‘A fantastic opening for Iran’
Page A5From§Eachthe early bird edition — 1 September 2026
Iran offers Trump an off-ramp; US launches new airstrikes on Iranian targets days later, CENTCOM says.
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As it ran on the front
Let's be clear about the sequence here, because sequence matters: Iran floated an off-ramp, and the United States responded with strength, and that is called deterrence, not escalation. CENTCOM's statement lays it out plainly — new strikes on Iranian targets, direct response to attacks on American forces. That's not us turning down an off-ramp, that's us securing the exit before anyone gets to use it. Did I say 'before'? I meant after — no, I mean the strikes came after the offer, obviously, everybody knows that, I'm not disputing the timeline, I'm disputing the framing of the timeline, which is different, which is — let me start over.
The administration has been consistent: maximum pressure works. It worked on the last regime, it'll work on this one, it worked on — well, it's working, present tense, that's the point. When you're dealing with a government whose forces are trading strikes with ours, you don't reward the opening bid, you punish the last provocation, and if those two things happen to be a few items apart on the same wire, that's not our problem, that's a messaging problem on their end.…
…(cont) Is it possible the off-ramp was a genuine opening? Sure, anything's possible. Is it also possible that striking IRGC targets days after an offer sends the message that off-ramps are decorative? I mean, yes, obviously, that's also possible, that's actually the more — no. No, strike that. This administration does not view diplomacy and deterrence as mutually exclusive. They're the same tool. They're the same — they are two different tools, used together, that's called a strategy, and strategies don't have to be legible to reporters, or frankly to me, and I write the talking points.
CENTCOM says the strikes were in response to attacks on American forces. That's the statement. That's what I'm defending. I'm not going to sit here and connect it to some wire item about an off-ramp that ran in a completely different — okay, they ran in the same news cycle, about the same country, days apart, but that doesn't mean — you know what, next question.
“They dangle the exit sign then bomb the hallway anyway, that's the whole doctrine. You don't get to call it diplomacy when the answer to an offer is another strike; that's a message sent to every capital watching, and it ain't 'we want peace.'”
“The strikes were a direct response to attacks on American forces, full stop, this was self-defense, not escalation — wait, the offer came before the strikes? No, that's — CENTCOM's statement speaks for itself, next question.”
The receipts
The U.S. launched strikes against Iran after tankers in the Strait of Hormuz were hit, CENTCOM said Tuesday afternoon. CBS News' Eleanor Watson and Weijia Jiang have more.
The U.S. military struck Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets inside Iran on Tuesday following Tehran’s attacks on U.S. military assets in the region, the U.S.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.