What did Donald Trump do today?

He threatened to commit war crimes against the Iranian civilian population he was supposedly "saving."

This evening, Trump posted this message to his private Twitter clone:

If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP

It is a war crime to target civilian infrastructure.

But it is also a stunning admission of how badly Trump has blundered. For all of his frantic insistence that Iran's military has been totally defeated, the entire Persian Gulf is under Iran's control—and as Trump's own staffers are admitting, that means Iran is dictating terms to him. (Just yesterday, Trump was forced to put $15 billion worth of oil revenue in Iran's hands—something literally without parallel in modern war.) 

As Trump was warned repeatedly, there is no way to change that circumstance through force without committing to a vastly bigger, costlier, and deadlier war than any the United States has fought since Vietnam.

Trump's threat to launch military attacks against civilians also makes a mockery of the one justification Trump offered for launching an unprovoked war against Iran: that he was trying to help the Iranian people throw off the yoke of an undemocratic government. Civilians die when power grids are destroyed.

Why does this matter?

• The President of the United States is openly threatening atrocities against civilians. 

• Military strength means nothing if the person commanding the military is giving unbelievably stupid orders.