“we’ll just keep bombing our little hearts out”

The president’s allies have always said that his unpredictability is his superpower, and
that it keeps his enemies guessing.Credit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times

The art of the flail, of dementia, of malignant narcissism 24/7. It's the appearance of a dead man walking, leaving a legacy of incompetence, corruption and the possibility of Armageddon,
all running lockstep in real time.

The president’s allies have always said that his unpredictability is his superpower,

and that it keeps his enemies guessing.

President Trump was fresh off the golf course, and his fury was building.

It was March 21, and as he settled back into his Mar-a-Lago estate for the evening, he was reading another news account about how, for all the military success the United States had in Iran, he had yet to achieve his political objectives.

At 7:44 p.m., the president made his frustration known with an extraordinary ultimatum: If Iran did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours and allow much of the world’s oil and gas to flow through, he would bomb Iran’s civilian electric power plants. It was the kind of attack that could constitute a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.

But just hours before the Monday deadline expired, Mr. Trump delayed his threat by five days, easing fears of an imminent escalation with profound military, diplomatic and economic implications.

Still, he warned that “we’ll just keep bombing our little hearts out” if Iran would not make a deal, and as the week progressed he made new threats that left allies off balance and spooked the markets. 

Bluster and bravado but the facts remain. Iran just has to outlast, just like the Vietcong, the Iraqis and the Taliban did as they will remain while the US and Israel cannot.