Trump threatened to commit genocide and Iran came to the table. A little threat – plus the deaths of thousands of Iranians and 13 Americans, the obliteration of schools, homes, hospitals and mosques, the waste of $40bn by the US and losses to the Gulf nations of as much as $200bn – is all it took. Ergo: threatening genocide works.

That, anyway, is what the “secretary of war”, Pete Hegseth, strongly suggested in a press briefing on Wednesday, the day after the president vowed to wipe Iran’s “whole civilization” off the map and then a few hours later announced a ceasefire, obviating the need to wipe Iran’s civilization off the map, at least for two weeks.

All in all, “a big day for World Peace!” Trump posted – or as Hegseth put it: “Truthed.”

Hegseth was armored in his usual muscle-enhancing blue suit; he declaimed in his usual ready-for-primetime style. Yet he looked uncharacteristically wan and puffy. War is hell on the complexion. Still, the secretary had the energy to rhapsodize about all the Iranian military stuff “wiped out”, “sunk”, “destroyed”, “depleted and decimated” by Operation Epic Fury. He boasted that the country’s factories, too, had been “razed to the ground”. But there was plenty more to hit. “You see, had Iran refused our terms, the next targets would have been their power plants, their bridges and oil and energy infrastructure,” said Hegseth, enumerating all the things whose deliberate destruction constitutes a war crime.

The happy warrior exalted his leader as a lion: “No other president has shown the courage and resolve of this commander-in-chief.” And also as a lamb: “President Trump had the power to cripple Iran’s entire economy in minutes. But he chose – he chose........

© The Guardian