President Trump, as ever, has radiated confidence in American power since he announced the war had started in a video message filmed at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. Other presidents might have chosen a solemn address from behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office.

Trump wore an open-neck shirt and a white baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. He ran through a long charge sheet, arguing that Iran had been an imminent threat to the US since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Trump can always change his mind, but in that speech, he provides a definition of his conception of victory. It amounts to a check list:

“We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally, again, obliterated. We’re going to annihilate their navy. We’re going to ensure that the region’s terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world, and attack our forces, and no longer use their IEDs or roadside bombs, as they are sometimes called to, so gravely wound and kill thousands and thousands of people, including many Americans.”

Trump claimed Iran was developing missiles that could reach the US, a statement that is not backed up by US intelligence ᴀssessments. He also claimed it was close to developing a nuclear weapon, contradicting his own statement last summer that the US had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear sites.