On: Trump says Iran deal signed but details remain unclear

They say the agreement is signed, yet the details remain unclear. A signature without substance is a sword without an edge - it cannot cut anything but the hand that holds it.

I have watched many such ceremonies. The scroll is unfurled, the seals are pressed, the men smile for the record. But the arrangement of the ink matters less than the arrangement of forces. Here the forces have not moved. They remain in their positions, waiting to see what the words actually mean.

The digital signature is a curiosity. It travels at the speed of light, faster than a messenger on horseback, faster than a banner passing along a ridgeline. Yet it carries no more weight than the intentions behind it. I have seen generals send messages that reached the enemy before they reached their own troops. Speed without truth is just noise.

A formal signing in Switzerland in five days. The date is known to all, and so the period before it becomes a battlefield of whispers - each side testing what can be extracted before the ceremony locks the words into stone. But stone can be broken. Only the terrain that shapes the conflict is fixed.

The supreme art is to make the adversary fight the position, not the agreement. Here, the adversary has been given an agreement without a known position. That is not a victory. That is an invitation.