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It’s difficult to select one of Trump’s Cabinet members as the stupidest, but in the end the Secretary of Defense is in a class of stupidity completely his own.
At a press briefing on Friday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth complained about a CNN report that the Trump administration had underestimated Iran’s ability to disrupt global oil traffic by closing the Strait of Hormuz.
“Patently ridiculous,” Hegseth told reporters, adding — even as the strait’s blockage was proving to be Iran’s most powerful leverage in the war — we “don’t need to worry about it.” He also denied that the U.S. bombed the school where some 175 children were killed. Hegseth added that, as to CNN, “the sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better.”
These remarks are remarkably stupid, on several levels.
First, CNN got it absolutely right in reporting that Trump’s national security team had underestimated Iran’s ability to disrupt global oil traffic. CNN cited “multiple sources familiar with the matter.”
The New York Times published a similar story, reporting that in the lead-up to the U.S.-Israeli attack, “Trump downplayed the risks to the energy markets.”
Even The Wall Street Journal, hardly a New York Times or CNN clone, substantiated the story on Friday, reporting that Trump rejected warnings that Iran would likely retaliate by closing the strait because he believed Iran would capitulate before doing so, and he assumed that even if Iran tried to close it, the U.S. military could handle it.
Second, Hegseth’s comment that we “don’t need to worry about” the blockage of the strait is not only false but flippantly insulting to an American public that deserves to know what the Trump regime is planning to do about soaring prices at the gas pump, directly due to that blockage.
Third, even if Hegseth believes that David Ellison’s ownership of CNN will silence CNN’s critical coverage of Trump, it’s remarkably stupid of Hegseth to say it out loud. “The sooner David Ellison takes over CNN, the better” is an open admission that Trump backed Ellison’s bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN’s parent, to silence criticism.
That deal is still pending, so Hegseth’s admission is likely to fuel even more opposition to it. California’s attorney general has already suggested he’ll go to court to block it. Now other attorneys general, the ACLU, and Democrats in Congress may join the case as co-plaintiffs.
Hegseth’s admission also confirms CNN’s worst fears that Ellison will throttle criticism of Trump — a fear that’s already caused several leading lights to exit. As Variety put it, “Anderson, cooped. Jake, tapped. Erin, burnt. Kasie, hunted. Wolf, blitzed.”
Ellison has already proven himself an unreliable steward of journalistic independence at CBS News. One departing producer there explained in a farewell memo to colleagues that she could no longer work where stories are “evaluated not just on their journalistic merit, but on whether they conform to a shifting set of ideological expectations — a dynamic that pressures producers and reporters to self-censor or avoid challenging narratives that might trigger backlash or unfavorable headlines.”
Finally, Hegseth’s denial that the U.S. is responsible for the deaths of nearly 200 schoolchildren in Iran is belied by mounting evidence that the U.S. did bomb the school. Hegseth’s further insistence that the U.S. “never targets civilians” is refuted by the U.S. military’s killing of at least 157 people on 40 small boats in the Caribbean without evidence they were “narcoterrorists” rather than civilians.
And, friends, this was just one news conference.
Pete Hegseth’s job is so far over his head that he can’t even see it. He evidently believes it’s to cheerlead and defend Trump with bonkers claims like “We didn't start this war, but under President Trump we’re finishing it” and “America is winning decisively, devastatingly, and without mercy” and “we will show no quarter for our enemies.” (“No quarter” means kill everyone and take no prisoners, which is a war crime.)
In the days leading up to the U.S. attack on Iran, Hegseth spent his time criticizing “wokeness” at American universities, feuding with Anthropic over safeguards for AI, and, in the day before the war began, forcing Scouting America to abandon programs aimed at promoting diversity.
He dismisses war crimes, pooh-poohs the rules of engagement, and projects unequivocal belligerence at a time when the United States is rapidly losing whatever moral standing it had in the world.
Granted, it’s difficult to select one of Trump’s Cabinet members as the stupidest. But Pete Hegseth stands out for sheer boneheaded ignorance.
Pray for America and the world.
Though much of the media now expresses doubt about Trump's war, the moral foundation of anti-war opposition has largely disappeared, replaced instead by a narrow strategic debate over costs, risks, and political consequences.
Doubtless, the war launched by US President Donald Trump is not popular among ordinary Americans.
According to the latest public opinion poll, only a minority of Americans—part of the dwindling core of Trump's supporters—believe that the US-Israeli aggression against Iran has merit.
According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in early March 2026, only 27 percent of Americans approve of the US-Israeli strikes on Iran—while 43 percent disapprove and 29 percent are unsure.
