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This is the political scene, a weekly conversation with New Yorker writers and guests about politics.

It's Thursday, January 9th. I'm Dorothy Wickenden, executive editor of The New Yorker.

President Trump's sycivancy toward dictators has been one of the defining features of his presidency.

Some have explained it as a crazy-like-a-F Fox strategy, a version of Richard Nixon's handling

of communist regimes. Nixon told his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, I call it the

Madman theory, Bob. We'll just slip the word to them that, for God's sakes, you know Nixon

is obsessed about communism, we can't restrain him when he's angry, and he has his

hand on the nuclear button. But the madman theory doesn't explain Trump's openly expressed

envy of Kim Jong-un, Xi Jinping, and Vladimir Putin, or his blatantly contradictory approach to Iran,

where he's both bellicose and fearful of a war.

On Tuesday evening, just days after Trump ordered the assassination of General Qasam Soleimani,

who commanded Iranian military forces in the region, Iran attacked two Iraqi military bases housing U.S. troops.

Speaking yesterday about the attack, Trump started out by saying,

...