Trump’s Iran gambit leans on an old playbook as fallout widens

As the Iran war fallout widens, Trump appears to lean on a familiar tactic dubbed TACO—pushing hard on threats or tariffs and then retreating when markets react—after signaling the conflict could end quickly, only to hedge later. The sequence underscores a pattern of indecision and backtracking that analysts say is ill-suited to unilateral action in a complex regional dynamic, where Iran, Israel’s Netanyahu, and regional powers could prolong hostilities and keep oil and markets sensitive.