What Mr Graham and his colleagues should be most concerned about is that this ill-starred foray into the Middle East has ended up leaving the Iranian regime stronger than it was before the war, and more threatening than it was under Mr Obama’s nuclear deal, which Mr Trump tore up in one of his fits of childish pique.

The problem now is that Mr Trump has endowed Iran with a far more useful option than any nuclear device: the effective weaponisation of the Strait of Hormuz. This is a weapon of mass economic destruction of unique power. It was given satisfactory proof of use during the conflict, when not even US armed forces and a naval counter-blockade could prevent an enfeebled Tehran from taking the world economy hostage.

Whatever piece of paper the Americans and Iranians eventually sign, the ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guards will always have that potential for blackmail easily at their command. And that is why America has lost this war.