Vessels in the Strait of Hormuz are visible near the beach of Bandar Abbas, close to Larak Island (Reuters)The TOI correspondent from Washington: US President Donald Trump appears to have discovered a new battlefield in his increasingly frustrating war with Iran: the realm of artificial intelligence (AI), where he can destroy Iranian oil terminals with the stroke of a keyboard, military victories are instant, and inconvenient questions can be edited out.On Sunday night, Trump posted an AI-generated video purporting to show Iran’s strategic Kharg Island being obliterated, declaring that the vital oil hub was being “blown to smithereens.” The video showed spectacular explosions and destruction, which defense analysts say never happened even though fighting resumed Sunday after a month-long lull.There was no Pentagon confirmation as of Monday morning that such an attack on Kharg Island had taken place but that did not stop Trump from declaring a few hours later that “Iran” is a failed nation and the only thing going for it is “fake news from the USA,” which refuses to recognise tremendous American victories.“Iran…IS DEAD! They have no navy, they have no Air Force, they have no currency, they are not paying their soldiers or police, Inflation is at 300 percent, and their leadership is in total disarray and incapable of properly representing the country. The only thing they have is FAKE NEWS from the USA, a willingness to kill their protesters (now over 100,000 people dead. They must be tried for war crimes against humanity!), and a good line of “BULLSHIT.”: Trump raged on his social media platform, inviting ridicule from critics.Iranian officials and much of the US political spectrum treated the presidential outburst as yet another infantile tantrum. “The President of the United States is mentally unwell and has been for quite some time. He fantasized blowing up Iran’s Kharg Island. Except it didn’t happen. And why would trump need to blow it up if, as trump claims, the US has total control of the Straight?” asked California lawmaker Ted Lieu, even as Iran dismissed the U.S claim, saying operations on Kharg were normal.Kharg handles roughly 90 percent of Iran’s crude-oil exports, making it one of Tehran’s most valuable economic and strategic assets. Destroying it would be a major military and economic event – not something normally expected to exist only as a computer-generated video on the president’s social-media account.The episode produced the extraordinary spectacle of an American president announcing a battlefield success while the Pentagon remained unwilling – or unable – to substantiate it. In Washington, the question became less whether Kharg had been “blown to smithereens” than whether the smithereens existed anywhere other than inside a graphics processor unit (gpu).Actual U.S.-Iran fighting resumed Sunday after a month-long lull, with American forces striking Iranian rocket-launching equipment on Larak Island and Iran retaliating with ballistic missiles against U.S. facilities in Jordan; Jordan said eight missiles were intercepted. Tehran also claimed an attack on a U.S. base in the United Arab Emirates, a claim the UAE rejected, saying it had intercepted an Iranian drone over its territorial waters.Tehran, meanwhile, has displayed an inconvenient capacity for remaining operational, with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attending the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Kyrgyzstan, where he told Indian PM Narendra Modi that Iran still wanted a negotiated end to the conflict.The contrast between Trump claims and Iranian behavior is becoming one of the strangest features of the six-month conflict: Washington is increasingly talking in the language of total victory while Tehran continues to retaliate militarily, manage diplomacy, contest the Strait of Hormuz and seek economic relationships with China, Russia and other partners despite punishing sanctions.Behind the scenes, the Pentagon has its own problems with reports of dissent among senior commanders over plans to sustain a large U.S. military presence in the Middle East. Several four-star commanders and senior admirals are said to have registered formal “non-concurs” over Defense Secretary Hegseth’s plans. The objections reportedly center on the strain the prolonged Iran operation is placing on American forces and readiness.Hegseth has already presided over an extraordinary turnover of senior military leadership, including the removal of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George. The Army’s senior ranks have been hollowed out by the purge, with some key positions remaining vacant. Reports that Hegseth himself could ultimately be vulnerable to Trump’s famous personnel churn remain unconfirmed. But the possibility is now part of Washington’s think-tank tattle, adding an extraordinary layer of uncertainty to an already unsettled Pentagon.For Trump, AI offers an irresistible solution to all the uncertainty. If reality does not supply enough explosions, victories and surrendering enemies, technology can.