Donald Trump, surrounded by military and administration officials, speaks in the White House on Wednesday.
Trump didn’t discuss whether the U.S. is planning to withdraw forces from Iraq, as a letter that the Department of Defense issued but then disavowed Tuesday suggested.
He didn’t explain, more broadly, what his administration wants from Iran—what the country could do to relieve the economic and military pressure that Trump is apparently so keen to put on it.
Typically, these kinds of details might be filled in during background briefings by other high-ranking administration officials or by a White House press secretary.
This is not a war effort that is getting a lot of legwork and shoe leather put into it.
Most upsettingly, all of this happened because Donald Trump is the president.
He was mad enough to start a war but then maybe Tucker Carlson, on his TV, talked him out of it. »
