For a second time, Donald Trump has pulled back from a brink with Iran. Or, rather Iran, by striking U.S. bases with missiles last night but taking care to kill no one, has pulled back from the brink with the United States. In a statement this morning, Trump vowed to impose “additional punishing economic sanctions” on Tehran, as if we still had many left in the arsenal, but we appear to be done, for the moment. Now comes the question of why we got here—not for the first time—to begin with. Leave discussion of the Iran nuclear deal aside, central as that may be. You can exit arrangements made by a previous administration without taking us to the threshold of all-out war. That’s where we were last night. So, while it’s a relief that Trump was sane enough to leave things alone, the plaudits must be limited. If you take me hostage in a car, drive it 100 miles an hour through the desert, and halt it at the edge of the cliff, I’ll thank you for not launching us over it. But I’ll still have some things I’d like to review.

Voters may be willing to forget about this episode. But they also may not. This was frightening. And it wouldn’t have happened if Trump hadn’t chosen to kill the Iranian general and U.S. adversary Qasem Soleimani last week just after Soleimani arrived in Iraq. It was a reckless action in itself, since we are technically guests of Iraq who are not at war with Iran. But it got even worse in its aftermath, when Trump, in a presidency rife with lows, got out the shovel to plumb a few more. He threatened to destroy cultural sites in Iran, an action that would qualify him for a spot in the Hague, and, in a less noticed but still appalling abuse of power, barred Iran’s foreign minister from entering New York to address the United Nations. (If ever there was a time for the U.N. to relocate to another country, one that would uphold its obligations as host of that body, it would be now.) He also threatened to strangle Iraq’s economy if its parliament followed through on demanding that U.S. military forces exit the country.

A cynic might ask: So? Isn’t that just Trump, only more so? No. It felt different this time, like a turning point—bigger than impeachment. It’s true that only the fewest of us are astonished that Trump would make barbarous threats. But a week ago an optimist could still cling to the hope that Trump’s previous forays into brinkmanship were exceptions, that the man, for all his belligerence on Twitter, was still a president whose basic offer to voters was one of peace and wealth. That illusion will now live on among only a tiny and beleaguered set of holdouts. That the White House was taken aback by developments that were predictable—mass outrage in Iran, a request from Iraq’s parliament that U.S. forces exit Iraq, and retaliation—showed us that it is even blinder and clumsier than many of us feared.

An enduring mystery—or is it just an irony?—of nationalists is that so many of them lack any understanding of nationalist sentiments in other nations. The same people who react with hair-trigger outrage toward any perceived offense against the United States express disbelief that millions of Iranians would flood the streets to mourn the death of Soleimani. (Some commenters have even intimated the crowds were there at threat of death, suggesting these pundits have never opened a book on the place.) Ari Fleischer no doubt meant it when he speculated to Fox that “this is going to be a catalyst inside Iran where the people celebrate this killing of Soleimani,” and he probably has learned nothing since. Sean Hannity and Lindsey Graham and others on the right were even worse last night, calling for all manner of escalation. Incredibly, Trump is saner than a lot of these people. But he has also picked a lot of them as his advisers.