Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 9 April 2026. © Richard Kemp

Reeling under the most intense American and Israeli assaults, the Iranian regime has capitulated. In the face of Donald Trump’s threats, warning that the worst is yet to come, it has dropped its cast-iron demand that the Strait of Hormuz would not be reopened until the US committed to ending the war, cancelling sanctions and paying reparations.

That has been conveniently ignored by many Western commentators who would have portrayed the two-week ceasefire as a defeat for Trump, no matter how it was framed. It has also been quietly forgotten by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) leaders now calling the shots in Tehran, who would themselves have declared victory whatever the outcome.

It’s very telling that so many anti-Trumpers in the West, including some political leaders, seem to be playing the same tune as Iran’s dictators.

This ceasefire – even if it holds and the Iranians uncharacteristically stick to their word – is unlikely to be the end of the conflict. Trump will not accept Iran’s new list of demands, however watered down they may be. Since his first term, he has been playing hardball with the ayatollahs. He started by eliminating Qassim Soleimani, their top IRGC terrorist commander, cancelled Barack Obama’s deeply flawed nuclear deal and returned to the maximum-pressure sanctions regime.

Last June he backed Israel’s defensive war on Iran and then reinforced it with devastating strikes against its nuclear facilities. Finally we came to the all-out joint offensive with Israel that started a few weeks ago. Despite decades of repeated threats and lethal attacks against the US and its allies, including British and American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, Trump was the first American president with the steel to directly attack Iran.

For a regime that prioritises its toxic ideology far above the good of the country, it is highly unlikely that the IRGC will go along with Trump’s red lines either. These include ending their nuclear project, ceasing their ballistic missile programme, terminating their ring of terrorist proxies and surrendering stockpiles of highly enriched uranium. (more…)