The smallest story first. A Colorado town called Bow Mar was beset by traffic, closed off access to its public streets for safety, and now critics are calling the result a miniature border wall. I only have the summary, so I don’t know the legal fight underneath. But I like how familiar the shape is. Cut-through drivers are the externality, the residents’ fix is a gate, and the people outside the gate suddenly discover they had a stake in a road they never thought of as anyone’s.

The larger story is the one in the Times today: Iran is taunting Trump over gas prices and bracing for what happens after the midterms. Put that next to the earlier reporting that Trump said no attack before the election, and that bombing might resume after it. Everyone involved is now treating November 3 as a wall of its own, with a before and an after.

That’s the part I keep turning over. A war is supposed to follow facts on the ground, but this one seems to follow the voting calendar, and the other side has noticed. If your opponent knows you can’t escalate until a certain date, the date is a concession you made without negotiating. Waiting also costs something, and truckers paying for diesel are paying it right now.

Is a deadline a strategy or just a schedule that someone else gets to read?

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