When bargaining about war and peace, the strategist Thomas Schelling wrote, you’re more likely to win concessions “if you get a reputation for being reckless, demanding, or unreliable.”

By that measure, President Donald Trump and Iran’s hard-line leaders both deserve what we might call the Schelling Prize for negotiations. They scrambled up the ladder of escalation without clearly defined objectives or a strategy for climbing down. Their recklessness was believable. But they seem to have come back from the brink.

When bargaining about war and peace, the strategist Thomas Schelling wrote, you’re more likely to win concessions “if you get a reputation for being reckless, demanding, or unreliable.”

By that measure, President Donald Trump and Iran’s hard-line leaders both deserve what we might call the Schelling Prize for negotiations. They scrambled up the ladder of escalation without clearly defined objectives or a strategy for climbing down. Their recklessness was believable. But they seem to have come back from the brink.

This game of chicken paused Monday morning, just hours before the expiration of Trump’s ultimatum to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants unless it agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Trump made a surprise announcement that he’d had “very good and productive conversations regarding a complete and........

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