After the hubristic beginnings came the reality. The road travelled since the most momentous foreign policy decision of his presidency seems to have delivered Donald Trump to a sobering destination: that Iran has been the nemesis of several US presidents before him for a reason and is an adversary not to be taken lightly. It is an oft-stated principle of warfare that hopes and plans optimistically hatched and trumpeted at its outbreak do not survive first contact with the enemy. Yet even by that cautionary standard, Trump’s wildly diverging goals and narratives since embarking on war with Iran on 28 February amount to a bewildering odyssey that – in the end – threatens to take him back to where he started. After weeks of stop-start negotiations, the US and Iran now reportedly stand on the verge of a deal to end the fighting, the most immediate and tangible consequence of which will be the reopening of the strait of Hormuz.…