Critics feared it would plunge the Middle East into a wider war. That doomsday scenario has not come to pass, at least for now: Iran made only symbolic retaliation against America; soon after, a ceasefire ended the fighting between Iran and Israel.

Trump spent three days issuing a barrage of public assurances, calmly delivered threats, contradictory signals and eventually a curse-filled damnation of Israeli and Iranian leaders.

Even the prospect of civil war cannot be ruled out,' an expert tracking growing violence in the West Bank told Newsweek.