For a man who understands the power of leverage, Donald Trump is being remarkably slow to recognize the influence Iran has gained in the Strait of Hormuz. The US president’s threat to complete its closure by blocking Iranian exports through it, too, is far more likely to drag him deeper into a politically damaging war than to force Tehran’s capitulation.

Energy blockades are acts of war. If in doubt, recall Pearl Harbor, which took place roughly six months after the US imposed a total oil embargo on Japan. They also take time to work. So the already fragile two-week Gulf ceasefire is in trouble and all that’s clear is that the blockade itself is a throwdown the US can’t win.

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But this works only if you believe the Islamic Republic won’t respond by hitting more energy assets around the Gulf, and will fold under the resulting pressure before Trump does. Both propositions seem so vanishingly unlikely that it’s hard to understand what it is the White House hopes to gain by trying.

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This is all, frankly, delusional and reveals the failure of Trump and his closest advisers to recognize that doing more damage to the other side is not the same as winning. I’d like to think the erratic nature of his wartime statements, at times self-contradictory within a single social-media post, are part of a cunning plan. But they’re merely expressions of frustration at the failure of US military supremacy to translate into success.