Weimar

Weimar (pronounced vahy-mahr, wahy-mahr, veye-mahr or weye-mahr)

(1) A city in Thuringia, in central Germany, the scene (in 1919) of the adoption of the constitution of the German state which came (retrospectively) to be known as the Weimar Republic.

(2) A German surname (of habitational origin).

(3) As Weimar Republic, the sovereign German republic (1918-1933), successor state to the German Empire (1871-1918 and now sometimes referred to as the “Second Reich”) and predecessor to the Nazi regime (the “Third Reich”, 1933-1945).  In the narrow technical sense of constitutional law, the "Weimar Republic" came into existence only in August 1919 but among historians it's common (and convenient) to date it from Kaiser Wilhelm II's (1859–1941; Emperor of Germany & King of Prussia 1888-1918) abdication in 1918.

Pre 1100: The construct was the Old High German wīh (holy; sacred) + meri (sea; lake; pond; standing water, swamp).  The name can therefore be analysed as something like “holy pond” or “sacred lake” but what religious significance this had or which aquatic feature was involved is not known.  A settlement in the area of what is now Weimar has existed since at least the early Middle Ages and there is a document dated 999 which makes reference to the town as Wimaresburg but how long this, or some related form had been in use is unknown.  Over time, the changes presumably reflected as desire for convenience and simplification (not an imperative always noted in evolution of the German language) and during the early centuries of the second millennium the place seems to have been known as Wimares, Wimari & Wimar before finally becoming Weimar.  In a manner not unusual in the Holy Roman Empire (800-1806 and for certain purposes dubbed First Reich”), it was the seat of the County of Weimar, one of the administrative and commercial centres of Thuringia but in 1062 merged with the County of Orlamünde to form Weimar-Orlamünde which existed until 1346 when the Thuringian Counts' War (a squabble between several local barons) erupted.  In the settlement which followed, Weimar was taken by the Wettin clan as an agreed fief and over time developed into a major city.  Weimar is a proper noun, Weimarization & Weimarize are nouns and Weimarian is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is Weimars.

One native to or an inhabitant of Weimar is a Weimarer (strong, genitive Weimarers, plural Weimarer, feminine Weimarerin).  The adjective Weimarian (of or relating to the Weimar period (1918-1933) in German can be used in any context but is most often applied to the art & culture associated with the era rather than politics or economics.  The comparative is “more Weimarian”, the superlative “most Weimarian”).  The noun Weimarization (a state of economic crisis leading to political upheaval and extremism) is used exclusively to describe the political and financial turmoil of the Weimar years.  The verb Weimarize (to cause to undergo Weimarization) is the companion term and is applied in much the same was as a word like “Balkanize” as a convenient word which encapsulates much in a way no other can.  The Weimaraner is a breed of dog, bred originally in the region as a hunting dog, the construct being Weimar + the German suffix -aner (denoting “of this place”).

In a constitutional sense, the Weimar Republic came into existence on 11 August 1919 when the national assembly of the German state met in the city to adopt the new Weimar Constitution.  Despite that, many historians use the label to cover the whole period between abdication on 9 November 1918 by Wilhelm II and the Nazis taking office on 30 January 1933.  The constitution created what structurally was a fairly conventional federal republic (known officially as the Deutsches Reich (German Reich)), the constituent parts of which were the historic Länder (analogous with the states in systems like the US, Canada or Australia though the details of the power sharing differed), each with their own governments, assemblies and constitutions.  Historians regards the inherent weakness of the structure as one of the factors which contributed to the political instability, economic turmoil and social unrest for which the era is remembered but the external forces are thought to have been a greater influence, notably the harsh terms imposed by the Treaty of Versailles (1919) and the extraordinary level of war reparations, the latter associated particularly with the hyper-inflation of 1923.  However, it was a time of unusual social & political freedom, marked by an outpouring of innovative cultural creativity.  One thing which tends to be obscured by what came later was that by 1928 the system had been stabilized and the economy was stable; in the last election prior to the Wall Street Crash (1929), the Nazi vote had slumped, rendering the party an outlier with no immediate prospect of success.  In democratic politics, the the so-called "protest vote" can at scale be attracted only if a critical mass of people think things are so bad they're prepared to "take a risk" on an unproven alternative; it was only the depression of the early 1930s which doomed Weimar and even then, the Nazis gained power not by achieving an electoral majority but through a series of back channel deals by establishment figures who (at the time, understandably) underestimated the threat posed.

Lindsay Lohan in court, Los Angeles, 2011.

Actually, rather than the pleasant city in Thuringia which lent the constitution its name, it was Berlin, the national and Prussian capital which came most to be associated with the artistic and sexual experimentation of the republic.  Although most of went on in the place was little different than in other conservative German cities it was the small but highly visible numbers of those enjoying the excesses which attracted attention.  In his novel Down There on a Visit (1962) Christopher Isherwood (1904–1986) wrote of the sort of warning respectable folk would in the 1920s offer to anyone who seemed to need the advice:

“Christopher - in the whole of Thousand Nights and One Night, in the most shameless rituals of the Tantra, in the carvings on the Black Pagoda, in the Japanese brothel-pictures, in the vilest perversions of the oriental mind, you couldn’t find anything more nauseating than what goes on there, quite openly, every day. That city is doomed, more surely than Sodom ever was."  And then and there I made a decision - one that was to have a very important effect on the rest of my life. I decided that, no matter how, I would get to Berlin just as soon as ever I could and that I would stay there a long, long time.

Weimar art: Der Künstler mit zwei erhängten Frauen (The Artist with Two Hanged Women), watercolour and graphite on paper by Rudolf Schlichter (1890-1955).  Note the high-heeled jackboots.   

Isherwood left London by the afternoon train for Berlin on 14 March 1929, taking a room next to the Hirschfeld Institute for Sexual Science from which he explored the city’s “decadence and depravity” enjoying just about every minute and by his own account every gay bar and club (of which there were many).  That niche was only one of many to which the Berlin of Weimer catered, all fetishes seemingly there from morphine, cocaine and opium houses to a club at which membership was restricted to a “coven of coprophagists [who] gorged a prostitute on chocolate, gave her a laxative and settled down to a feast.”  Actually, at the time, there was plenty of depravity among the Nazis, however much the public platform of the party might stress traditional values and they were as condemnatory as the Pope of communists, homosexuals and Freemasons (by contrast, it was institutions such as the Roman Catholic Church, the British Empire and comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) which attracted the sometimes grudging admiration of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945).  Indeed, in his writings and the recollections of his contemporaries, Hitler didn’t much dwell on moral matters but ceaselessly would condemn those aspects of German culture he believed the Weimar generation were corrupting including “modernist architecture, Dadaist art, Jewish psychoanalysis, experimental theatre, short shirts, lipstick, bobbed hair, dances like the foxtrot and jazz” (the last of which he derided as “a degenerate negroid sound”).

