly that species of triumph – the kind that requires applauding quickly, before anyone understands the implications.

Start with what is genuinely credible, because it is real. The president’s campaign on ending a shooting war, not managing one indefinitely, and a negotiated halt to active hostilities – one that reopens the Strait of Hormuz, lifts a naval blockade, and stops the bombing on all sides – is not nothing. Wars that end through exhaustion rather than victory still end, and the alternative to this MoU was not a better deal sitting on the table; it was an open-ended military commitment with no obvious exit. Give credit where it belongs: This administration was willing to use force when diplomacy failed, and willing to negotiate once force had made its point. That sequencing – military pressure first, diplomacy second – is precisely the theory of the case this president has always offered, and on its own terms it is not unreasonable.

But this triumph also has a very obvious shortcoming. The ceasefire was negotiated without the ally that has borne the highest cost for confronting Iran for the past two decades: Israel. The talks ran through Washington, through Pakistani mediators, through Geneva and Versailles – everywhere, it seems, except Israel, the........

© Al Jazeera