Good Friday morning. I'm Jake Sherman and welcome to your political playbook audio briefing sponsored by BP.

And I'm Anna Palmer. The New York Times has the latest on Iran. President Donald Trump approved military strikes against Iran on Thursday, but then abruptly pulled back from launching them.

The Times reports that it's unclear why Trump changed his mind or if the attacks could still go forward at a later time.

Rortes reports that the president sent a message to Tehran warning of the attack and that he wanted to talk.

Iranian officials responded that the country doesn't want to talk, but that the message would be

conveyed to its leader to make a decision. The AP is reporting that U.S. registered planes have

been barred from flying over the Mideast.

Here's why Iran is not North Korea. President Donald Trump has not paid any discernible

political price for what, as far as we could tell, is very little to show for his summit

pageantry and flowery bromance with North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un. One reason is the Nixon-to-China

phenomenon. By establishing himself early

on as a North Korea hawk with all the fire and fury stuff, Trump created some political

space for him to explore diplomacy. Another is that many Democrats are quietly relieved that

the president is trying diplomacy rather than threatening on Twitter to incinerate Pyongyang.

But the fundamental reason Trump can get away with it

is that unlike Iran, North Korea, just doesn't resonate politically the way Iran does. Not only was the

Islamic Republic founded amid a hostage crisis that helped sink one president and elect another, but Iran

also has earned itself some pretty powerful enemies, the Gulf Arab countries in Israel, who have political juice in

Washington and know how to work the system. Iran was behind the killings of the U.S. troops in Lebanon

and Iraq and backs extremist groups all over the region. And there are domestic political

constituencies to consider, whereas the folks who pay attention to North Korea are a relatively

small and quirky bunch of

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