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Mr. Trump believes that he emerged the victor of the conflict, and therefore, as the special envoy Steve Witkoff puts it, Iran should simply “capitulate.”

That is not how it happened in the past. The last major agreement between Tehran and Washington, reached during the Obama administration, took two years to negotiate. And it was full of compromises, including allowing Iran to retain a small amount of its nuclear stockpile, and gradually lifting the restrictions on its nuclear activities until 2030, when Iran would be permitted to conduct any nuclear activity permissible under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

But the deadlock Mr. Vance ran into was essentially the same as the ones that derailed negotiations in late February, and prompted Mr. Trump to order the attack. (That negotiation was run by Mr. Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, who were present in Islamabad during the more than 20 hours of negotiations.)

Back then, the Iranians offered to “suspend” their nuclear operations for a few years, but not to give up their stockpiles of near-bomb-grade uranium or permanently surrender the capability to enrich uranium on their own soil. To the Iranians, that is their right as a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which commits them to never making a nuclear weapon. To the Americans, it is what Mr. Witkoff called “a tell” that Iran always wants a ready option to build a nuclear weapon, even if it never exercises that option.

Thirty-eight days of war appear to have hardened that view, not loosened it.