Donald Trump who, as of 8:22 AM in Washington on Thursday, was prepared to hit Iran “very hard” during what would’ve been a second consecutive night of US bombing, postponed additional attacks on the country five hours later.

The “scheduled strikes” were “canceled,” Trump said, on social media, citing “the fact that discussions” with the regime in Tehran “have been brought to the highest level of leadership and approved.”

It was unclear, initially, what that meant, but Trump likely intended to suggest that after weeks of dithering, an extension of the two-month ceasefire which broke down in recent days was at long last decided and agreed.

“Discussions and final points have been, in both concept and great detail, approved by all parties involved, including the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt and others,” Trump wrote, without naming Iran.

The US will continue to blockade Iran’s ports “until [the] transaction is finalized,” he went on, adding that both sides were working Thursday to agree on a “time and place” to sign the MOU we’ve heard so much (and yet so little) about.

Later, in the Oval Office, Trump talked up “a great settlement of the war.” Related “documents” are in the process of being “finalized” and should be signed “over the next few days.”

If tonight’s airstrikes on Iran are “canceled,” I assume the invasion is too. Early Thursday, in an apparent fit of irritability, Trump said the US military was prepared to seize Kharg Island and commandeer Iran’s natural resources, Venezuela-style, if the Guards don’t come to their senses “soon.”

US equities added to gains on news of the canceled attacks. Brent slipped below $90 and Treasury yields fell.

Trump would say this is textbook “art of the deal.” I’d say it’s asinine. Even if, as appears likely, the threat of a return to all-out war and the specter of US troops on Iranian soil lit a fire under a diplomatic process that had flamed out in the smoking remains of dead Lebanese and the smoldering ashes of structures crumpled by retributive missile fire, publicizing every twist and turn only serves to make Trump seem even more mercurial than we all know him to be.

The fact that Wall Street largely ignored his invasion threat on Thursday morning says a lot about how much figurative and literal stock investors place in Trump’s intraday mood swings by now.

“Impulsive decisions will reset the entire board for the worse,” Bagher Ghalibaf warned, two hours before Trump’s change of heart. Energy infrastructure would burn, as would markets, on a return to full-on war, “creat[ing] an endless quagmire that you will be stuck in for years,” he added.