As the clock ticks away toward US President Donald Trump’s latest “negotiate or I unleash hell” deadline, the Iranian regime thinks that it’s winning.

In the West, the serried ranks of “experts” also think that America and Israel are heading either for a deepening quagmire or a humiliating retreat. It’s not possible to predict how the war against Iran will end — or even what the next day will bring.

But on the face of it, Tehran’s claim that it has the upper hand — echoed by Western commentators who said before the war even started that it would be a disaster, have kept saying that it is a disaster and predict that it will undoubtedly end in disaster — is demonstrably absurd.