As President Donald Trump posts AI-generated videos of Kharg Island being obliterated, one of Iran’s highest-ranking leaders is appealing to their most powerful allies for assistance. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, the second-highest…
Page A2From§Eachthe early evening edition — 31 August 2026
Trump threatens bombing Iran as approval sinks to new low and Pentagon fumes over leaked internal recommendation
As it ran on the front
Pull up a stool, because this one's got a rhythm to it if you listen for it. The man's threatening to bomb Iran, openly, 'economic war,' the whole marquee. Iran's over at some summit begging China and India for cover, which tells you they're taking the threat seriously even if half the country here doesn't believe he'd pull the trigger. Fine. That's the setup everybody sees.
Here's what you don't see until you read the whole page instead of just the headline. His approval's cratering, hit a new low, and the polling people are specifically pointing at the Iran war weighing on it. So the public, quietly, in the numbers, not on any picket line, is telling him this isn't playing. And in the same week, the Pentagon is furious. Not concerned. Furious. Over a leak. Somebody got out a military recommendation on the Iran situation, and the building that actually has to fight the war if he says go is mad enough that it's making news.…
…(cont) Now think about what has to be true for a leak to make the Pentagon that mad. It's not mad because the enemy learned troop positions, that's not what 'military recommendation' means. A recommendation is advice. Advice to somebody. And the only somebody worth advising on whether to bomb Iran is the guy talking about bombing Iran. So work it backward with me: the building whose job is to know what a war costs put something in writing, somebody besides the President saw it before he wanted them to, and now the building's furious that the public got a peek at what the actual experts think versus what's coming out of the rally.
You don't have to know exactly what the recommendation said to know the shape of it. Nobody gets this mad over an accurate leak that confirms the plan. You get mad over a leak that contradicts the plan and reveals a plan already exists. That's the tell. The approval numbers are the public's gut telling him no. The Pentagon's fury might be the professionals telling him the same thing, on paper, and getting caught doing it.
Either way, somebody's kid is the one who finds out which memo won.
“Follow the sequence: he's talking bombs, his own approval's cratering because of the last war talk, and the Pentagon is choking mad because somebody leaked what the military actually recommended. You don't get furious over a leak unless the leak says something you didn't want people to see, like maybe the guys with the maps said don't.”
“The Pentagon's frustration is about protecting sources and methods, not about the substance of any recommendation, which I haven't read, nobody's read, it's classified, which is why the leak is the real crime, no, not crime, the leak is the real problem. Approval numbers move around, that's not a referendum on any one policy, particularly not the one everybody's asking about.”
The receipts
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…
The Pentagon has failed its audit eight years running - the only major federal agency never to pass one Military Times, 19 December 2025
Trump approval dips to new low as Iran war weighs on support: PollPresident Trump’s approval rating sank to a new low in a University of Massachusetts (UMass) Amherst poll as the Iran war drags on. Just 32 percent of 1,000 respondents to the national survey, which the university conducted Aug. 21-26…
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.