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I’m sorry, but as much as I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt as he describes the reasons he suddenly called off his planned attack on Iran last week, Donald Trump has lost pretty much any and all credibility he might have had when he first took office. He’s been recorded in over 10,000 lies since that time, not to mention that, with respects to Iran, he’s utterly compromised the entire United States’ credibility — after all, they can’t trust anything one president says if another can simply override it.

As far as this particular incident goes, a fourth-grader would be able to tell you that any move towards military action is likely to cost lives on the ground. Trump knew that from the outset when asking the Joint Chiefs for retaliatory options — there’s no way he couldn’t. The idea that he changed his mind because the Pentagon tossed him an estimated body count just doesn’t seem likely to my mind: and bear in mind, this is the very same president that has frequently threatened Iran with total obliteration in the event of a conflict between them.

Such obliteration would cost millions of lives (Iran has a population of 81 million people), and even though it’s arguably an idle threat, you don’t make a threat like that if you don’t intend to act on it.

Put bluntly: Trump doesn’t give a damn about Iranian lives.

As for why he actually cancelled the attack…I expect it’s because he realised that it wouldn’t play well for his re-election chances. Even his own supporters have made it clear that they don’t want another war, and the shooting of the drone didn’t generate the level of public outrage that would help Trump to justify his actions. To the rest of the world, a lethal attack on the Iranian population would be considered a staggering overreaction, considering the Iranians only blew up an unmanned flying camera, and ignored the manned aircraft that they could have shot down.

Do also note that Russian leader Vladimir Putin discouraged military action, and informed Trump that Iran remained in compliance with the JCPOA (ironically, since the US backed out of that deal negotiated during the Obama administration to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon).

Add finally that Trump had already initiated additional economic sanctions in response to the attack. Further cripple their economy and then attack their citizenry — all for a drone. There’s no way that would be considered justifiable by anyone.

To say that he did it because of the cost in lives, though — does that sound like the blustering president we’ve all come to know, distrust and feel disgusted by?