Murkier than ever: Trump’s reflecting pool is the mirror image of his war in Iran
What kind of pool-cleaning gear does $14.2 million buy? According to the Department of the Interior, who oversaw recent renovations to the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, it’ll get you “high-tech nanobubble ozone technology,” which may or may not be as impressive as it sounds. It also apparently buys a whole lot of bleach. On Tuesday morning, workers in neon vests knelt along the reflecting pool, dumping hydrogen peroxide in the algae-filled water. The sight might have been questionable any other time, but it was more so given that Trump’s recent renovations to the Washington, D.C. landmark—which began in April—had been completed just days earlier. Still, the same plant-based eyesores the pool’s glow-up was meant to address had returned right away, despite the significant expenditure. $14M later..— Olga Nesterova (@onestpress.onestnetwork.com) 2026-06-16T12:45:32.919Z If this sequence of events sounds familiar—a questionably necessary, wildly costly undertaking does not resolve as cleanly as Trump says it will—that’s because the reflecting pool debacle offers a clear reflection of an infinitely more important fiasco that refuses tidy resolution: Trump’s war in Iran, which is, yet again, purportedly on the verge of ending. False urgency and no approval Both initiatives began seemingly out of the blue—not to be confused with the “American flag blue” Trump chose to color the pool’s floor. The start of the war was incredibly sudden. Despite long-simmering tensions between the U.S. and Iran, including Trump’s bombing campaign against the region’s nuclear sites last June, direct military conflict began abruptly on February 28 with the U.S. and Israel’s sweeping, coordinated strikes against Iranian nuclear sites, military infrastructure, and top leadership. Although Trump framed Operation Epic Fury, a name that reeks of Axe Body Spray, as a defensive response to Iranian aggression—and also, somehow, as a catalyst for Iranian liberation—he has yet to reveal a concre