The condition is called performance anxiety. This is best illustrated in the realm of politics, where deceit is the norm, and chicanery the favored mode of operation. Fearing to commit an open act of war, The Empire sabotaged it, after boasting that it would prevent its operation. That describes Trump, the poster child for performance anxiety. He is in the throes of the worst and most damaging episode—to his own nominal country, that is—of classic performance anxiety yet: his catatonic inability to dominate and control Iran.