You want the casino tell, here it is.
Sunday night the President went on Truth Social and said Iran had to move FAST or there would not be anything left of them. He wrote TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE. He used the all-caps button. He posted it during a prayer rally on the National Mall, which is its own thing.
Monday afternoon the President went back on Truth Social and announced he had instructed U.S. military leadership that we will NOT be doing the scheduled attack of Iran tomorrow. He used all-caps for the word NOT. Nice touch.
In between, three phone calls.
The heads of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates called the White House and asked him, in the polite phrasing the wires used, to “hold off.” He held off.
Thirty years on the floor.
You watch enough hands of cards, you see this guy. He sits down loud. He raises before the flop. He tells the table about a deal he is going to make. He stares at the dealer. He stares at the rail. Then somebody he respects walks by, taps him on the shoulder, says a few words.
He folds the hand.
He does not fold it like he is wrong. He folds it like he is being generous. He folds it like he is doing the table a favor by not taking everyone’s chips.
What the wires actually wrote.
CNN reported that he told U.S. military leadership “to be prepared to go forward with a full, large scale assault of Iran, on a moment’s notice.” On a moment’s notice. The Washington Post added that Iran had submitted a counter-response through Pakistan, which is the diplomatic equivalent of a friend-of-a-friend passing a note in third period.
The Hill pegged the elapsed time between “TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE” and “we will NOT be doing the scheduled attack” at about twenty-six hours. I rounded up.
The thing nobody is saying.
I know a guy who calls the over/under on these. He has Iran getting threatened again before Friday. He has the next call-off by the Tuesday after that.
He is not Iranian. He works at Caesars. He has been right eight times in a row.
we will NOT be doing the scheduled attack of Iran tomorrow.
The breakdown.
- Factual basis CNN, the Washington Post, and CNBC quoted both Truth Social posts verbatim and named the three Gulf leaders who called.24/25
- Self-awareness He used all-caps for the word NOT in the call-off post, twenty-six hours after using all-caps for the word FAST in the threat.9/20
- Staff containment No White House cleanup attempted. The explanation IS the post. The post IS the policy.10/20
- Recovery attempt The reversal got framed as graceful diplomacy at the request of friendly leaders, not as a climb-down from an empty threat.8/15
- Public spectacle CNN, WaPo, CNBC, Al Jazeera, The Hill all ran the call-off as Monday's lead. Oil prices retraced what they gained on Sunday.16/20
Was this dumb enough?
Members can adjust the score. Become a member.