‘I’m pleased to see that the regime in Pyongyang has certainly demonstrated some level of restraint that we’ve not seen in the past.’

That was Rex Tillerson a week ago in a statement that was certain to rendered inoperative in a matter of months, if not weeks or days. And here we are with North Korea having launched a missile over Japan. So many things are unusual about the Trump administration. At least it has a stereotypically clueless and naive Secretary of State to lend a sense of normality to the proceedings.