Trump says he does not make bad deals, but even Republican hawks doubt that now

On 24 May each year, Iranians celebrate a historic victory in the war with Iraq: the liberation of Khorramshahr in 1982. This year, some were hoping a peace deal looking likely to be signed with the US might mark a similar turning point in their country’s history. Last minute disagreements meant it looked unlikely a final Pakistani memorandum would be signed as hoped for on Sunday, but what seems clear is that the US has accepted it cannot achieve through war what it set out to do when it began the conflict on 28 February in terms of forcing Iran to make concessions over its nuclear programme. Instead, the US has apparently had to promise to unfreeze billions of Iranian assets upfront, handing them over to a regime that is more hardline than the one that entered the war. In return, the strait of Hormuz will gradually be reopened and commercial traffic will return to prewar levels, releasing the chokehold on the world economy. So, Iran receives its assets in return for restoring the prewar status quo. The amount of assets and the timing of their dispersal may turn on the concessions it gives on the nuclear file, especially its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. It was disagreement on this that triggered one of the last-minute hitches that held up a deal on Sunday, since Iran is insisting the nuclear talks cannot start with such inbuilt commitments. Donald Trump insists he does not make bad deals, and says this is not one. …