Donald Trump's war against Iran began with one gamble and ended with another. Initially, the president bet that he could stop Iran's nuclear ambitions by bombing Iran's revolutionary regime out of existence. So he spent tens of billions of dollars, and upended the global economy, only to sign a memorandum of understanding undoubtedly weaker than any deal he could have struck before the war. Embedded in this document is a new gamble: that if Iran's revolutionaries can't be dislodged by force, they might instead be bribed to abandon their identity. The memorandum offers a bundle of American inducements so lopsided that it reads as if Tehran wrote the plan unilaterally. Of its 14 provisions, 13 either amount to diplomatic boilerplate or heavily favor Iran on their face. Tehran will receive military and economic concessions'and de facto acknowledgment of its control over the Strait of Hormuz'in exchange for a concession that it will not develop or buy nuclear weapons. Never mind that...
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