The US set out to coerce Iran and failed to achieve its core objectives. Worse still, a precedent has now been established, writes the former army officer
History may not record the agreement signed between the United States and Iran as a treaty. It may instead remember it as something far more uncomfortable: a surrender document.
President Trump never clearly articulated the strategic objectives of his military adventure against Tehran. Yet we can reasonably assume they included several familiar aims: regime change, the destruction of Iran's nuclear programme, the dismantling of its missile capabilities, the weakening of its armed forces and the elimination of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The Iranian regime remains firmly in place. Despite the elimination of successive layers of military and political leadership, there has been no popular uprising. No collapse from within. No revolution. If anything, the regime emerges more entrenched and more dependent upon the IRGC than before.
The Revolutionary Guards, long regarded as the regime's praetorian guard, are now arguably more powerful than they were before the conflict began.
As for Iran's nuclear ambitions, we are being asked to trust that Tehran will halt its programme. Forgive me if I remain sceptical.
Western leaders have spent decades being assured that Iran's nuclear ambitions were peaceful. We all know how that turned out. Any reparations, sanctions relief or renewed oil revenues flowing into Tehran will inevitably free up resources that can be directed towards military rebuilding, missile development and nuclear research.
The central reality is that Iran discovered the one pressure point America could not easily overcome - The Strait of Hormuz.
Many analysts predicted from the outset that Tehran's ultimate weapon would not be its missiles, drones or proxy militias. It would be geography. Roughly a fifth of the world's oil supply passes through this narrow waterway. Close it and the global economy feels immediate pain.
Reopening the Strait by force would have required a vastly larger military commitment than anything Washington appeared willing to contemplate. Air strikes are one thing. Sustained maritime and ground operations against a determined regional power are quite another.
The result is that Tehran successfully leveraged its strategic position to force negotiations on terms that preserve the regime and restore its economic lifeline.
That is not victory for Washington. It is defeat. Not on the scale of Vietnam. Not on the scale of the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. But certainly serious enough to be mentioned in the same breath.
The world's sole superpower set out to coerce a regional adversary and failed to achieve its core objectives.
Worse still, the precedent is now established.
Iran has demonstrated that closing the Strait of Hormuz works. The next time Tehran wants concessions, relief from sanctions or leverage over the West, why would it not reach for the same tool again?
The danger is that this agreement may buy temporary calm while storing up a much larger crisis for the future.
Veteran broadcaster Andrew Neil summed up the concerns rather neatly on social media when he observed that President Trump signed his agreement with Iran at Versailles.
Neil argued that this "Versailles 2.0" may prove every bit as flawed as the original. Under the agreement, Iran's oil exports are expected to resume rapidly, potentially generating around $60billion annually for the regime. That revenue could fund missile production, support proxy organisations across the Middle East and sustain future nuclear ambitions long after international attention has drifted elsewhere.
Indeed, reports already suggest Iranian tankers have begun moving oil through the Gulf in anticipation of renewed exports.
If true, the regime is already collecting the dividends of survival. The lesson for Britain should be obvious. Military power matters. Economic leverage matters. Strategic resolve matters. But all three are worthless without a clearly defined end state.
Wars should not be judged by the number of targets hit or bombs dropped. They should be judged by whether their political objectives are achieved.
America entered this confrontation seeking to reshape Iranian behaviour. Iran entered seeking survival. Only one side appears to have achieved its objective. And that is why the Strait of Hormuz may ultimately be remembered as the battlefield on which Iran defeated the United States.