Trump’s threats against Iran already run near the ceiling of what a president can say out loud. In April, hours before a deadline he had set for Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, he wrote that a whole civilization would die that night, never to be brought back again, and that he did not want it to happen but that it probably would.

The day before, he had promised to bomb Iran back to the Stone Ages and to strike every power plant and bridge the country runs on. Legal scholars called the language genocidal, the Pope called it unacceptable, and a French foreign minister warned it could constitute a war crime.

Then a ceasefire arrived ninety minutes before the deadline, and the civilization survived the night. On Friday the pattern repeated in miniature: he would soon declare the Strait of Hormuz a US territory, he said, and hit Tehran economically.

Iran has stopped flinching. Its answer on Friday was contempt: a deputy foreign minister posted that the strait opens and closes under Iranian authority alone. The scorn is not new, and it is not empty. Through this year the regime has met each round of threats with a fixed message.

President Masoud Pezeshkian told naval officers at Bandar Abbas that Iran does not seek war and favors dialogue, but is not afraid of threats and will not retreat from its rights. Weeks later he drew the line that has held since: dialogue does........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)