When I read about Trump’s surrender terms to Iran — billions in reparations, end of sanctions, unfreezing assets, and allowing it to control the Hormuz Strait in the future — I laughed. Here we go again, I thought.

It immediately reminded me of Gaza, where Trump helped to negotiate a deal that would provide for the restoration of Gaza and provide it limited sovereignty. None of that has happened, of course, but it gaveTrump and Netanyahu an excuse to stop the fighting that they were not winning.

Then there was Afghanistan. Trump’s surrender to the Taliban at the Doha agreement in 2020 essentially gave the country to the rebels without any involvement or protection for the secular government or the secular society in Kabul. It did allow a year for the US troops to withdraw. When Biden succeeded Trump’s first presidency he was stuck with only a few hundred US troops remaining in Afghanistan. There was no option other than to complete Trump’s surrender withdrawal. Trump, of course, proclaimed his role as a victory, and blamed Biden for pulling out of the country.

Now he’s ending the war he started in Iran, where the terms are truly staggering. It is Iran’s best wish list. They receive billions in unfrozen assets, reparations, revenue from Hormuz, and trade with the dropping of sanctions. The US gets nothing, other than an excuse to get out of a losing war. Trump, of course, will portray it as a victory, and many of his MAGA followers will believe it.

But before you bury your head in shame over the US capitulation, you can be reassured that very little of this will actually happen. Trump has built his dubious reputation over making promises that he never fulfills, agreeing to things that he has no intention of actually carrying out. Look at Gaza, which has been completely neglected after the alleged peace deal. My guess is that none of the Iranian reparations, sanction-lifting, and unfreezing of assets will actually materialize. Trump will blame Iran for this or that, and use it as an excuse to renege on his promises.

It will remain for the next President, most likely a Democrat, to deal with the mess. He or she will have an angry Iran to deal with, bitter over both the war and the unfulfilled promises. It will, of course, be ramping up its efforts to have the capacity for nuclear strikes on the US, now that Trump has proven that it is the only way that they can remain safe in the future. North Korea has shown the utility of that approach.

Meanwhile we long for the days when the Obama administration worked out a real deal with Iran to limit its nuclear capacity and begin to open itself to the West. It could have led to an unravelling of the theocracy and real change for peace in the region.

Trump put an end to that, and his war has made Iranian autocrats the victor. It is the third war he’s ended that has made the US worse off than when they began. That’s quite a record.