Weimar art: Sonnenfinsternis (Eclipse of the Sun (1926)), oil on canvas by George Grosz (1893-1959).  Weimar was not untouched by surrealism.

The lurid tales of Weimar Berlin from the diaries of Christopher Isherwood now entertain rather than shock as once they would have managed but the expressionist art which flourished at the time remains striking.  A stridently experimental fork of the European avant-garde, the Weimar artists chose to ignore traditional aesthetic conventions and, according to some critics, the painters were fascinated by ugliness, the composers by atonal dissonance.  They were also artists who were predominately urban and focused upon the city, its decadence and corrosive influence upon the individual.  The Weimar period was the time also when the phrase magischer Realismus (magic realism) was coined, more accurately to describe what had come to be known as the Neue Sachlichkeit (new objectivity).  Magic realism is now thought of as a literary genre in which fantastical elements are interpolated into life-like depictions of the world but the first use was in 1925 by German art historian Franz Roh (1890–1965) who observed many artists in the Weimar Republic rejecting (or at least ignoring) the idealistic style (fashionable before World War I (1914-1918) and which had combined naturalistic depiction with an amplification of beauty and virtue), in favor of something recognizably realistic yet blended with uncanny elements.  Roh’s understanding of magic realism was at least partially an acknowledgement of technology: the influence of photography and moving pictures (film).  Then as now, there was debate about whether there was some point at which realism stopped and surrealism began but the distinction was that magic realism was a distortion of the actual material world for some political or other didactic purpose whereas surrealism explored the abstractions which lurked in the subconscious mind. 

In the Weimar style: The Rt Hon Theresa May MP (2023), a portrait of Lady May (b 1956; UK prime-minister 2016-2019) by Saied Dai (b 1958).

Painted by Tehran-born Saied Dai, it will hang in  Portcullis House, Parliament's office complex where many MPs have their offices and not since Graham Sutherland’s (1903–1980) portrait of Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) was unveiled in 1954 has a painting of one of the country’s prime-ministers attracted so much interest, the reception of such works not usually much more than perfunctory.  Sutherland was commissioned (as second choice; Sir Herbert Gunn's (1893–1964) fee deemed too high) by the ad hoc “Churchill Joint Houses of Parliament Gift Committee” to paint a portrait to mark the prime minister’s 80^th birthday and, on 30 November 1954, members of the Commons & the Lords assembled in Westminster Hall to mark the occasion.  Paid for by parliamentary subscription (the idea of paying for such a thing from their own pockets would appal today’s politicians), it was intended the work would remain with Churchill until his death after which it would be gifted to the state to hang in the Palace of Westminster.

Winston Churchill (1954) by Graham Sutherland.

Things didn’t work out that way.  Churchill, not anyway much enjoying the aging process loathed the painting and felt betrayed by the artist, the preliminary sketches he’d been shown hinting at something rather different.  Initially, he sulked, first saying he wouldn’t attend the event, then that he’d turn up only if the painting wasn’t there but his moods often softened with a little coercion and he agreed to make a short speech of thanks at the unveiling, his most memorable lines being: “The portrait is a remarkable example of modern art. It certainly combines force and candour.”  It wasn’t hard to read between the lines and when delivered to Churchill’s country house, the painting was left in a storeroom, never unwrapped and never again to be seen, Lady Churchill (Clementine Churchill (Baroness Spencer-Churchill; 1885–1977) in 1956 incinerating it in what was described as “a huge bonfire”.  That she'd executed one of history’s most practical examples of art criticism wasn't revealed until 1979.  Curiously, when first she saw it in 1954 she admired the work, Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) who was with her at the time noting she “liked the portrait very much” and was much “moved and full of praise for it.”  Her view soon changed.

The better-received May portrait was commissioned this time by the Speaker's Advisory Committee on Works of Art at a cost to the taxpayer of Stg£28,000 (in adjusted terms somewhat less than the thousand guineas paid in 1954) and Mrs May (she doesn’t use the title gained in 2020 upon her husband being knighted (for “political service”) in Boris Johnson’s (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022) remarkable (and belated) Dissolution Honours List) was reported as saying she thought the portrait a “huge honour”.  When interviewed, the artist said his “…aim was to produce not just a convincing physical likeness, but also a psychological characterization, both individual and yet archetypal - imbued with symbolism and atmosphere.  A good painting needs to be a revelation and also paradoxically, an enigma. It should possess an indefinable quality - in short, a mystery.”

A work of careful composition, critics have found in it influences from the Renaissance and Mannerism but it’s most obviously in the spirit of the German expressionists identified with the Weimar Republic and the addition of a convallaria majalis (the "lily of the valley" which flowers in May) was the sort of touch they would have admired.  Interestingly, Mr Dai expressed relief he’d not been asked to render Mr Johnson on canvas which is understandable because while an artist could permit their interpretative imagination free reign and produce something memorable, Mr Johnson over the decades has been a series of living, breathing caricatures and it would be challenge for anyone to capture his “psychological characterization”.  The Weimaresque May in oil on canvas works so well because it’s so at variance with the one-dimensional image of the subject which has so long been in the public mind.  Whether it will change the perception of Mrs May in the minds of many isn’t known but critics mostly have admired the work and views of her premiership do seem to have been revised in the light of the rare displays of ineptitude which have marked the time in office of her three successors.

After Weimar: Der Bannerträger (The Standard Bearer (circa 1936)) oil on plywood by Hubert Lanzinger (1880-1950).  The post card with the inscription Ob im Glück oder Unglück, ob in der Freiheit oder im Gefängnis, ich bin meiner Fahne, die heute des Deutschen Reiches Staatsflagge ist, treu geblieben (Whether in good fortune or misfortune, whether in freedom or in prison, I have remained loyal to my flag, which is now the state flag of the German Reich) was issued in 1939, one of many such uses of the image which depicts Hitler as a knight in shining armor on horseback, bearing a Swastika flag.  As he did whenever a  postage stamp with his image was sold, the Führer received a tiny fee as a royalty; multiplied by millions, he gleaned quite a income from the use.  In one of the many examples of the fakery which underpinned Nazism (and fascism in general), in real life, Hitler was “terrible on horseback".

