DID TRUMP GIN UP A NEAR-WAR BECAUSE HE COULDN'T BEAR CEDING THE NEWS CYCLE TO DEMOCRATS?

The Trump administration, I assume, sent a drone into, or awfully close to, Iranian airspace, in the hope of ... what? Giving the administration an excuse to start a war? But the president passed on an opportunity to launch retaliatory strikes, claiming he learned at the last minute that the attack would kill 150 civilians.

Why did this happen now?

I keep thinking about a Politico story I quoted earlier this week:

Donald Trump wants his Democratic competitors for the White House to introduce themselves to the American public next week on his terms.

Ahead of the first two Democratic presidential primary debates next Wednesday and Thursday, the president and his political team are angling to dominate the news cycle with carefully released tidbits meant to keep the public hooked on the machinations of the commander in chief....

Just as Trump has dictated so much of the political narrative over the last four years, the president’s team is hoping the two Democratic debates simply morph into liberal candidates reacting to the president instead of putting forward their own visions for the country, policy proposals or personal stories.

Is that the explanation for the Iran saber-rattling? Also, is that the explanation for why this is about to happen now?

President Trump has directed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to conduct a mass roundup of migrant families that have received deportation orders, an operation that is likely to begin with predawn raids in major U.S. cities on Sunday, according to three U.S. officials with knowledge of the plans.

The “family op,” as it is referred to at ICE and the Department of Homeland Security, is slated to target up to 2,000 families in as many as 10 U.S. cities, including Houston, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles and other major immigration destinations....

Trump hated the Iran nuclear agreement, and he began promising to round up undocumented immigrants during the 2016 campaign, so these developments were inevitable. But the timing seems suspicious. Trump can't stand giving up the spotlight. I qwonder what else he has planned for the next few days.

(It's also possible that all this was meant to distract from advice columninst E. Jean Carroll's bombshell claim that Trump raped her in a department-store dressing room in the 1990s, which was published today, and which Trump undoubtedly knew was imminent. Or it could be happening for both reasons.)

A prediction about the Iran attack: Trump will eventually say he's surprised that Democrats aren't praising him for aborting it. Recall what he's said about firing James Comey:

... everybody wanted him fired, all the Democrats. I mean, virtually everybody, the Democrats thought he was horrible. The Republicans thought he was horrible.

And I said, you know, this is going to be wonderful. I’m going to fire this guy. When he gets fired, I think it would be popular. It thought it was go going to be bipartisan firing.

And he got fired and the Democrats sat back and they though, and the same people that two days earlier saying how horrible he was, were saying, oh, this is a terrible thing.

The Democrats have said some of the worst things about James Comey, including the fact that he should be fired, but now they play so sad!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 10, 2017

If there's never an attack on Iran, I predict Trump will say that about the Democrats: They were against an attack, but when I stopped it they were still upset! The ingrates!