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Every news story comes with a headline that tells you what the story is about. Sometimes, there’s a second, stealthier headline that tells you lot more than the one in a large font at the top.

A lot of these coded messages are now showing up in stories about how President Trump and his top aides failed to anticipate that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz and cause a global energy crisis when they decided to launch the war on February 28. What’s really happening is that some Trump administration officials sense a disaster in the works and are dissociating themselves from Trump’s war.

A CNN story published on March 13, for instance, says Trump’s national-security team failed to account for the possible closing of the strait or the disruption to global oil supplies. CNN cited “multiple sources familiar with the matter” as the way they know this.

There are no quotes, in quote marks, that criticize the Trump war planning process and sound like they came from officials directly involved. Yet the story is directly critical of that planning process, and sounds authoritative. What’s going on?

[Don’t expect the US Navy to open the Strait of Hormuz]

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