Der Bannerträger was an example of the type of art which proliferated in both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, works which constructed the the personality cult around Hitler and comrade Stalin, reinforcing the messaging of both regimes.  Although, understandably, biographers and others have much focused on the two as human characters, as historical figures they need also be understood as manufactured constructs something certainly understood by the Soviet leader who once explained the abstraction of the personality cult by pointing to one of his many huge portraits and saying “…you see, even I am not Stalin, THAT is Stalin!”  One remarkably succinct sketch of how these thing are done lies in the pages of Paris: The Memoir (2023) in which Paris Hilton (b 1981) detailed the way Paris Hilton (the blonde flesh & blood creature) has a full-time job being Paris Hilton (the blonde public installation), a dualism she treated seriously because its maintenance demands study and an understanding of the supply & demand curves of shifting markets; a personality cult needs to be managed because, while some aspects must remain static, others need to evolve.

Such imagery Hitler dutifully would acknowledge when they were presented but he really did think them a kind of kitsch and while understanding their utility as propaganda pieces, they aroused in him little interest.  What he really liked in a painting was beauty as he defined it and in this his differentiation was something like his views on architecture where the standards imposed on the “functional” varied from his expectations of the “representational”.  Hitler would admire modern architecture rendered in steel & glass if it was being used for a factory or warehouse; there it was a matter of efficiency and improving working conditions but for the public buildings of the Reich, he insisted on classical motifs in granite.  In painting, he distinguished between what was essentially “advertising” and “real” art which the expressionism of the Weimar era certainly was not; the “…sky is not green, dogs are not blue and anyone who paints them as such has a sick mind” was his summary of thought on the Weimar art movement.  His preference was for (1) the Neoclassical which drew inspiration from the Greek and Roman art of Antiquity and his fondness extended not only to the voluptuous female nudes historians like to mention but also to the idealized, heroic figures representing nobility and heroism; with these he identified, (2) realistic landscapes, particularly those of the German countryside at its most lovely, (3) German Academic Realism which produced intricately detailed realistic representations of subjects, (4) depictions from Norse mythology which created a link between the legends and the idealized vision of the Nazi project and (5), traditional portraiture, if realistic and flattering (certainly demanded of the many painted of him).

Women in Weimer art: Margot (1924), oil on canvas by Rudolf Schlichter (1890-1955) (left), Porträt der Tänzerin Anita Berber (Portrait of the Dancer Anita Berber (1925)), oil and tempera on plywood by Otto Dix (1891–1969) (centre) and Bean Ingram (1928), oil on canvas by Herbert Gurschner (1901-1975) (right). 

Books of which the Nazis didn’t approve could be burned and proscribed music not performed but the practical public servants in the finance ministry knew much of the Entartete Kunst (degenerate art) removed from German (and later Austrian) galleries was highly sought by collectors in other countries and valuable foreign exchange was obtained from these sales (some of which in the post-war years proved controversial because of the provenance of some pieces sold then and later; they turned out to have been “obtained” from occupied territories or Jews).  Hitler despised Dadaism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism and just about every other modern "ism" in art and expected others in the Reich to share his view but an exhibition of Entartete Kunst in Munich in 1937 proved an embarrassing one-off for the regime because people from around the country travelled to see itm making it the most attended art show of the Third Reich.  It was Weimar’s revenge.

Termagant

Termagant (pronounced tur-muh-guhnt)

(1) A mythical deity popularly believed in Medieval Christendom to be worshiped by Muslims and introduced into the morality play as a violent, overbearing personage in long robes (a proper noun and thus used with initial capital).

(2) A brawling, boisterous, and turbulent person or thing (archaic).

(3) A censorious, nagging, scolding and quarrelsome woman (not exactly synonymous with “harridan”, “virago” or “shrew” but with a similar flavor of disapprobation); for those who find some women worse than others, the comparative is “more termagant”, the superlative “most termagant”.

(4) The act of behaving violently; turbulent conduct.

Circa 1500: From the Middle English Termagaunt (one of the three fictitious deities (others being Apollin & Mahound) represented as being worshipped by Muslims; any pagan god), from the from the Anglo-Norman Tervagant, Tervagaunt & Tervagan and the Old French Tervagant & Tervagan, a name bestowed on a wholly fictitious Muslim deity, created by Christian polemicists to use in medieval morality plays as a symbol of the Islamic faith.  In the Old French, Tervagant was a proper name in the eleventh century chanson de geste (song of heroic deeds (from the Classical Latin gesta (deeds, actions accomplished)) Chanson de Roland (Song of Roland).  The epic poem is the oldest known work of substantial length in French still extant and was drawn from the exploits of the Frankish military commander Roland at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass (778) during the reign of Charlemagne (748–814; “Charles the Great” and (retrospectively) the first Holy Roman Emperor 800-814).  That the text (more correctly “texts” as a number of variants have been identified) survived to this day is accounted for by the work’s popularity; it was between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries among the most widely distributed pieces of literature in Medieval and Renaissance Europe.  The alternative spelling was termagant.  Termagant is a noun & adjective, termagancy & termagantism are nouns, termagantish is an adjective, and termagantly is an adverb; the noun plural is Termagants.

The ultimate origin of the word is a mystery but the most supported theory suggests the construct being based on the Latin ter (three times, thrice) (from the primitive Indo- European tréyes (three)) + vagāns (rambling, wandering) (present active participle of vagor (to ramble, roam, wander), from vagus (rambling, roaming, wandering) (the source of which may be the primitive Indo-European hwogos) + -or (an inflected form of -ō (the suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs)).  Given that possible etymology, it’s argued the appearance of Termagant in Chanson de Roland as one of the three deities allegedly worshipped by Muslims was an allusion to the wandering of the moon (the crescent moon a well-known symbol of Islam) in the form of the mythological goddesses Selene in heaven, Diana on Earth, and Proserpina in the underworld.  The adjective was derived from the original proper noun, the sense of a “violent, overbearing person” (later applied especially to “difficult” women) evolving because Christian scribes always applied these characteristics to the figure; the meaning shift was thus a “partial transfer” in that the unpleasant personality was carried over to earthly flesh and blood with no suggestion of anything supernatural. 

