What did Donald Trump do today?

He said the U.S. could easily "take the oil in Iran," among other delusional statements to move the markets.

With stock futures lower and oil futures higher ahead of Monday's opening, Trump once again released a barrage of Sunday-night optimism about the progress in the war he declared over weeks ago. Specifically, he said that he was leaning towards "taking the oil," explaining it this way: "To be honest with you, my favorite thing is to take the oil in Iran but some stupid people back in the US say: ‘why are you doing that?’ But they’re stupid people."

Trump's idea of a not-stupid plan would be to seize Kharg Island with ground troops. Kharg Island is the site of Iran's main oil export facilities in the Persian Gulf. But the oil isn't from Kharg: it's pumped there from the mainland, and Iran would turn off the pipeline immediately if it were under threat. Seizing it would hinder Iran's ability to export oil, but at the moment it has a near-monopoly on oil exports from the Persian Gulf anyway.

Putting American forces on Kharg would also require overwhelming Iranian military forces stationed there, and holding it against the inevitable bombardment from Iranian missiles. Both would inevitably lead to American casualties. Trump claimed in an interview with the Financial Times today to be unaware of any military forces on the island, which may be true but means he has forgotten what he knew just weeks ago when he boasted about attacks on those military facilities.

At the same time as he mused about sending Marines to hold a target within range of every Iranian missile, Trump also insisted that peace was right around the corner, claiming (again) that Iran had agreed to allow more ships through the Strait of Hormuz at his request. In reality, these aren't the only ships Iran is letting through, because it's begun successfully charging multi-million dollar tolls, and is selectively striking bargains with China, India, Pakistan, and other non-aligned countries. In fact, it looks like the "twenty ships" Trump claimed he'd gotten through are the twenty ships that Pakistan's government arranged passage for.

Iran also destroyed a functionally irreplaceable AWACS aircraft, leaving only 15 in the U.S. fleet, and causing injuries (including some grave) to more than ten American servicemembers. Trump has not publicly commented on this.

Why does this matter?

• The stability and economic security that actually getting out of the Iran fiasco would bring are more important than one-day stock market moves. 

• No one who speaks this casually about sending American troops to face death is fit to command them.