Page A5From§Eachthe milkman edition — 29 September 2026
As it ran on the front
The word is "working." Read Sunday's New York Post and that is the finished sentence: the ayatollah suffers, oil flows again, the strategy pays off. I defend that sentence for a living, so let me walk you through the calendar that produced it.
On February 28th the Pentagon put a name on this war: Operation Epic Fury, announced on social media like a product launch. Six months in — no, that's not quite it, walk it forward instead. By June the president's own quarterly disclosure to the ethics office showed thousands of dollars moving into the energy companies riding the war's profits; that filing became public August 27th. On September 3rd the Pentagon told military personnel to stop calling the operation Operation Epic Fury at all. A winning campaign keeps its name.…
…(cont) Then the ledger the name was supposed to cover kept filling in anyway. September 6th, Iran said it hit a U.S. vessel in the Strait of Hormuz. September 9th, an analysis of those same disclosures put the president up to $4.4 million richer from the war's oil trades. September 13th, an Iranian cargo ship took a strike near Hengam Island that killed one crew member. September 17th, the Pentagon's third-ranking official briefed senators behind closed doors and, by their account, frustrated them into the record. September 18th, the president said a "big decision" was coming on whether to "annihilate" Iran — a strange thing to still be deciding about a strategy already called a success. September 22nd, United Nations experts said two of the strikes may have been war crimes. September 23rd, Republican candidates in tight races started asking, publicly, for the war to end — an odd thing to request of a strategy that is, per the op-ed, working.
Which brings us to Sunday. The Post ran its column the same day ABC reported eight more Marines wounded in a ship attack in that same strait, under a name they were told not to use. I was going to tell you the operation degraded the threat. It degraded eight Marines.
So yes, it's working. It has produced a codename nobody may say out loud, an oil trade that paid the president personally, and a casualty count with no name left to write it under.
“They banned the war's own name the same month the president's stock disclosures showed him buying into the companies making money off it. That's not opsec, that's a magic trick — you can't add up the wounded under a name nobody's allowed to say. Working for who, exactly? Not for the eight guys who got hit Sunday.”
“Look, operational security means you don't broadcast the name of an active campaign, that's just basic discipline. And the casualties prove the enemy's desperate, engaging directly instead of — wait, eight Marines wounded isn't a talking point, that's eight families getting a phone call. I don't actually have a next line for that one.”
Earlier in this story
The receipts
"I'll meet with Putin. I'll meet with Zelensky... within 24 hours, that war will be settled" — Trump, 10 May 2023; CNN counted 53 such promises CNN fact check, 25 April 2025 (all 53 instances)
Trump’s Iran strategy is working — the ayatollah suffers as oil flows againIran is now weaker at home and abroad, and its sponsors, China and Russia, have been unable to save it from what is unfolding.
President Donald Trump announced "major combat operations" against Iran on Feb. 28.
· Iranian ship attacked near Strait of Hormuz: Iranian state media from the morgue, 13 Sep 2026
· Iran attacks US ship in Strait of Hormuz from the morgue, 6 Sep 2026
· Big Oil Stocks Surged Due to Iran War—and New Filings Show How President Trump Cashed In from the morgue, 27 Aug 2026
· These GOP candidates in tight races are calling for a quick end to Iran war from the morgue, 23 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.