‘PHEW’, OR ITS equivalent, must now be the most commonly uttered word on the planet. Although it may be a temporary reprieve, countless millions of us were gripped by a palpable fear about what might happen in Iran on Tuesday night.

Notwithstanding the frequent reassurances from Donald Trump’s allies to the effect that he should be taken seriously, not literally, our worry was entirely justified.

For it was startling in the extreme to read the online pronouncements of the President of the United States, even allowing for the fact that the current office holder conducts himself in a vastly different fashion than his predecessors.

A post that a “whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” – following a dictate to Iranians to “open the F**kin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell” – led one US Senator to allege that these are “the rantings of a bloodthirsty lunatic.”

Trump's rants on Truth Social in the last week. Trump Trump

A couple of hours before the 1 AM (Irish time) deadline President Trump had set, he agreed to suspend the bombing and attack on Iran, provided that the Strait of Hormuz is reopened. Pakistan seems to have played a key role in brokering what seems to be a quite nebulous and fragile quasi-truce. JD Vance, who has opposed this war from the beginning, also appears to have been involved in bringing his boss around.

Trump is already claiming an unambiguous victory and singing his own praises. His public comments are belied by the contents of a ten point proposal from Iran, which he says is “a........

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