Most significantly, the ruse conjured up damaging new imagery about an unpopular war that Trump can’t end. The existence of a potential threat against the president doesn’t in itself mean his war against Iran is a failure. The hijinks at Ankara airport are just the latest occasion when reality has mocked the administration’s rosy war narrative. Everyone has meanwhile lost count of Trump’s predictions that a deal is imminent, only for the stalemate to grind on. But Trump’s furtive flight from Turkey makes it much harder for him to argue he’s made the world safer.