Trump entered the Iran war convinced Tehran was a paper tiger; now Iran may believe the paper tiger is Trump.

NY Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman says Trump had just watched a rapid, successful operation against Maduro, and believed this would be similar.

 

His instinct told him Iran would back down once America showed overwhelming force, but instead of folding, Iran absorbed the pressure, retaliated, and kept escalating.

 

Maggie says Trump now finds himself boxed in.

 

He'd like this war to be over, wants oil prices lower, and wants to move on to his domestic agenda, but ending the conflict without extracting a clear concession from Tehran risks looking like a defeat.

 

 And the problem runs even deeper.

 

Maggie describes an administration where major decisions are increasingly concentrated in the hands of a tiny circle around Trump.

 

Senior cabinet officials responsible for dealing with the economic fallout weren't even present for some of the key discussions before the strikes on Iran.

 

At the same time, officials have become increasingly reluctant to deliver bad news or publicly contradict Trump once he's committed himself to a position.

 

She also thinks Trump's threats have become so difficult to interpret because one day they're negotiating tactics, the next they're genuine warnings, and at other times they're simply impulsive.

 

The problem is that almost nobody, including people inside his own administration, can reliably tell which is which.