The apocalypse will not happen, but Trump did not achieve the expected success.

90 minutes before Donald Trump’s ultimatum expired, miraculous Pakistani mediation helped prevent the worst. Two weeks of ceasefire to be able to negotiate an agreement, during which the passage of the Strait of Hormuz should be freed.

Each party claims victory and will find an echo chamber to support this claim. But this agreement is too fragile to truly be considered the beginning of the end of this major conflict, even if the world can only be relieved that the reckless escalation envisioned by Donald Trump has been avoided, with its tragic consequences.

President Donald Trump avoids two pitfalls: backing down on this ultimatum without achieving anything, and plunging forward without a real strategy. He was looking for a way out and may have found it, but without achieving the expected success. In fact, Donald Trump’s strategy was based on three biased bets, influenced by the Israeli vision that was “sold” to him by Benjamin Netanyahu.

The first of these bets was to believe that an American ultimatum accompanied by threats of apocalypse would make the survivors of the current Iranian regime capitulate.

Donald Trump will strive to show that this is the case, but this reading does not withstand analysis. The regime is still there, even more radical with a new generation of Revolutionary Guards in charge; it frees the Strait of Hormuz but does not lose control of it; and finally, it does not commit at this stage to separate from the enriched uranium it possesses, which was one of the initial war goals.

Threatening the Iranians, who see themselves as descendants of ancient Persia, with civilization erasure was a mark of arrogance, not tactical genius. Regimes may change, but the Persian civilization will not disappear under the bombs.

One should not underestimate, and this is Trump’s second lost bet, that in response to the threat of destruction of Iranian infrastructure, Tehran promised to bring apocalypse to the region in turn. Evidently, the thousands of bombings have not succeeded in eliminating the Iranian capability to retaliate.

The third bet was a popular uprising of the Iranian population once the war started: this did not happen, and the regime, bruised but not destroyed, instead hardened repression during the bombings, deterring any protest.

It has been said since the beginning of this war: the mindset of the current Iranian leaders, who believe they are engaged in an existential struggle they have been preparing for decades, is that they will consider it a victory to ensure the survival of the regime, even if there are only ruins around them.

The upcoming part is challenging because Tehran knows this war is unpopular in the United States, and will negotiate knowing that no one wants a resumption of hostilities. While everyone claims victory, the losers are known: it is the Iranian people who have suffered through hell and still do not have the freedom promised to them.