Al Malik Al Ahmar (The Red Jinn-King) from an eighteenth century edition of the the Arabic manuscript of Kitab al Bulhan (Book of Wonders).

The Termagant was a wholly mythical deity invented by Christian writers in Middle Ages who claimed it was a figure worshiped by Muslims.  Depicted as a violent, overbearing personage in long robes, unlike a number of cross-cultural creations there was no figure which existed specifically in Islamic belief, theology, or folklore that could be said to be a model for the fanciful imaginings of Christian polemicists so it was “fake news” rather than a distorted version of a figure in what was in the West long called Mohammedanism (also a misleading tern because of the implication Muhammad is worshiped by Muslims; In Islam only Allah (God) is worshiped while Muhammad is venerated as His greatest prophet).  This was all part of Christianity’s misrepresentation of Islamic theology as not monotheist and thus in violation of first two of the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament’s Book of Exodus: (1) Thou shall worship no other Gods and (2) Thou shall not create false idols.  It was a blatant untruth because strictly Islam was tawḥīd (monotheistic) and explicitly proscribed even the suggestion of a pantheon of gods.  Unlike Christianity’s claims about Jesus Christ, the prophet Muhammad was never said to be divine and was never worshipped.  Thus, the so-called “Saracen trinity” in medieval texts has no basis in Islamic doctrine although that didn’t prevent the notion spreading and being believed and variants of the techniques of dissemination have since been practiced by propagandists such as priests and politicians.

An Islamic miniature (1595) depicting Iblīs (top right) plotting against Muhammad watching over a meeting by the leaders of the Quraysh discussing the second pledge at al-Aqabah, being spied on by the anti-Islamic zealot “the Monk” Abu ʿĀmir al-Rāhib, who is part of Iblīs' plan, New York Public Library collection.

It’s true that there were then (as there are now) in Islam many figures of authority cloaked in long, dark robes but that was true also of Christianity and other faiths.  By the late Middle Ages, even if the fake theology was proving unconvincing, the secular appeal of such a menacing figure was real and especially in English theatre (where there was often more leeway granted by the censors of church & state than elsewhere in Europe), the termagant evolved into a stock character: ranting, tyrannical, bombastic and often dressed in a costume of a type which late in the twentieth century the Palestinian-American academic Edward Said (1935–2003) in Orientalism (1978) identified as a clichéd “exoticized Eastern costume” (another Western construct).  Of Termagant Apollin & Mahound, although there are in the Islamic tradition no true analogues, there are figures (perhaps better thought of as “concepts”) in which there are vague or superficial resemblances to the stereotype although there was never a hint they should be worshiped.  The جنّ (Jinn) were supernatural beings made of “smokeless fire” and although some were rebellious or violent, depending on this and that, they might be benevolent, neutral, or malevolent but were certainly not deities to be worshipped and seem never to have been depicted as despotic tyrants in the theatrical sense of the Termagant of the Christian imagination.  Best known in the West was إبليس (Iblīs/Shayṭān (Satan)) who existed as the primary adversarial figure in Islam and one representing arrogance, rebellion, and temptation.  Iblīs however seems closer to the Christian Satan than a “false god”, not being nor portrayed as a blustering theatrical tyrant in robes.  Most interesting in the tradition were the طاغية (ẓālim; the tyrannical rulers), a crew made especially interesting in the last few months, following the ayatollahs’ recent bloody crackdown on the streets of Iran to ensure regime survival, the death-toll in January 2026 believed to have exceeded 30,000 and the author and public policy analyst Robert Templer (b 1966) has estimated that on at least two days that month, there were more were killed in state-sanctioned violence than on any day since the end of World War II (1939-1945), his calculations including the genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda and the Balkans.  The Qurʾān condemns unjust rulers (such as the Pharaohs) and to make the point, the ẓālim tended to be overbearing, violent and arrogant.  Those Iranians killed by the thousand while chanting “Death to the dictator!” would have recognized what the Qurʾān condemns but the pattern is known from history.

Lindsay Lohan (b 1986, right) with former special friend Samantha Ronson (b 1977, left).  The couple were a tabloid staple in 2008-2009 but at the time the question often asked was whether a relationship between one “quite termagant” and another “more termagant” could long be sustained.  As was predicted, things ended badly.  There seems no evidence there ever was a collective noun for Termagants.  If one is needed, it’s be something like a “tempest”, “scold”, “railing” or “fury” of termagants.

By March 1945, it was obvious to most in Berlin that the end was nigh and one individual brought to the attention of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) a salient passage in his political manifesto Mein Kampf (1925-1926): “The task of diplomacy is to ensure that a nation does not heroically go to its destruction but is practically preserved.  Every way that leads to this end is expedient, and a failure to follow it must be called criminal neglect of duty.  State authority as an end in itself cannot exist, since in that case every tyranny on this earth would be sacred and unassailable.  If a racial entity is being led toward its doom by means of governmental power, then the rebellion of every single member of such a Volk is not only a right, but a duty.”  Unmoved, Hitler responded: “If the war is lost, the people will be lost also.  It is not necessary to worry about what the German people will need for elemental survival.  On the contrary, it is best for us to destroy even these things.  For the nation has proved to be the weaker, and the future belongs solely to the stronger eastern nation.  In any case only those who are inferior will remain after this struggle, for the good have already been killed.”  Presumably, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (1939-2026; Supreme Leader, Islamic Republic of Iran 1989-2026) would have concurred with the sentiments for, just as the Germans had “failed Hitler”, those Iranians chanting “Death to the dictator!” had failed him, thus the holy duty to kill them, not for a motive as base as “regime survival” but because the protesters were attacking Islam and thus Allah himself.  In the Supreme Leader’s theological construct, killing thousands in defense of God was not merely justified but an obligation.

Over time, in English, “a termagant” came to mean a scolding or overbearing person, a meaning wholly detached from its supposed origin in religion and under a number of influences, it came to be used mostly of women.  The most significant of these influences was literature and the stage, use shifting from elaborate epics about the crusades to popular entertainment.  As a constructed theological fiction Termagant was anyway perfect for the playwright and had it not existed it surely would have been created, violence, bluster, and irrational fury staples of drama.  For students of such things, the shift from the ranting tyrant to the “stock stage villain” was interesting because in the latter role the Termagant needed sometimes to be a comic character, bombastic and shouting with deliberate “overacting” often in the stage directions.

