The first round looks like a victory for Trump. By killing Soleimani, he unmistakably demonstrated his willingness to respond to attacks on Americans. The formal Iranian military retaliation was for show. And with Trump announcing new sanctions, Iran isn’t any closer to being out of the box, indeed its options now probably are more constrained than they were a week ago.

Obviously, there are miles to go. Iran can still respond indirectly with assassinations and terror attacks, and our position in Iraq is tenuous. No one can be sure where the confrontation over Iran’s nuclear program ends. But all the talk of August 1914 and the onset of World War III was, like the brief media obsession with an impending recession last year, hysteria fueled in part by anti-Trump animus.