What's à good image of the US nowadays ? Artemis maybe. That's all.

Wait for re-entry.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47582043

We are in an era of clickbait; mainstream media tends to be sycophantic to the views of its readers.

FWIW, this was the title around 6am. By 8am, they had changed it to something a little bit more respectable.

Would a better image be destroying the power plants and water desalination of 90M people?

One should never draw a redline they aren't willing to cross. Trump of all people should know this, he gave Obama shit for years over the uninforced redline with Syria over chemical weapon use.

To Trump, when someone else does something, it's worthy of reproach, but when Trump himself does it, it's the cleverest 4D chess anyone could ever imagine.

A more fundamental aspect of his character is that everything his enemies does is bad and stupid and everything he does is good and genius.

So if Obama allows red lines to be crossed, it's totally different. Trump has a long history of bluster and hyperbole and - look - we re-elected him so I guess it can be a winning strategy.

Or it was. Now that people are calling his bluff on tariffs and genocide, there isn't so much winning.

I personally would have a better image of the ongoing war if it had any objectives that felt achievable. I tried role-playing/stategizing through this war to find _any_ issue in which the US has anything that looks like a victory.

The best outcome I could think of for the US is one in which Trump manages to save face, declares victory, and leaves.