The elongated John Cleese (b 1939) and Andrew Sachs (1930-2016) in Basil the Rat (25 October, 1979) the final episode in the BBC comedy series Fawlty Towers (12 episodes in two series (1975 & 1979)).  It was in the Fawlty Towers episode The Germans (24 October, 1975) that the phrase “Don't mention the war” was introduced by Basil at his most termagant and in that case Shakespeare would have instructed Cleese to “out-herod Herod”.

So in early Modern English, the shift began from character to adjective and with the use in stage drama expanding during the sixteenth century, the transition accelerated.  When William Shakespeare (1564–1616) had Sir John Falstaff faking his own death (Act 5, Scene 4) in Henry IV, Part 1 (circa 1596), he spoke of the fierce Scottish rebel, Archibald, Earl of Douglas as “that hot termagant Scot” and by then there was no hint of any connection to alleged Islamic deities; it was just about the man’s turbulent, violet nature.  Shakespeare’s characters run the gamut of the human condition, something sometimes misunderstood by those who associate him only with what’s understood as “high culture” but he knew that while “overacting” sometimes was essential for comic effect  otherwise it needed sedulously to be avoided. In his stage instructions for Hamlet (circa 1600) he cautioned the cast: “Oh, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.”  That instruction also assumed a new life, appearing in modified form in All's Well That Ends Well (circa 1602) as “out-villain'd villainy” before in the 1800s “out-herods Herod” came widely to be used as a critique of any behaviour thought “excessive” and by then, in stage productions, “termagant” explicitly was invoked as verbal shorthand for the sort of strident ranting sometimes required.

The suggestion that Basil Fawlty may be thought a “Shakespearian” character is not flippant and is in the vein of the observation by the English actor Sir Peter Ustinov (1921–2004) that were the Italian painter of the Early Renaissance Sandro Botticelli (circa 1445-1510) alive today: “he'd be working for Vogue”.  One suspects Shakespeare would have been proud to have created a figure like the evil J.R. Ewing (from the US TV series Dallas (1978-1991)) or penned a line like “Round up the usual suspects!” (from the movie Casablanca (1942)).  The works of Sir Pelham “P.G.” Wodehouse (1881–1975) have a certain charm which exerts a powerful pull on some critics and often he’s cited as a twentieth century popular author reaching a similar audience to that for which Shakespeare wrote centuries earlier.  The politician and diarist Woodrow Wyatt (1918–1997) reckoned: “There are almost as many quotations in Wodehouse as Shakespeare” and the usually acerbic Auberon Waugh (1939–2001) mused: “The failure of academic literary criticism to take any account of Woodhouse’s supreme mastery of the English language or the profound influence he has had on every worthwhile English novelist of the last 50 years demonstrates in better and concise form than anything else how the English literature industry is divorced from the subject it claims to study.”  His point was well-made although it may have been a little back-handed, old Auberon Waugh probably not thinking the last fifty years had produced many “worthwhile” novelists.

Color plate of Sir John Falstaff by Giovan Battista Galizzi (1882-1963) from The Life and Death of Sir John Falstaff (1923, with an introduction by lawyer George Radford (1851-1917)).

Even before the scientific and technical advances of the last two centuries-odd led to a proliferation of creations, the English language's vocabulary was famously large and while some categories have been more more productive than others, few proved quite as imaginatively fecund as (1) coinings and re-purposings to describe female body parts and (2) terms with which to demonize or disparage women (termagant one of the latter).  After the dubious link with Islam had been discarded, termagant was understood as someone blustering, noisy and tyrannical; it was in the late sixteenth century there was a distinct gender shift and the word became specifically female, associated less with domineering violence and more with shrillness, emotional excess, and scolding, performed in a theatrical style that audiences coded as unseemly or grotesque, applying the word to “difficult” women in the world beyond.  It was a time of profound social and political change and as social norms in England hardened around ideals of female deference, obedience and modesty, the label migrated: While for men “termagant” had meant (depending on context) threatening or ridiculous, when applied to women it suggested social transgression.  It wasn’t quite Taliban-level repression but women with minds of their own were apt to be judged quarrelsome, overbearing and scolding, terms like “shrew” & “virago” becoming termagant’s companion terms.  At this point, lexical fossilization set in and by the mid-1700, the original sense (the fictional deity) had faded into obscurity with the meaning stabilized as “a domineering, bad-tempered woman”, thus the adjectival form “termagant behaviour”.  To etymologists, the long process was an interesting case study in that the mechanism of changed happened in phases, the theatrical and religious origins surviving only as residual footnotes while the metonymic shifts were driven by changing cultural norms, not grammatical rules.

The Royal Navy's Talisman-class destroyer, HMS Termagant, 1916.

It was of course a good name for a warship and between 1780 and 1965, the British Admiralty from time to time had seven HMS Termagants attached to the Royal Navy’s fleets, the last launched in 1943.  One with a vague connection to the original meaning was a Talisman-class destroyer, ordered originally by the Ottoman Empire but in 1915 requisitioned by the Admiralty (as HMS Narborough) before being renamed built HMS Termagant.  Despite the expectations of decades, World War I (1914-1918) was not a conflict of great naval clashes and although she took part in the Battle of Jutland (1916, which seemed at the time anti-climatic but was strategically decisive), her record was not illustrious and, sold for scrap in 1921, she was broken up two years later.

Anthony Albanese (b 1963; prime-minister of Australia since 2022, left) and his wife Jodie Haydon (b 1979, centre) with Grace Tame (b 1994; activist and advocate for survivors of sexual assault, right) in photo opportunity before a morning tea at the Lodge (the prime minister’s residence), Canberra, Australia, January, 2025.

The “Fuck Murdoch” T-Shirt she made famous was worn with a purpose.  Happy to discuss the provocative fashion piece, Ms Tame said the message wasn’t aimed just at media mogul Rupert Murdoch (b 1931) but rather the “obscene greed, inhumanity and disconnection that he symbolises, which are destroying our planet.  For far too long this world and its resources have been undemocratically controlled by a small number of morbidly wealthy oligarchs.  If we want to dismantle this corrupt system, if we want legitimate climate action, equity, truth, justice, democracy, peace, land back, etc, then resisting forces like Murdoch is a good starting point.  Speaking truth to power starts at the grassroots level with simple, effective messages. It’s one of my favourite shirts.”

