Right, so Donald Trump entered this war demanding Iran's unconditional surrender, as if he were at a drive-thru shouting for a cheeseburger and expecting Tehran to include a free milkshake. Back in February, he assumed the whole conflict would be finished in four weeks, maybe even sooner if he skipped dessert. Five months of bombing, threats, and increasingly tense victory laps later, Iran still has not surrendered, and now Trump is out here giving them a gold star for refusing to break.

Five months on, Iran is still refusing to hand over the white flag, no matter how many times Trump waves his own like he is trying to hail a taxi in a hurricane. Is it TACO Tuesday again already?

Trump admitted at Camp David that Iran "hasn't" given up. Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman reportedly warned Trump that another major US attack could bring Iranian retaliation down on Saudi and other Gulf energy infrastructure. And Netanyahu told Fox that what happens next is, "in many ways, [Trump's] decision." So Trump is conceding Iran has not broken, Riyadh is warning him not to make the Gulf pay for another escalation, and Netanyahu suddenly sounds less like the Trump whisperer and more like a man waiting in the corridor, wondering what's for dinner.

Quite the magical mystery tour, isn't it? From demanding unconditional surrender to regional allies quietly trying to stop him from lighting a match in the petrol station that they're all locked inside of.

And that is what this story is really about. Not whether Iran has been damaged. It clearly has. Not whether Trump can order more bombs dropped. Of course he can.

It is whether all that destruction actually delivered the political result he promised, because Trump did not promise to damage Iran.

He promised to break it.