My Take | Congratulations to Iran and the occasional flash of Trump genius

I love Mexican food, especially Tacos. So it pains me and spoils my appetite whenever media pundits mention the acronym for “Trump always chickens out”. It must be admitted that most of the time, the president’s erratic pronouncements and obsessive-compulsive tweets, from universal tariffs and China sanctions to military support, or the lack thereof, for Ukraine betray a complete absence of clear thinking and actual policy.

But with his highly controversial strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, you have to wonder whether he had not been thinking or at least hoping a few steps ahead of most others, for once. Maybe Taco this time isn’t so bad.

Let me, for argument’s sake, just put it on the table. Trump, against most of his advisers – both the supposedly wise as well as foolish ones, whether Maga or neocons – has escalated to de-escalate. And Tehran gets the message and is playing ball, hence its latest missile volley, in a symbolic retaliatory gesture, on an American military base in Qatar in which everyone came out relatively unscathed.

Consider the previous sequence of events. First, Trump forced the Iranians to negotiate. Then, when the Israelis attacked, he tried to use that as leverage and continued negotiations. Then he joined the Israelis with the heavy US strike on nuclear-related targets and threatened to broaden the war to impose regime change in Tehran.

The Iranians talked tough but responded with remarkable restraint, having warned friendly Qatar and therefore the Americans, about its forthcoming attack. Trump immediately reciprocated afterwards, and tweeted for world peace.

He thanked Iran “for giving us early notice, which made it possible for no lives to be lost, and nobody to be injured”.

“CONGRATULATIONS WORLD,” he wrote in all caps. “IT’S TIME FOR PEACE!”