A difficult woman's sceptical glance: Grace Tame (right) looking at Scott Morrison, Canberra, Australia, January 2022.

Ms Tame had previously provided photographers with some good snaps, most memorably her stony “side-eye” expression to Scott Morrison (b 1968; Australian prime minister 2018-2022), another politician she deemed not to have treated allegations of sexual assault and toxic workplace culture in federal parliament with sufficient seriousness, noting his casual dismissal of her as having “had a terrible life”.  Less than amused at some of the commentary about her sideways glance, she tweeted on X (the called Twitter) that some in the media appeared to have reduced the matter of survival from abuse to a culture “…dependent on submissive smiles, self-defeating surrenders and hypocrisy”, adding “What I did wasn’t an act of martyrdom in the gender culture war.”   Expanding things to a construct, she explained: “It’s true that many women are sick of being told to smile, often by men, for the benefit of men. But it’s not just women who are conditioned to smile and conform to the visibly rotting status-quo. It’s all of us.”

If Anthony Albanese didn't previously think Grace Tame was “a difficult woman”, he probably now does.

In Australian political discourse, “termagant” has not often been heard but ALP (Australian Labor Party) luminary Kim Beazley (b 1948) did in 2008 so label the Liberal Party’s Tony Abbott (b 1957; prime-minister of Australia 2013-2015); while a by then untypical use, it did prove the word was still used of men.  Unfortunately, that seems not to have stuck in the mind of mind of the ALP’s Anthony Albanese (b 1963; prime-minister of Australia since 2022) who, during a “rapid-fire word association game” at a function organized by Mr Murdoch’s News Corp, was prompted with “Grace Tame” to which he responded “difficult”.  The remarks were noted by Ms Tame who had in the past been critical of politicians who she claimed treated her as a “problem to be managed” rather than doing anything substantive to prevent sexual abuse or assist survivors.  Whether it would have been any better had he be called her “termagant” rather than “difficult” is debatable but at least the history of Mr Abbott being so labelled would have meant it could be argued it wasn’t a “gendered” word (the history of the last few centuries notwithstanding).  Probably the best choice for Mr Albanese would have been “formidable” in the sense of the French très formidable meaning something like “wonderful” or “terrific”, such a woman being une femme formidable.  Formidable was from the Middle English formidable, from the Old French formidable & formible, from the Latin formīdābilis (formidable, terrible), from formīdō (fear, dread); it was another example of a meaning shift.  In fairness to Mr Albanese, it was a spur-of-the-moment response to an unexpected prompt and, in an attempt to make things better, he explained: “I was asked to describe people in one word and Grace Tame you certainly can’t describe in one word.  She has had a difficult life, and that was what I was referring to.  If there was any misinterpretation, then I certainly apologise. I think that Grace Tame has taken what is personal trauma and that awful experience that she had and channelled that into helping, in particular, other young women, being a strong and powerful advocate, being quite courageous in the way that she has gone out there.”  That probably made things worse.  Unimpressed, Ms Tame (a most adept media player) issued a statement: “Spare me the condescension, old man”, suggesting Mr Albanese was paraphrasing Scott Morrison who’d once explained her attitude as the consequence of a “terrible life”.  Continuing her critique, she added: “We all know what you meant. A badge of honour anyway.  A confession that I’ve ruffled him.”  On social media, she found much support, one posting: “‘Difficult’ is the misogynist’s code for a woman who won’t comply.  History tends to call her ‘courageous’.”

Australian Femicide Watch's Difficult Woman T-shirt in red (also available in seven other colors.  The fingernail shape is a stiletto.

Ms Tame must have resisted the temptation to order a batch of “Fuck Albo” T-shirts which shows some generosity of spirit but the Australian Femicide Watch's Red Heart Movement is offering “Difficult Woman” T-shirts with Aus$5.00 from each sale donated to the Grace Tame Foundation.  The garments are made with 100% combed organic cotton grown without the use of herbicides or pesticides and certified as compliant to the GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard).  Depressingly, Australian Femicide Watch tracks the death toll of women in Australia killed in “intimate partner violence”; in 2025 the rate was 1.44 per week and by the first week in April 2026, 1.23.

Crooked Hillary Clinton, the termagant of the last four decades.

Although it’s Donald Trump’s (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) “crooked” moniker which will forever be attached to crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013), more than most women who have dared trespass on the historic male preserve of politics, she has attracted gender-based terms of disparagement.  Not content only with words from English, Mr Trump also borrowed from Yiddish, referring to her failure to secure the Democrat nomination for the 2008 presidential election as having been “schlonged by Barack Obama” (b 1961; POTUS 2009-2017) in the primaries.  A schlong (from the Yiddish שלאַנג (shlang) (snake)) is “a penis” and usually carries the implication of “a big one” so his idea was one of “man beats woman”; as “woman beats man”, the closest companion term is “pussy whipped” which for men obviously is quite a put-down.  Crooked Hillary has also been called “a tough little termagant in a pantsuit”, “the virago of Pennsylvania Avenue”, “calculating”, “disingenuous”, “a radical feminist”, “a harridan” (a bossy or belligerent old woman), a “femocrat”, a “feminazi”, “a succubus” (a female demon who had sex with sleeping men”, “Lady Macbeth in a headband”, “Ms bad-hair day” and “a shrew”.  All very sexist of course and there also been a debate about whether she should be called a “habitual” or “pathological” liar but she shouldn't complain about that; she has “a bit of previous”.

Ultimatum

Ultimatum (pronounced uhl-tuh-mey-tuhm or uhl-tuh-mah-tuhm)

(1) A final, uncompromising demand or set of terms issued by a party to a dispute (used especially of governments and WAGs (wives & girlfriends)), the rejection of which may lead to a severance of relations, the imposition of sanctions, the use of force etc.

(2) A final proposal or statement of conditions; any final or peremptory demand, offer or proposal.

