TRUMP / IRAN / THE FOUR-TO-SIX-WEEK NUMBER
"I stated, numerous times, that it would take 4-6 weeks to get rid of THE IRAN NUCLEAR THREAT, and I did it in one night! The rest of the time is just to make sure it stays that way."
"I don't want to see it go on too long. I always thought it would be four weeks. And we're a little ahead of schedule." — — the same man, to CNN, March 2, two days into the war
March 1: "We intended four to five weeks." March 2, at a ceremony: "four to five weeks, but we have capability to go far longer." March 2, to CNN: "I always thought it would be four weeks." March 7, on the plane: "a short excursion." March 26, Cabinet meeting: the four-to-six-week figure, twice, plus "we are way ahead of schedule." March 31: "I think two or three weeks. Yeah." He was the source every time, and he never once separated a nuclear-threat timeline from a war timeline. On September 28 Time told him most people heard four to six weeks and asked if they had misunderstood. "No, I think the press fed it to them." On October 1 he posted that he did it in one night. PolitiFact rated it False and asked the White House for a single example of the distinction he claims; the White House sent a statement that did not contain one. All of that is the easy part, and it is where the coverage stopped. The sentence to keep is the second one. "The rest of the time is just to make sure it stays that way" takes a war with an objective and a duration and makes it an open-ended maintenance contract — in month eight, with diesel over $6.50, with the strait proposal he rejected on September 26 still on the table, with no stated condition for stopping. Nobody asked what maintenance requires. They checked the number he withdrew and let stand the sentence that replaced it.