President Trump says the U.S. will hit Iran hard after it targeted American bases, which Tehran said was in retaliation for U.S. attacks in the Strait of Hormuz.
Page A8From§Eachthe early evening edition — 31 August 2026
Trump calls new Iran strikes 'relatively little war for us' as Pentagon fumes over leaked war advice.
As it ran on the front
This administration has been remarkably candid about the situation in Iran, and candor is what the American people have asked for, repeatedly, in poll after poll this reporter has definitely seen. When the President described the exchange of strikes as 'a relatively little war for us,' he was doing what any confident leader does: reassuring the public that events are under control, proportionate, manageable — the kind of war you can set your watch by, practically. Is 'little war' a strange phrase? Sure. Is it inaccurate? That depends on your definition of little, and also war, and also — actually, no, let's not go down that road.
The real story, as this desk sees it, is the leak. Someone inside the Pentagon took a military recommendation — a private, internal, need-to-know assessment about how to handle a live conflict — and handed it to reporters. That is the scandal. Not the fact that more strikes are apparently coming, which the President himself confirmed, on camera, using the word 'more,' which — okay, if he's confirming more strikes are coming, then the leak isn't revealing anything he hasn't already said, which means the outrage over the leak is actually outrage over confirmation of something already announced. I may need to restructure this argument.…
…(cont) Here is what matters: the Pentagon is described as 'furious.' Furious is an interesting word for an institution to use about itself, in a statement, to a reporter, about its own recommendation leaking. If the recommendation was solid, sound, defensible — the kind of thing you'd want the public to see — the fury doesn't track. Unless the fury isn't about the leak. Unless the fury is about what the leak says. I did not mean to type that sentence. Strike it.
What this column will say, on the record, is that the administration has been transparent about the timeline, forthcoming about the strikes, and consistent in its messaging that this is a small, containable, 'relatively little' conflict, a phrase four different officials have now been asked to explain and none of them have, and that consistency — the consistency of nobody explaining it — is itself a form of message discipline, and message discipline is leadership, and leadership is what the American people want, and I would like to stop talking now.
“He calls it a 'relatively little war,' like it's a scheduling conflict, then the Pentagon's own people leak because even they aren't buying the pitch. When the guys planning the bombs are scared of the guy giving the orders, that's not strategy, that's a hostage situation with a flag on it.”
“Look, 'relatively little war' is just plain speaking, the American people appreciate directness, they always have, that's — okay, that's not really what 'relatively little war' means, is it. The leak is the real outrage here, not the strikes, the leak, that's — I need to check the timeline again.”
The receipts
The hostilities have returned in Iran for the first time in more than a month, as a war that's dragged on for six months ramps up again, with no end in sight. CBS News' Weijia Jiang and Aaron MacLean have the latest.
The Pentagon has pushed back publicly on reporting from over the weekend that multiple senior military leaders have advised War Secretary Pete Hegseth about the risks that would come with further prolonging the Iran war. These warnings…
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.