The Military Is Not a Prop
There’s no shame in calling back a strike on Iran. But Trump’s own account of how it happened is chilling.
Late Thursday night, The New York Times dropped an astonishing piece of news: President Donald Trump, responding to Iran shooting down an American drone, had ordered strikes against the Islamic Republic—and then decided, with planes in the air, to call them back and pull his punch.
Often, when news organizations deliver this kind of story, the president denies the claim forcefully, usually with accusations of either calumny or treason against the outlet. (He then often slips up and confirms the basic gist of the reporting.) On Friday morning, however, Trump did something different: He gleefully confirmed the story in a series of tweets. After a preamble about
