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From threatening a civilization to ceasefire: What we learned from a wild day in the Iran war

There’s a method to the president’s mad posting — though it’s not clear he’s delivering the deal he promised.

President Donald Trump’s fast pivot on Iran — from “a whole civilization will die tonight” to a benign return to negotiations — has a whipsawed world scratching their heads. What was he up to?

One possibility: Many Western analysts believe that Russian nuclear doctrine includes a concept called “escalate to de-escalate,” in which Moscow would use a tactical nuclear weapon early in a conflict to shock a stronger adversary into backing down from a conventional conflict. (The Russians deny this strategy exists.)

On Tuesday, Trump may have carried out a kind of Truth Social version of “escalate to de-escalate,” cranking up the rhetoric and threats to a fever pitch in order to get himself out of a war where the United States enjoyed an overwhelming military advantage, but found itself at a strategic disadvantage.

Nuclear use was never actually in play, but given Trump’s rhetoric — and the immensity of American military power — the comparison does not feel far-fetched. After........

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