1731: From the New Latin, a specialized use of the Medieval Latin ultimatum (a final statement), noun use of neuter of Latin adjective ultimātus (last possible, final; ended, finished), past participle of ultimāre (to come to an end), from ultimus (extreme, last, furthest, farthest, final).  The Latin plural ultimata was used by the Romans as a noun in the sense of “what is farthest or most remote; the last, the end”.  In mid-1920s slang ultimatum described also “the buttocks” (a use which deserves to be revived).  In English, the plural form had an interesting trajectory.  Although the Anglo-Irish satirist & Anglican cleric Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) used “ultimatums”, that didn’t until the twentieth century convince the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) to displace ultimata as the recommended form.  In diplomacy (a world of “gray areas”), the comparative is “more ultimative”, the superlative “most ultimative”.  Ultimatum is a noun, ultimating & ultimated are verbs and ultimative is an adjective; the noun plural is ultimatums or ultimata. 

The first ultimatum would have been issued in prehistoric times and there have been many since.  History suggests a great many have been bluffs which can be a successful tactic if perceived as plausible but often the “bluff was called” and the ultimatum proved a hollow threat, thus the language of diplomacy including also the (sometimes darkly) satirical or humorous (1) penultimatum (plural penultimatums or penultimata) which describes a statement of terms or conditions made by one party to another, commonly expressed as an ultimatum in the hopes of compelling immediate compliance with demands, but that then is superseded by more negotiation instead of actual dire consequences and (2) antepenultimatum (plural antepenultimatums or antepenultimata) which describes a statement of terms or conditions made by one party to another, essentially a penultimatum, but even more tentative and more repeatedly abandoned in favour of subsequent ignominious compromises.  The trouble with unfulfilled ultimatums is that while rapidly they can lose their persuasive power (in a manner analogous with Aesop's Fable The boy who cried wolf), at some point a party issuing unenforced ultimatums may one day make good on their threats, the high stakes gambler Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) and the rather dim-witted Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946; Nazi foreign minister 1938-1945) both in September 1939 genuinely surprised when the Anglo-French ultimatum guaranteeing the sovereignty of Poland was honoured, the previous back-downs no longer a guide.  Of course, six year later, Polish sovereignty was sacrificed to political necessity but a war which began with the RAF (Royal Air Force dropping leaflets politely asking the Germans to stop what they were doing and ended with the USAAF (US Army Air Force) dropping A-bombs of Japanese cities had many unintended consequences.

CD cover art for Lindsay Lohan's Spirit in the Dark (2008) album.

For centuries, the word “ultimatum” seems to have been avoided by poets, librettists and lyricists.  Ultimatum is a Latinate “formal” word so perhaps not well-suited to love songs but beyond the register and tone, those studying structural linguistics note the prosody: It’s a four-syllable word with a stress pattern (ul-TIM-a-tum) difficult to “fit into” common meters and melodic phrasing.  That said, while there’s a semantic narrowness, the idea of the ultimatum (a final demand backed by consequences) is hardly rare in opera and poetry but it tends to be described or implied rather than labelled with the specific word.  However, one niche was found in the definitely modern genre of rap, hip-hop and such and that’s attributed to the material putting a premium on conflict, violence and the technique of rhyming on the final syllable.  Undaunted however was Kara DioGuardi (b 1970) who included “ultimatum” in the opening verse of the Lindsay Lohan song Stay (2008).  Its inclusion is a genuine rarity.

Verse 1 of Stay (2008) Kara DioGuardi, sung by by Lindsay Lohan.

Baby, take your coat off and your shoes and just relax
Let your body sink into these arms, that's where it's at
I'll open up a bottle and slip into something else
I hope tonight's the night that all these walls are gonna melt
'Cause when we're out, you're sending me mixed signals all the time
You want me, but you don't just wanna lay it on the line
So baby, here's your ultimatum, are you in or out?
All you have to do is wanna turn this all around, and...

If it was for poets a challenge to splice “ultimatum” into the body of a work, without any discordance it could be used as a title and Philip Larkin (1922-1985) choose it for his first published poem which appeared in The Listener on 28 November, 1940:

Ultimatum (1940) by Philip Larkin.

But we must build our walls, for what we are
Necessitates it, and we must construct
The ship to navigate behind them, there.
Hopeless to ignore, helpless instruct
For any term of time beyond the years
That warn us of the need for emigration:
Exploded the ancient saying: Life is yours.
For on our island is no railway station,
There are no tickets for the Vale of Peace,
No docks where trading ships and seagulls pass.
Remember stories you read when a boy
- The shipwrecked sailor gaining safety by
His knife, treetrunk, and lianas - for now
You must escape, or perish saying no.

Unknown previously, “ultimatum” did occasionally appear in twentieth century poetry, a product probably of the big, multi-theatre wars and the use in modern and experimental poetry of language which borrowed from abstract or formal vocabularies.  While the terrible first half of the twentieth century gave poets plenty of scope to explore the concept (it was an age of ultimatums), in print, it was done almost without mention of the word.

The issuing of ultimatums has shaped a number of turning points in history; variously they have proved decisive, stabilizing or catastrophic.  Probably the most infamous was the “July Ultimatum”, served on Serbia by Austria-Hungary after a Serbian nationalist assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand (1863–1914; heir presumptive to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire).  While such a procedure was orthodox politics, what was notable about what Vienna did in 1914 was to make demands it was certain Serbia would be unable to fulfil.  The Austrians hankered for war because they wanted permanently to put an end the “Serbian threat” and Berlin, anticipating a traditional, short, sharp, limited war of a few weeks, gave Vienna the infamous “German blank cheque” of support.  Belgrade accordingly turned to its traditional supporters in Moscow who agreed to offer military support; that came after the Kremlin had received confirmation from Paris that France would honor its treaty arrangement with Russia.  From all this came the outbreak of war in August 1914 by which time the British (for a variety of reasons) had become involved and by 1917 the US had become a belligerent; this was conflict which came to be called “The World War” before in the 1940s being renamed “World War I” (1914-1918).

Even in 1945, the phrase “unconditional surrender” (the origin an apparently chance remark (although subsequently he would cite a precedent from the US Civil War (1861-1865)) by Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR, 1882–1945, POTUS 1933-1945) at the Casablanca Conference (January 1943)) had been controversial because of the concern it had lengthened the war against Germany by dissuading (the probably chimerical) opposition forces within the country from staging a coup with a view to negotiating peace.  Despite that, at the Potsdam Conference (July-August 1945) the Allied powers (China, the UK & US, the Soviet Union not then at war with Japan) served Tokyo with the Potsdam Declaration demanding exactly that.  After the two A-bombs were dropped, the Japanese agreed to a surrender that fell a little short of being “unconditional” but the Americans decided to accept the offer, concluding having a “puppet emperor”.

