Trump spent six years handing Iran the rope. Now he’s annoyed they’ve tied a knot with it. In 2018, he tore up the Iran nuclear deal, called it the worst agreement in history, and walked away convinced maximum pressure would bring Tehran to its knees. It didn’t. Iran responded by enriching uranium at a pace the original deal had specifically prevented, stockpiling enough material to alarm everyone who understood what stockpiles lead to. Now Trump is in a war, partly of his own making, demanding Iran surrender the atomic capability it only developed because he gave them the incentive to develop it. This is roughly equivalent to kicking over someone’s beehive, getting stung repeatedly for six years, and then demanding a legally binding agreement that the bees stop existing. The Obama deal was imperfect. Most deals are. But it had inspectors, verification mechanisms, and a functioning lid on enrichment. Trump had a press conference and a signed withdrawal letter. Iran had centrifuges. The negotiations in Islamabad this weekend are therefore haunted by a very specific ghost: the agreement that could have made all of this unnecessary, killed by the man now demanding a better one.