What did Donald Trump do today?

He fell on his face with Iran, and then tried to say it was what he meant to do all along.

On Sunday, Trump announced what he called "PROJECT FREEDOM." This was meant to be an arrangement of some kind where US Navy ships would "guide" commercial ships safely out of the Persian Gulf. Crucially, however, this was not to be an escort: the Navy has not entered and apparently will not enter the Gulf.

Even with an escort, it would be very difficult if not impossible for the United States to guarantee the safety of the enormous, dead-slow, and in some cases literally explosive oil tankers and cargo ships stranded in the Gulf. More than two days after Trump announced the plan, it appears that at most two civilian ships have been safely "guided" out, though the Navy isn't saying exactly how. Iran has been permitting a few ships per day to transit regardless.

Of course, Iran doesn't have to destroy every ship that tries to run its blockade in order to render the entire Persian Gulf completely useless for commercial purposes. Even one ship in a hundred being seriously threatened would be catastrophic, and it is almost trivially easy for Iran to carry out that kind of threat with cheap drones and speedboats, or even divers armed with limpet mines. Shipping companies and merchant sailors have been unwilling to take that risk for good reason. 

That was the backdrop for a press availability today in which Trump was asked about whether and how he would respond to the fact that Iran has fired on US ships. Trump, who fell asleep at his desk later in the event, didn't seem to know. It's not at all clear from his slurred, garbled response that he was even aware those attacks had happened.

Q: Can I ask you about Iran, Mr. President? They've fired at US ships several times in the last 24 hours. What do they need to do to violate the ceasefire?

TRUMP: Well, you'll find out, because I'll let you know. They know what to do, and they know what to do [unintelligible]. And they know what not to do, more importantly, actually. And, uh— they fired [unintelligible] little boats, with pea-shooters, you know what a pea-shooter is? Little boat with a little—you know why, cause they don't have any boats anymore. 

Later, Iran's attacks against American ships forgotten (or forgotten again), Trump claimed that diplomacy with Iran was going so well that he was going to pause "Project Freedom" to focus on negotiations. 

 

In other words, Trump has gone from being unable to prevent Iran from blocking the Strait, to being unable to prevent Iran from blocking the Strait while trying to do something about it, to being unable to prevent Iran from blocking the Strait while claiming it was his idea.

Elsewhere today, Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed that the United States' goal in Iran is to open the Strait of Hormuz—or, in other words, to get back to the situation before Trump launched attacks in the first place.

Of course, at some point, Iran will begin to permit traffic through the Strait again, as its own government has acknowledged. The question is when, and on whose terms. For the moment, Iran's ruling regime seems content to prove that Trump can't force it to do anything, and Trump seems determined to prove them right.

Why does this matter? 

• A president who can't remember or doesn't care about the details of an ongoing war isn't fit for office. 

• Neither is a president who can't stay awake in the middle of the day.  

• It's bad that Trump doesn't seem capable of understanding how humiliating this is for him and for the United States.