If I thought the administration was playing four-dimensional chess, I'd hypothesize that this was a prelude to saying "See, our allies won't help us, so all of

If I thought the administration was playing four-dimensional chess, I'd hypothesize that this was a prelude to saying "See, our allies won't help us, so all of our bashing them is justified". But the administration doesn't play so much as tic-tac-toe, so I imagine that they genuinely thought that they'd come to pull us out of the hole we dug ourselves.