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A rare thing happened on Sunday night: One of President Donald Trump’s posts on social media was absolutely true. He said that Iran’s response to the U.S. ceasefire proposal was “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE”—and he’s right, it is totally unacceptable.

But what is Trump going to do about it? What can he do about it? The answer, alas, is not much—at least not much that is likely to have an effect on the Iranian leaders’ behavior. Trump is caught in a trap, and it’s a trap of his own making.

Iranian spokesmen laid out their counterproposal in a statement Monday morning. They demand an end to the war (including Israel’s war in Lebanon), an end to the U.S. blockade, a pledge of no further U.S. or Israeli attacks, reparations for damages, a lifting of Western economic sanctions, the release of Iran’s frozen assets, Iran’s continued control over the Strait of Hormuz (which is in international waters), and a postponement of any negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program until all of these demands are satisfied.

These are the sorts of demands that the winner of a war would issue. By making them, Iran’s leaders are proclaiming that they won this war—and, in a sense, they are right. Victory in war means making an opponent bend to your will. In asymmetric war, the ostensibly weaker power wins by not losing. The Iranians have bowed to none of Trump’s stated war aims (regime change, dismantling all nuclear assets and ballistic missiles, abandoning terrorist militia groups, or opening the Strait of Hormuz). Meanwhile, Iran’s continued ability to keep the Strait closed to all but its preferred customers (mainly Russia and China) is squeezing the global economy, including that of the United States. The fact that it is able to do so, despite a massive U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign that destroyed or damaged more than 13,000 Iranian targets and killed the entire top echelon of........

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