Listening to U.S. and Arab negotiators recount inside details of their long, zigzag bargaining with Iran over the past five months, I have the sense that the framework announced Sunday isn’t the end of this story but an intermediate step—one that could ultimately prove a dismal failure or, the Trump administration hopes, the start of an extraordinary transformation toward a modern Iran.

Let’s be frank: In diplomatic terms, this agreement is an exit ramp from a costly and unpopular war, not a victory parade. The deal falls far short of President Donald Trump’s early talk of regime change and unconditional surrender. Even one of Trump’s close advisers concedes: “It’s inconclusive right now, in the sense that you can’t say it was a huge success, and you can’t say it was a failure.”

Listening to U.S. and Arab negotiators recount inside details of their long, zigzag bargaining with Iran over the past five months, I have the sense that the framework announced Sunday isn’t the end of this story but an intermediate step—one that could ultimately prove a dismal failure or, the Trump administration hopes, the start of an extraordinary transformation toward a modern Iran.

Let’s be frank: In diplomatic terms, this agreement is an exit ramp from a costly and unpopular war, not a victory parade. The deal falls far short of President Donald Trump’s early talk of regime change and unconditional surrender. Even one of Trump’s close advisers concedes: “It’s inconclusive right now, in the sense that you can’t say it was a huge success, and you can’t say it was a failure.”

There are more question marks than answers: The details of limiting Tehran’s nuclear program haven’t been negotiated yet. The Strait of Hormuz is reopening, but perhaps only temporarily. The agreement seems to apply to Lebanon, but that doesn’t mean Israel or Hezbollah will abide by it. And most worrying of all, a hard-line regime remains in power in Tehran, able to threaten its Arab neighbors and Israel.

The principal U.S. negotiators have been Trump’s special emissaries, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, the president’s son-in-law and close friend, respectively. They aren’t diplomats but investors. That has given this negotiation a peculiar risk-reward character. It’s an investor pitch rather than a diplomat’s........

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