It is not clear how the Iran-US deal will unfold over the next several months. The announced ceasefire and framework are more of a mechanism to postpone resolving deeper divides that still pose risks. Even if it survives, the deal will be at best a sullen ceasefire, not a peace settlement. Ahead of elections, the Donald Trump administration has incentives to avoid appearing bogged down as well as to avoid the risk of inflation and energy shocks. Once that constraint is removed, will Trump accept the strategic reality of the limits of American power? Or will he, and the American system, succumb to temptation to satiate wounded pride?

Israel, so far, has had every motive to undermine a possible agreement. Israel’s quest for complete military dominance has not produced either security or lasting control. It is diplomatically isolated. But the war may produce other convulsions in the region: States like Iraq become more likely sites of proxy competition. Iran’s effective practice of sovereignty has hugely exposed the vulnerabilities and costs to the Gulf states of letting the US set the terms for the region. But all these states, Iran included, could still see domestic political turmoil that complicates any peace calculus.

In India, there is much hand-wringing over the fact that it was an irrelevant player in this entire conflict. But India’s diagnosis of this irrelevance, and what the world needs now, is deeply mistaken. Any mature power should not worry about who gets to mediate. India did not have the leverage, alliance relationships, or, frankly, the........

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