The Strait of Hormuz remains the primary flashpoint in the conflict.
Page A6From§Eachthe coffee break edition — 31 August 2026
Washington Examiner declares America 'out of forever wars' as Trump launches first Iran strikes in a month
As it ran on the front
Let's be clear about what happened and, more importantly, what didn't happen. The strikes on Kharg Island were targeted, they were first-in-a-month, and 'first-in-a-month' is a phrase that by definition cannot describe a forever war, because a forever war doesn't have gaps. We wrote it ourselves: America is out of money, out of forever wars, and done apologizing. That's not spin, that's the headline, and headlines don't lie, often.
Now, some readers are going to point to the piece two doors down in the same publication, the one comparing this to Bush and 9/11, calling it — and I want to get this exactly right — 'Trump just speedran Bush's biggest mistake.' And look, I've read that piece, I've read it twice actually, trying to figure out how it — no, you know what, I haven't read it, I'm told about it, that's different, that's — the point is, internal editorial diversity is a strength of this publication, it means we're not an echo chamber, it means when the administration launches its first strikes on a sovereign nation in a month and posts an AI-generated video of the target 'blown to smithereens,' we've got writers on both sides of that, calmly.…
…(cont) The video, by the way — some folks are calling that escalatory messaging. I don't think a computer-generated clip of an island getting leveled, posted personally by the president hours after the actual strike, is really a messaging question at all, it's a communications choice, and communications choices aren't policy, they're just optics, and optics aren't the same as a war, forever or otherwise.
Tehran responded with attacks, yes, that's in the wire copy, that happened, that's a fact I'm not going to run from. But 'Tehran responds with attacks' is a headline about Tehran, not about us. We didn't restart anything. We ended something, briefly, and then, for reasons still being finalized internally, un-ended it, for one news cycle, which any honest reading of the term 'forever war' would tell you doesn't count. I stand by the essay. Both essays. All of it.
“They sell you 'no more forever wars' at the newsstand and start a new one before the ink's dry. Same paper ran its own eulogy for Bush's Iraq blunder days later, like they didn't cash both checks. This is the con: the exhaustion talk is just cover for the same lever, still pulled, still somebody else paying for it.”
“This isn't a forever war, it's a decisive strike, surgical, contained, and — well, the same paper called it Bush's biggest mistake, but that's a different piece, different byline, we don't all read each other's copy over here.”
The receipts
As we approach the 25th anniversary of 9/11, isn’t it time we learned the lessons of history? From Vietnam to 9/11, the War on Terror, and now Iran, America never seems to understand what ought to be obvious conclusions about its actions…
The Pentagon has failed its audit eight years running - the only major federal agency never to pass one Military Times, 19 December 2025
America is out of money, out of forever wars, and done apologizingIn 1776, a congress of colonials declared they had had enough of kings and priests claiming divine right over their lives. Rights come from the Creator, governments exist by consent, and their purpose is to secure life, liberty, and the…
Donald Trump posted an AI video showing Iran's Kharg Island destroyed, hours after real US airstrikes hit rocket launchers on Larak Island.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.