It's a paradox. When we first started attacking Iran, we were told it was a "limited military conflict", not a "war" (which only Congress can declare). Then they turn around and use the word "war" in every press briefing and statement. He also can't decide whether it's done or not.
As an example:
The president gave a press conference from his Doral resort on Monday night, during which the Iran war was a frequent topic. One reporter asked Trump to explain what he meant when he said the U.S. had “already won” but not enough:
REPORTER: You said earlier that we’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough. What do you consider enough? What’s your baseline?
THE PRESIDENT: Where they’re not going to be starting the following day to develop a nuclear weapon. Where they’ll look at that man and some other people from the administration and say, “All right, we’re not going to do it.” They were not willing to say that. And when Steve called up and he said that to me, I said, “Well, here we go. Let’s do it the hard way.”
There's more rambling nonsense in his response, but it
prompted further clarification:
...Trump held a press conference later in the day and was asked to reconcile a pair of diametrically opposed statements, and opted to literally say they were actually “both” true:
WEIJIA JIANG: Mr. President, you’ve said the war is, quote, “very complete.” But your Defense Secretary says this is just the beginning. So which is it? And how long should Americans be prepared for this war to last for?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I think you can say both.
It's both complete
and just beginning? It's Schrodinger's War! Unlike the box with the cat, though, we all know how this works; the war never ends ("we've always been at war with East Asia").
One thing the war
has accomplished is to get the media to stop talking about
ICE's mass deportation nightmare and
the Epstein files. So maybe instead of Schrodinger's War, it's the War of Mass Distraction.
Or - maybe it's both. Now that's some Inception-level Uncertainty Principal.
Day 415... 1044 to go.