When Donald Trump launched his war against Iran in late February, he had ambitious goals: to topple Iran’s theocratic regime, destroy its military capabilities and nuclear program, and instigate a popular uprising by Iranians. A week into the war, Trump said he would only accept Iran’s “unconditional surrender”. On Sunday, Trump settled for a deal that reopens the strait of Hormuz.

The US president celebrated having solved a problem he had created: reopening a vital waterway through which more than a fifth of the world’s oil supply passed each day – before Iran effectively closed it at the start of the war, increasing energy prices and disrupting the global economy. “Ships of the World, start your engines,” Trump wrote on social media in announcing the latest deal. “Let the oil flow!”

This isn’t a typical case of Trump making grandiose claims, declaring victory and moving on to his next obsession. Trump cornered himself by starting a war of choice, along with Israel, aimed at regime change in Tehran. But Iran withstood weeks of intense bombing by two of the world’s most powerful militaries, and its rulers emerged more defiant and with greater leverage than they had before the conflict. The regime turned its geographic proximity to the strait of Hormuz into a new weapon that allows it to disrupt shipments of not just oil and liquified natural gas, but fertilizer and other key agricultural products that could instigate global food shortages. Iran knows it can’t fight a head-on battle with the US military, but Trump showed its leaders that they could hold the world’s economy hostage.

And the much-hyped deal, which is expected to be formally signed on Friday in Geneva, doesn’t end the war. It’s essentially a 60-day extension of a ceasefire that was reached between Iran and the US on 8 April, but did not lead to the reopening of the strait of Hormuz because Trump then imposed a........

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