You’re presupposing they would have 1) done it anyway and 2) at the same time it actually happened. They may have reconsidered their attack or delayed it. The delay could have given opportunity for the dynamics to change.
Arresting journalists from a huge news company would come with some blowback. The internal weighing of that potential blowback and how it affects the regime’s relations could have changed things. At the very least, it complicates things for them further - stalling them, making them waste time on listening and responding and managing the media to craft the narrative.
I was thinking about this scenario
Supposed the press had announced the attack. Trump would have gone ahead anyway, and arrested the ‘traitors.’
Nothing would have changed, except maybe a few more US troops would have died.
Anything wrong with my analysis?
You’re presupposing they would have 1) done it anyway and 2) at the same time it actually happened. They may have reconsidered their attack or delayed it. The delay could have given opportunity for the dynamics to change.
Arresting journalists from a huge news company would come with some blowback. The internal weighing of that potential blowback and how it affects the regime’s relations could have changed things. At the very least, it complicates things for them further - stalling them, making them waste time on listening and responding and managing the media to craft the narrative.