What has America achieved in Iran?

It's taken four months, and not a "few days" as advertised, but Donald Trump finally has his Iran Deal (or, rather, somebody got it for him). Maybe. Details are still scarce, but it should see the extension of the current shaky ceasefire, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and the lifting of the US and Iran blockades. Much can still go wrong between now and Friday, when the agreement is due to be officially signed, but assuming it does actually happen, where does that leave things?

Well, essentially it leaves things pretty much where they were before the war, but with America, Iran and most of the rest of the world worse off. It's being called Trump's worst foreign policy blunder so far - and there have been a few! - an ill-advised, botched affair that should never have happened.

It has soured America's relations with the Gulf states, and severely damaged their reputations (albeit through no fault of their own) as islands of stability in a turbulent Middle East. 

It has weakened the US militarily, as it burned through much more of its expensive and hard-to-replace weapons stocks than expected. At the same time, it has provided an important free lesson to the equally heavily-armed and belligerent China as it continues to consider military action against Taiwan. Russia too will have been watching closely.

The global economy has taken a huge and unnecessary hit, for which the USA will be eternally (and rightly) blamed, with some countries in Asia and Africa in particular bearing the brunt of the suffering as oil prices surged and the supply of oil, petrochemicals, fertilizer and other important resources were strangled for months on end.

The future of Iran's nuclear program, and the level of sanctions levied against it, remain to be negotiated, essentially the same position as things were at on 27th February, just before the US-Israeli attacks (except, then at least, negotiations on these matters were already well advanced).

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenai and other members of his administration and miltary are now dead, but succeeded by younger and equally radical replacements. The repressive theocratic regime remains intact, arguably even more entrenched, embittered and emboldened, and the Iranian people are no better off than they were.

America's relationship with Israel - or at least with Prime Minster Netanyahu - has also suffered, once it became clear that Israel's goals were quite different from those of the USA. (Surprise!) Israel looks on the US-Iran agreement with dismay, as they are still looking to make further incursions into Lebanon, and would like to see Iran totally destroyed, which, despite Trump's bluster, it evidently is not.

The whole sorry affair, then, is petering out, more with a whimper than a bang. Any agreement that does come out of it is unlikely to be much different from what Barack Obama achieved all those years ago. And that will really rankle with Trump. Thousands of Iranians and other Middle Easteners have lost their lives, reputations across the board have been damaged, the world is poorer and more unstable, the global economy is screwed up, and tempers are further frayed.

Good job, Donny!