Trump: The Art of the Deal (First Edition, 1987) by Donald J. Trump with Tony Schwartz.

One once improbable text in 2016 added to the reading lists of political analysts was Trump: The Art of the Deal (1987) by Donald J. Trump (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) with Tony Schwartz (b 1952).  It’s a useful book because in it Mr Trump (or Mr Schwartz depending on one’s spin of choice) provided examples of negotiating techniques.  That book was about commerce, notably property deals, but it gave an insight into why Mr Trump later succeeded so well in reality TV, his understanding of the potency of mixing fact, threats, spectacle and blatant untruths underlining that second career.  He may not, while the book was being drafted, have been contemplating politics as a third career but he did find many of its techniques could be adapted to international diplomacy.  In that he proved an innovator but there are limitations to how well things translate.  One weapon in the arsenal is the ultimatum which can be used in real-estate deals with few consequences beyond the relatively few individuals concerned but in international relations, such things can have cascading global effects.

If within the White House there were any doubts the issuing of ultimatums might have consequences other than what was desired, the path of the conflict in the Middle East should have given them some interesting case studies.  What’s also interesting is whether in the White House the possible reactions to ultimatums were discussed prior to them being presented.  Giving the Ayatollahs 48 hours to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face withering new airstrikes on Iran’s power generation infrastructure sounded decisive on Truth Social (which definitely is part of the modern calculation in such matters) but Tehran responded by threatening to target the energy and water desalination facilities in the neighboring Gulf states.  As threats go, it was a stark warning because those nations can rely on desalinated water for as much as 90% of their needs and have no practical alternative so it would have been an escalation with potentially devastating regional consequences.

Not a model easily translatable to Iran.  Nicolás Maduro (b 1962; President of Venezuela 2013-2026, right) and his lawyer Barry Pollack (b 1964, left), US Federal Court, Manhattan, New York City, March 2026, illustration by Jane Rosenberg (b 1949).

Accordingly, prior to the deadline, Mr Trump announced he’d “temporarily” called of the strikes, claiming that was induced not by Tehran’s counter-threat but by “productive” talks with “the right people”.  He didn’t descent to specifics (something not unusual in back channel diplomacy) but did add the talks had revealed “major points of agreement” and “they want very much to make a deal, we'd like to make a deal, too.”  Apparently unimpressed, Iranian state media, claimed the president had backed down in the face of their threats and denied talks of any significance were taking place.  Again, in diplomacy of this kind, denials are standard procedure.  A few hours later, Mr Trump assured an audience the US was conducting “very, very good discussions” with Iran.  So it’s competing narratives and analysts made no attempt to try to work out how much truthfulness was coming from either side but more than one observed that if the president had realized he’d painted himself into a corner by delivering the ultimatum, revealing previously unannounced back-channel discussions was a quick and face-saving way to buy some time to hope plan A (missiles and bombs) works.  There was though from some sources the notion the mention of “the right people” may put in the mind of the regime the audacious kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro (b 1962; President of Venezuela 2013-2026), an operation made possible by the cooperation of “the right people” in Caracas.  Some suspicion of one’s colleagues might be understandable given the extraordinary success achieved in assassinating leading figures in the Iranian political establishment and the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps).

While it can be guaranteed US-Iran “talks” are taking place in some form, trying to predict the course of this conflict is difficult because there are relatively few models from the past which might provide something of indicative value.  Since the end of the Cold War, one endlessly repeated admonition issued by those in the Middle East to successive occupants of the White House has been not to do this or that because “you will open the gates of Hell”.  Many probably suspect that at some point in that last few years, those gates were at least pushed ajar but if things do escalate they could be torn from their hinges and the most worrying scenario is that US land forces will be deployed against Iran with the active cooperation of the Gulf States, something unthinkable as recently as a few weeks ago.  The theory supporting this is based on the notion that the attacks on Iran conducted over the past year have made irrevocable the Ayatollah’s determination to acquire an IND (independent nuclear deterrent), a quite rational response by any regime reviewing military matters since 1945.  Of course, ayatollahs with A-bombs would trigger a chain reaction because a number of states in the region would also demand their own IND with a genuinely autonomous launch capacity because, just as Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970; President of France 1959-1969) felt compelled to acquire the capacity because he doubted “a US president would risk New York to save Paris” the same concerns would extend to the fate of Dubai and Riyadh.

The power behind the curtain: Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei (b 1969; Supreme Leader, Islamic Republic of Iran since 2026, left) looking at his father Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (1939-2026; Supreme Leader, Islamic Republic of Iran 1989-2026).  Mojtaba Khamenei’s nickname is reputed to be “The power behind the robes”, an allusion to the power he exercised while his father was supreme leader (something like the role fulfilled by Lieutenant General Oskar von Hindenburg (1883–1960) while serving as ADC (aide-de-camp) Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934; President of Germany 1925-1934).

What Mr Trump has done is to abandon the “power realist” approach to dealing with the Islamic Republic.  As explained by its high priest (Dr Henry Kissinger (1923-2023; US national security advisor 1969-1975 & secretary of state 1973-1977)), the approach was an acknowledgment that “solving” some problems was either impossible or so dangerous to attempt that the preferred approach was endlessly to “manage” things, thereby either maintaining the problem at an acceptable level or allowing it, over time, to “solve itself”.  Mr Trump probably genuinely believes there is not a problem on the planet he can’t solve by “making a deal”, achieved by a combination of threats, inducements, spectacle and ultimatums.  In some fields, such optimism is a virtue but when dealing with Ayatollahs with a nuclear weapons programme and the dream of a global caliphate under their interpretation of Shi'i Islam, it’s at least potentially dangerous.  One can argue about whether the ayatollahs had, prior to the last two rounds of attack, already decided to develop a deliverable nuclear weapon but now there can be no doubt.  No US president before Mr Trump would have dared do what’s been done in the last twelve months but now he’s in the position of not daring to stop because nothing short of regime change can now make things better; all alternatives are worse.  On paper, given the regime’s internal contradictions and the widespread dissatisfaction among the population, there should be paths to regime change without a land invasion but the Ayatollahs and IRGC appear still to possess a formidable defensive apparatus.  As the missile exchanges continue, Mr Trump has announced a ten-day extension to the deadline to re-open the Strait of Hormuz.  Whether this will come to be regarded as ultimatum 1.1 or 2.0 will be one of the footnotes when the histories of this conflict are written.