On Thursday, 23 July, after weeks of escalating attacks between the US and Iran, Donald Trump told a reporter that Iran hadn’t received “enough pain yet”, and he leveled a threat. It started on 21 March, when Trump promised to hit Iranian power plants (a war crime, incidentally) unless Iran opened the strait of Hormuz. He delayed that plan for five days, and then another 10 days, before issuing his next threat. On 17 May, he wrote: “For Iran, the Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them. Ever the faithful lieutenant to Trump, Marco Rubio, on the other hand, told Lara Trump on Fox News that the Iranian regime “has never faced a president like President Trump, which is someone that actually takes action”.