Creating an autonomous area for Sunni Arabs in Western Iraq, which they will share with Christians, Yazidis and other religious minorities who have been indigenous to these lands for centuries, is in the interests of all but one of the regional powers: Iran. Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states share an interest in regional stability, and Syria requires a neighboring ally for its own secular Sunni population if it, too, is eventually to stabilize.

While Iran will fight such a plan, America’s next president faces an important choice: Is subservience to Tehran’s ambitions in the region’s interests, or those of the U.S.? Was President Obama’s nuclear deal limited to containing Iran’s break-out capacity, as its advocates in the “echo chamber” insist, or was it part of a broader, and dangerous shift in U.S. policy to a strategic alliance with a regime that continues to call for the annihilation of Israel and pacification of what it still calls the “Great Satan”?

These are some of the heavy questions awaiting the next commander-in-chief.

For Hillary Clinton, it offers a successful finality to her controversial vote to invade Iraq, vindication for her hawkish advisors and the fulfillment of her campaign rhetoric to be a decisive problem-solver. For Donald Trump, this is the ultimate Art of the Deal, showing he can act differently from the despised establishment.