Acting U.S. Navy Secretary Hung Cao’s shocking admission that the Iranian military caused extensive damage to the Navy base in Bahrain, saying that Iran “blew the hell out of Bahrain,” did not go unnoticed by Iran’s foreign minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi.
Page A3From§Eachthe breakfast edition — 11 September 2026
Trump vows war ends 'immediately' after midterms; Iran thanks Navy secretary for admitting it doesn't.
As it ran on the front
"Immediately" is doing overtime here, the way "temporary" did for the income tax and "transitional" did for the job you never got back. On August 31st, after a weekend of strikes and counter-strikes with Iran, the president told a Fox News correspondent the response was coming: "We're going to hit them hard." The next day, Tuesday, it came — fresh U.S. strikes on the Revolutionary Guard, the biggest move in weeks. The day after that, Wednesday, he told the country the midterms wouldn't touch his timetable — the war runs on its own clock, not the ballot's — while his approval sat at a record-low 33 percent and he moved to downplay whatever the fighting might cost Republican candidates at the polls, even as he stayed under pressure to keep the whole thing from spiraling further.
By Thursday a retired Marine colonel, Mark Cancian, was on television calling the war what it now was: stalemated. That same week Iran was accusing the U.S. of striking a wedding and killing civilians. The president's answer was the one he gives when there's no answer: we can hit them anytime we want. Not a plan. A boast standing in for one.…
…(cont) Then Friday came due. Iranian missiles found U.S. jets sitting on a base in Jordan. The president's response was the same phrase he'd used all along — the war ends immediately, after the midterms — a deadline that keeps its date with the election and misses every date with the war. And in Bahrain, the acting Navy secretary, Hung Cao, said the thing out loud nobody in his position says out loud: Iran "blew the hell out of" the base there. Not "sustained damage." Blew the hell out of it. Iran's foreign minister thanked him for it, publicly, that same morning — which is the detail that should stop you, because when the other side is thanking your own Navy secretary for confirming the scoreboard, you have stopped being the one who sets it.
Run the tape in order: vow, strike, deadline, stalemate, boast, missiles, admission, gratitude. Eight beats in eleven days, and the only date that moved was the one on the calendar the president controls. The war didn't end. It just got a better publicist and a longer lease.
“They didn't end the war, they scheduled it around your vote like a dentist appointment they intend to skip. The Navy's own guy admits Iran blew the hell out of a base in Bahrain, and the enemy's thanking him for the honesty, while the deadline hasn't moved an inch, it just changed rooms. That's not diplomacy, that's stalling with a press release, and the people in Jordan and Bahrain eat the difference.”
“Look, the president said immediately after the midterms, and the midterms haven't happened yet, so technically nothing's late — that's just how deadlines work. Secretary Cao was being transparent, that's a strength, not a — okay, "blew the hell out of it" isn't exactly the messaging we wanted out there, but transparency! And the Iranians thanking him doesn't mean anything, they're just being polite, foreign ministers do that, it's not an endorsement... did I just defend a compliment from Iran? That's not landing the way I want it to.”
The receipts
U.S. jets were hit by Iranian missiles while parked at a base in Jordan, sources tell CBS News, while Trump said the war will end "immediately" after midterms.
· Trump vows response to Iran's retaliatory strikes: 'We're going to hit them hard' from the morgue, 31 Aug 2026
· Trump says midterm elections won’t impact timeline for war with Iran from the morgue, 2 Sep 2026
· Trump under pressure to contain Iran fighting as midterms near from the morgue, 2 Sep 2026
· Iran war is stalemated, military expert says from the morgue, 3 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.