What did Donald Trump do today?

He "cancelled" negotiations with Iran that Iran had already left. 

Just after noon today, "DONAKD" Trump wrote a post on his boutique social media site claiming that he'd walked away from peace talks with Iran.

I just cancelled the trip of my representatives going is Islamabad, Pakistan, to meet with the Iranians. Too much time wasted on traveling, too much work! Besides which, there is tremendous infighting and confusion within their “leadership.” Nobody knows who is in charge, including them. Also, we have all the cards, they have none! If they want to talk, all they have to do is call!!! President DONAKD J. TRUMP 

The 12:26 P.M. post was subsequently replaced with one in which Trump correctly spelled his first name.

Setting aside the question of whether there's such a thing as "too much work" to extricate the United States from the current fiasco with Iran, there's an even more obvious problem with this claim. By the time Trump was insisting that he was the one who had "all the cards," Iran had already walked away first.

In a strange way, both Trump and Iran are behaving rationally. Given the overwhelming military superiority of the United States, the war could hardly be going better for the regime that controls Iran: it is selling more oil and exerting much firmer control over the population than before the war, while benefiting from the destabilizing effect that the war has had on American influence over the region. There is very little for Iran to gain at the bargaining table that it can be sure Trump wouldn't immediately renege on.

Trump, for his part, may see political benefits to the chaos and confusion of on-again, off-again diplomacy. He knows—or at least his military advisors do—that there is virtually nothing to be gained from any further military escalation in Iran. But any move towards actual de-escalation would force him to acknowledge a flatly humiliating truth: that he has essentially lost a war with a country that should have posed no threat whatsoever. 

Unfortunately, what is best for Trump politically is not what's best for the United States or the world economy as a whole. The double blockade of the Persian Gulf is not even close to air-tight where Iranian ships are concerned, but it has otherwise crippled vital sectors of the world economy in ways that will take months or longer to recover from. For example, food price spikes in the United States are already baked in through the end of this year due to American farmers needing to pay more for fertilizer that relies on Gulf shipping.

Why does this matter?

• Americans' economic and military security is more important than Donald Trump's ego. 

• Most people who'd screwed up this badly at an important job would try to find some way to quit and let someone more competent handle things. 

• Presidents should be willing and able to do "too much work" once in a while.