On Sunday night, US President Donald Trump cracked his knuckles and went ALL CAPS on Twitter. His message is sure to make it into the museum of Trump tweets (yes, there is such a thing) for its bombastic brilliance, its acerbic assertiveness and its savage insecurity. His words were: "To Iranian President [Hassan] Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!" Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, tweeted right back with biting humour: "UNIMPRESSED ... We’ve been around for millennia & seen fall of empires, incl our own, which lasted more than the life of some countries. BE CAUTIOUS!" The proximate cause of Trump’s temper tantrum appears to be a warning by Rouhani describing a potential armed conflict between the two nations as "the mother of all wars". The less proxi...
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