The Administration can’t get its story straight on the Iran war, while an oil crisis threatens to upend the global economy. Plus:

• Taking the psychedelics out of psychedelic drugs—for mental health!
• “Project Hail Mary” is a tale of far-flung friendship
• How a feminist visionary lost the plot

Ian Crouch
Newsletter editor

As the war in Iran approaches the two-week mark, the Trump Administration is still struggling to provide clear answers on two questions: What are the aims of this “little excursion,” as the President called the American and Israeli attacks this week? And how will the U.S. mitigate the war’s effects on oil prices, and thus economic activity, around the world?

An American President might be expected to offer some guidance. And yet, as our political columnist Susan B. Glasser points out, Donald Trump continues to contradict himself. This week, he has declared victory—“We won,” he said—but also insisted that “we’re not finished yet.” It’s fallen on others to squint at the situation, looking for some semblance of a plan. Glasser offers a dire comparison, writing that “Trump now sounds little different than Vladimir Putin in how he justifies the conflict—and in how much power he has claimed for himself to dictate America’s participation in it.”

The economic consequences of the war, meanwhile, have only raised the political stakes at home. Right now, much of the oil and gas that normally comes out of the Persian Gulf and into international markets is trapped on tankers, unable to pass freely through the Strait of Hormuz. During a briefing this morning, Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War, addressed the Iranian threats to the strait, insisting that “we have been dealing with it, and don’t need to worry about it.”

But the world, of course, is very worried about it, and our economics columnist John Cassidy argues that the U.S. has proved indefensibly ill-equipped for the oil shock its attacks have unleashed. Trump has no excuse; Tehran engaged in similar tactics during a showdown in the President’s first term, threatening to block the strait and disrupt oil infrastructure. “Whether out of arrogance, capriciousness, or collective amnesia,” Cassidy writes, “this recent history was ignored.”

Cassidy provides essential analysis about what the Administration should have known, how it could have better prepared for this potential economic crisis, and what might happen next. For now, Cassidy notes, “the search for the fall guy is on,” as the President and his allies try to spin higher gas prices as a possible net benefit for the American economy. But, Cassidy adds, “the truth is we are all Trump’s fall guys.”

For more: the longtime New Yorker contributor Bernard Avishai writes about sheltering in place in Jerusalem, and about how long a war alliance might really last between Trump and the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Scientists have been experimenting with taking the psychedelic effects out of psychedelic drugs—without sacrificing the mental-health benefits. And even the skeptics are paying close attention. Clayton Dalton reports »

• “Project Hail Mary,” the new film starring Ryan Gosling, “is the most exasperatingly insistent crowd-pleaser I’ve seen in a while,” Justin Chang writes in his review. It hits theatres next week.
• The feminist visionary Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s belief in her own “superior intelligence and courage” fuelled her politics—and her eventual descent into bigotry.
• A master rigger has hoisted huge art works for Richard Serra and Jeff Koons. Now he’s brought new pieces by Michael Heizer from a Nevada ranch to Gagosian.

Is social media an addictive substance? David Remnick speaks with Jonathan Haidt, the social psychologist and author of “The Anxious Generation,” about the proposed laws aiming to transform our use of these platforms. Listen and follow »

• A book: The crime novelist Patricia Cornwell—whose best-selling “Scarpetta” series has been adapted for streaming, with Nicole Kidman in the title role—recommends reading Hemingway’s “The Garden of Eden.”
• A movie: If you’re deep into Liza Minnelli’s new memoir—or even just the gossip around it—you’ll want to rewatch her onetime boyfriend Martin Scorsese’s “New York, New York,” a paean to the city’s postwar glory years.
• A show: “The Wild Party,” a musicalization of a 1928 poem by Joseph Moncure March, captures the allure of a Jazz Age milieu.

• Today’s Crossword Puzzle: first letter of the Greek name for Greece’s capital—five letters.
• Shuffalo: Can you make a longer word with each new letter?