Trump Downplays Seven-Month Iran Conflict as 'Small Potatoes' Amid Rising Costs

Seven months into a sustained military campaign against Iran, President Trump has taken to calling the conflict 'small potatoes' — a rhetorical posture that reveals as much about the administration's political anxieties as it does about the fog of modern warfare. Eighteen American service members have died, civilians have been killed at a wedding in coastal Iran, and fuel prices have climbed sharply, yet the White House carefully avoids the word 'war,' a choice that is less semantic than constitutional. In an era when the line between military action and declared war has long been blurred by e