Pentagon won't explain wedding it hit, so Iran hits three countries, so Trump tells them to rise up

As it ran on the front

The Pentagon has not yet said why its most accurate missile in history found its way to a wedding party. This is not evasion — it is process. Investigations take time, and until Central Command completes its review, the department will not speculate on targeting data, or, frankly, why the guest list matters at all. What we can say is that within days of the strike, Iran responded not with statements but with strikes of its own, hitting Jordan, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates — American allies, not American enemies — in what Tehran is calling retaliation and what we are calling regrettable escalation by a hostile regime that apparently cannot distinguish a wedding from a bunker. Central Command answered with another round of strikes. The President clarified Tuesday night that he is "not trying to force Iran to the negotiating table" — which is not the same as saying what he is trying to do, and I don't have that in front of me.

What he is trying to do, it turns out, is ask Iranians directly when they intend to rise up and fight. This is not regime change. Regime change is a formal policy determination made through interagency process, not a rhetorical question posed on a platform the President happens to own. Though I should note that on August 18th, journalist Maggie Haberman reported the President had "basically ignored many of his own advisers" and gone to war after Netanyahu told him regime change would be easy. So the rhetorical question and the policy may, in fact, be the same sentence. I withdraw the distinction.…