What did Donald Trump do today?

He took time away from the golf course to say that it was "very sad" he'd gotten two more American servicemembers killed.

Trump spent the 142nd day of his second term at a golf resort today, and had no work on his schedule other than "executive time," his staff's euphemism for naps, TV time, and social media binges.

But he was forced by the death of at least two American servicemembers from an Iranian missile attack to cut short his leisure time and briefly address the issue. He told a NewsNation reporter, "It’s a very sad thing. We hate to see it happen," but added that the deaths were in service to keeping Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Iran has built up a huge stockpile of highly enriched uranium since Trump pulled the United States out of an Obama-era agreement with Iran and other world powers that allowed for unlimited inspections and verification that Iran was keeping to its no-nukes pledge. Trump's war hasn't changed the material reality: Iran still has that weapons fuel in secure bunkers and, in all likelihood, could finish production of working weapons within months.

 

What Trump's war has changed, however, is the risk-reward calculation for the military regime that governs the country. A nuclear Iran would probably be a pariah state—but, like North Korea, it would have an enormously potent deterrent to further attacks like the one Trump attempted with the current war.

The fallen servicemembers aren't likely to get much more in the way of sympathy than Trump calling their deaths "very sad." He opened the war with an address in which he actually smirked as he shrugged about the prospect of American casualties, and then attended the homecoming of remains of early casualties wearing a campaign baseball hat.

Trump also insisted today that he "couldn't care less" that Iran has pulled out of the memorandum of understanding that he'd hoped would lead to a peace arrangement. Given the abjectly humiliating terms he was willing to agree to in order to get the memorandum signed in the first place, that's unlikely to be true.
 
The US death toll is now 16, with an additional servicemember still missing after yesterday's attack. Trump has repeatedly insisted, against all evidence, that Iran has no military capabilities left.

Why does this matter?

• This war would have been disastrous without any American casualties, much less 16 and counting.