Pentagon retaliates for Iranian missile strikes by destroying three tankers tracked since June.

…(cont) June 17: ship trackers — the record includes Kpler, MarineTraffic, TankerTrackers — log three Iranian oil tankers clearing a U.S. blockade line that had been up since April.

August 31: after a weekend exchange of strikes, the President tells a reporter, "We're going to hit them hard. There will be a response."

September 1, a Tuesday: U.S. Central Command says it began striking Revolutionary Guard targets, citing "attempted attacks... against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz."

September 2: a CENTCOM spokesman says the military is "looking into" reports, sourced to Iranian state media, that a strike the day before hit a house where a wedding was underway.

September 3: Iran hits Gulf allies of the United States for a second night, in answer to that wedding strike. The same day, the Vice President says he is "extremely skeptical" the wedding reports are true.

September 5: the Pentagon says it destroyed three Iranian oil tankers, in retaliation for missile strikes on a Navy carrier and a destroyer.

That's the whole list, and I haven't added a comma to it that wasn't already there.

Now, I've got a Buick in the garage that hasn't turned over clean since I don't know when, and last winter I paid two different mechanics, on the same Tuesday, to look at the same fan belt — one at the gas station off Route 9, one at the shop behind St. Anne's. Both invoices are sitting in my glovebox right now; I checked before I sat down. Both say Tuesday. Both say fan belt. Both say paid in full. A belt only gets replaced once, so one of those invoices is describing a repair that didn't happen that day, and I don't know which, and neither, apparently, do they.

So when I read that the three tankers the Pentagon says it destroyed on September 5th, in retaliation for a missile strike, are the same three tankers that ship trackers logged clearing a blockade line back on June 17th — three months, give or take, before there was a missile strike to retaliate for — I've got a fan-belt question, not a foreign-policy question. When did those three become the target? On the fifth, when the missiles hit the carrier and the destroyer? Or before that, when somebody was already keeping a list?

Here's the other one, and I promise this is the last date I'm bringing up. A wedding gets hit on September 1st. On September 2nd, the Pentagon says it's looking into whether that's true. On September 3rd — the very next day — the Vice President says he's extremely skeptical it's true. I've told my wife I was "looking into" the noise under the dryer, and I want you to know, in my house, "looking into it" means the dryer's still shut. It doesn't mean I've already decided what's inside.

That same September 3rd, Iran says it hit Gulf allies of the United States for the second night, answering for that wedding. Not a second wedding — the wire doesn't say that, and neither will I — the same one, struck at, the reports say, and answered for, twice.

So before you go — excuse me, one more thing — three tankers named in June get called retaliation in September. A wedding still under review on the 2nd is already disbelieved on the 3rd. Both of those are sitting on the same desk, the same week, filed under the same word: retaliation.

Whether it's the tankers or the wedding — which one is the one that escaped?