A prediction is not ours to rate true or false. A deadline, once it passes, rates itself. On July 31 this desk wrote down a date, because a two-week plan to finish off Iran's missile arsenal was circulating and the one thing a forecast cannot argue with is a calendar. We put August 14 on it. Today is August 14, so the warranty is up.

The plan came from the top of U.S. Central Command. Adm. Brad Cooper had briefed President Trump on "a proposed two-week plan that would put an end to Iranian attacks by targeting their remaining missile launchers," according to Jamie McIntyre's July 30 "Daily on Defense," relaying Wall Street Journal reporting. [1] Cooper called it the "go big approach" and argued it would completely diminish Iran's missile capabilities. [1] The internal logic was tidy: doing so "would minimize the U.S.'s use of defensive munitions, since there would be less incoming fire from Iran." [1]

Steel-manned, the argument is coherent. Graduated strikes had not stopped the incoming fire, and a concentrated two-week campaign promised, on its own terms, to end that fire while spending fewer interceptors to do it. A theater commander is entitled to make that case, and it deserves to be stated at full strength before anyone scores it.

Here is the record. The campaign was never launched. On August 2, roughly day three of the notional two-week window, Trump cancelled it, posting on Truth Social that the "perimeters of a deal has [sic] been agreed to" and claiming an "Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT." [2] The go-big option to finish Iran's missiles was overtaken within days, not by Iran, but by the president who had been briefed on it.

Two-plus weeks past the briefing, neither promise has resolved as advertised. The war continues as a naval blockade plus limited strikes. On August 11, Trump said "the only one that has control of the Strait of Hormuz right now is the United States Navy," [3] which is a description of a blockade, not of the "Immediate, Complete, and Total" opening announced on August 2. On August 10 he added a demand for compensation from Iran, which Iran rejected the next day. [3] The strait Trump said was opening is a strait his own Navy is holding shut.

The score, plainly. The two-week campaign to finish Iran's missile arsenal did not happen; it was cancelled around day three. Two weeks and change later, the conflict persists as blockade and skirmish, and the total Hormuz opening offered in its place has not materialized either. We are scoring a labeled public forecast against the calendar it named, not the judgment of the officer who proposed it; a plan cancelled by the commander-in-chief is not a plan disproven in combat, and we will not pretend otherwise.

One caveat we carry rather than bury. The tighter "10 to 14 day" framing of the campaign appeared in Israeli coverage we could not fetch, and the underlying Wall Street Journal report reaches us only through McIntyre's relay. What is verifiable is the promise as relayed and the date it did not meet.