The world is holding its breath as America’s military races to Iran’s doorstep, stoking fears that the president who ran on ending “forever wars” is set to launch a new one. Misdirection, though, is President Trump’s weapon of choice, and he finds victory sweeter when it’s won without throwing a punch.

Iran is the sort of challenge that Mr. Trump finds irresistible, one that has flummoxed Washington’s self-appointed brainiacs for 50 years. The fact that any of his predecessors could have resorted to force to solve it makes that option repellant to the incumbent — boring and without imagination.

In 2012, three years before Mr. Trump descended the escalator and acceded into the White House, he tweeted a line from “The Art of War” by a Chinese general, Sun Tzu. “The supreme art of war,” the quote read, “is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

When Israel began striking Iran on Friday, it presented the opportunity to win such a supreme victory. But it left Mr. Trump on the sidelines, which he finds uncomfortable. His denials of advance knowledge soon gave way to saying that Prime Minister Netanyahu had informed America beforehand.

By Tuesday, Mr. Trump had put himself in command. “We now have,” he posted on Truth Social, “complete and total control of the skies over Iran.” He demanded “unconditional surrender,” leaving Tehran, which he had urged to “evacuate,” buzzing with fear of American airstrikes.

“Iran can never have a nuclear weapon,” Mr. Trump posted across social media on Monday. Like his predecessors, he announced that he favors negotiations, using both the carrot and the stick but in his own, gold-plated style.

“Iran had good sky trackers,” Mr. Trump tweeted on Tuesday, “and other defensive equipment.” He followed up this compliment, as he often does, with a dig. “But it doesn’t compare to American-made, conceived, and manufactured ‘stuff.’ Nobody does it better than the good ol’ USA.”

As with Lend-Lease in World War II, Washington is supplying what President Franklin Roosevelt described as the “garden hose” to help its ally put out a house fire. Brave Israelis may be doing the fighting, but Mr. Trump wants America to get its share of credit and cash it in to advance his endgame.

“Iran is not winning this war,” Mr. Trump told reporters during the G-7 summit at Canada on Monday, “and they should talk … immediately, before it’s too late.” That same day, five sources told Reuters that Tehran wanted America to force a cease-fire on Israel, sending the SOS via the Gulf states.

If the same Iranian regime that dubbed America “the Great Satan” and chanted for its “death” now calls Washington for a lifeline, it’s unlikely to carry out its threats against that country’s bases. Should any retaliation come, “it’d be gloves off,” Mr. Trump told reporters Tuesday on Air Force One.

It’s a paradox that being ready for war makes conflict less likely and raises the odds of a peaceful solution. “The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal,” as Mr. Trump wrote in “The Art of the Deal,” his 1987 book, “is seem desperate to make it. That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you’re dead.”

Thanks to Israel, it’s Iran’s dictator, Ayatollah Khamenei, who’s sweating. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump posted that he knows “exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding,” but America is “not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now.”

Like Don Vito Corleone in “The Godfather,” Mr. Trump is making Mr. Khamenei an offer he can’t refuse. A successful boss doesn’t get his hands dirty. It’s Israel — like Corleone’s heavy, Luca Brasi — telling the ayatollah that “either his brains or his signature” will be on an agreement.

Mr. Trump may not be able to get the ayatollahs to denuclearize without at least air strikes. Yet expect “The Art of the Deal” president to take inspiration from those who doubt, determined to achieve Sun Tzu’s “supreme art of war” by subduing the enemy without having to fight.