THE MIDDLE EAST, Apr. 7 – The United States and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire, offering a pause and potential off-ramp in the fast-growing regional war that had threatened to further disrupt global energy markets. The agreement, announced by President Donald Trump, was brokered by Pakistani mediators and is tied to Iran’s commitment to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping. The truce emerged only hours before Mr.

Iran’s revolutionary government didn’t just defy the West for four decades. It used the West’s own rulebook against it, and for a long time, it worked. There is a version of the Iran story that gets told as a drama of rogue states versus the civilized order: Iran defying the world, the world pushing back, the cycle repeating. That version is comfortable because it implies the international community was doing