He Posted a War Ultimatum on Truth Social. In All Caps.

Now, I have seen some things written on napkins in this diner that I wished had stayed unwritten. Phone numbers. Apologies that came too late. One man’s entire business plan for a shrimp farm. But I have never seen anybody try to conduct international diplomacy on a social media platform in full capital letters and think that was a reasonable way to run a country.

The president of the United States posted — on Truth Social, where he also posts about his golf game and his enemies — that Iran had forty-eight hours to open the Strait of Hormuz, or, and I am quoting him directly, “the United States will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS.”

POWER PLANTS. In capitals. Like the caps lock button is where he keeps his gravitas.

Forty-eight hours. Posted online. That’s the ultimatum. No back-channel. No quiet call to an intermediary. No nothing. Just a man at whatever hour he woke up, typing into his phone, threatening to bomb a country’s electrical grid on the same platform where people argue about celebrities.

Iran’s military responded. They said they would close the Strait indefinitely. Not open it. Permanently shut it.

So the forty-eight hours came in, and the answer it got was the opposite of what it asked for. That’s not a negotiating win. That’s not even a draw. That’s how you get a response when the other side has decided they don’t respect the table you’re sitting at.

I’ve had customers try to send back a perfectly good chicken fried steak by making a scene about it. You know what that gets you? Nothing but everybody in the diner looking at you.

He wanted the world to see he meant business.

The world saw something, all right.

Sit tight, hon. I’ll bring more water.