This pro-war constituency is likely to remain supportive of Trump until the end of his term in office, and long after.
However, the war on Iran is not popular, and it is unlikely to become popular, especially as the Trump administration is reportedly fragmented between those who want to stay the course and those desperate for an exit strategy. Such a strategy would allow their president to save face before the midterm elections in November.
Mainstream media—aside, of course, from the pro-war chorus in right-wing news organizations, podcasters, and think tanks—also recognize that their country has entered a quagmire.
If it continues unchecked, it will likely prove worse than the war in Iraq in 2003 or the long war in Afghanistan, which lasted 20 years and ended with a decisive American defeat in August 2021 following the withdrawal of US forces and the collapse of the Afghan government.
Both wars have cost US taxpayers an estimated $8 trillion, including long-term veteran care and interest on borrowing, according to the Brown University Costs of War Project.
While it is important to highlight the unpopularity of America’s latest military adventure, such opposition must rest on moral and legal grounds.
Iran is already promising to be even more costly if the insanity of the war—instigated by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war-crazed government—does not end very quickly.
Many Americans may understand the difficult situation in which Trump's unhinged behavior and his unexplained loyalty to Netanyahu have placed their country. What they rarely confront is the moral dimension of that crisis.
Though they speak of the war’s failure—the lack of strategy, the lack of preparation, the absence of an end goal, and the confusion surrounding its objectives—very few in mainstream media have taken what should have been the obvious moral position: that the war itself is criminal, unjustifiable, and illegal under international law.
That position should have been obvious the moment the first bomb was dropped over Tehran. The aggression—particularly while negotiations between Iran and the United States were underway under Omani mediation—was ethically indefensible.
Any remaining doubt should have disappeared when US-Israeli strikes hit civilian areas, including schools and residential districts in the city of Minab in southern Iran, killing hundreds of civilians, mostly children and women.
This moral silence is not new. In fact, it has often been masked by a familiar rhetorical device: the selective invocation of women's rights.
In nearly every US war on Arab and Muslim countries, women's rights have featured heavily in the propaganda used to justify war. The vast majority of mainstream media organizations, think tanks, human rights groups, and activists—even those who rejected military interventionism on principle—agreed at least on that particular premise: the urgency of women's rights.
They used Malala Yousafzai as a symbol of girls’ education and women’s rights, presenting her as a model of American benevolence. At the same time, they ignored the fact that among the countless innocent Muslims killed across the Middle East and Asia in the last few decades—some counts place them in the millions—children and women represented a large share of the victims.
The same scenario was repeated in Gaza during the ongoing genocide, where UN agencies estimate that women and children make up roughly 70 percent of the more than 72,200 Palestinians killed since October 2023. According to data compiled by ‘UN Women’ and Gaza’s health authorities, the total includes an estimated 33,000 women and girls.
Yet mainstream media continues to center Israeli claims about abuses of women's rights by Hamas in Gaza, as if the tens of thousands of women killed and maimed by Israeli bombardment were not even worthy of serious consideration.
The same pattern is now repeating itself in Iran. The administration of Donald Trump—a man known for his degrading views and actions toward women—has been allowed, along with war criminal Netanyahu, to frame the war against Iran as a struggle for women’s rights and liberation.
They cultivated a network of supposed women's rights activists, presenting them as authentic Iranian voices whose mission was to rescue women from massive human rights abuses in their own country. Even on the Left, many fell into that trap—denouncing Trump on the one hand, while still absorbing and reproducing his and Israel’s propaganda.
Now that thousands of women and children have been killed or wounded in the US-Israel unprovoked, unethical, and illegal war on Iran, many of these same voices have fallen silent, quietly placing women's rights on hold until the outcome of the onslaught becomes clear.
Though much of the media now expresses doubt about Trump's war, the moral foundation of anti-war opposition has largely disappeared, replaced instead by a narrow strategic debate over costs, risks, and political consequences.
Complaints about rising energy prices, commentary about Trump's political immaturity, and criticism of his failure to assess the situation properly before ordering bombs to fall have replaced the moral argument altogether.
Equally absent is Netanyahu's role in the war, as well as the stranglehold Israel exerts over successive US administrations—Republican and Democrat alike—including the supposedly ‘America First’ president.
This logic dominates much of the mainstream strategic debate. Commentators such as Fareed Zakaria, Thomas Friedman, and others have repeatedly argued, in one form or another, that the United States must avoid being consumed by Middle Eastern conflicts and instead concentrate on what they describe as the central geopolitical challenge of our time: the rise of China.
While it is important to highlight the unpopularity of America’s latest military adventure, such opposition must rest on moral and legal grounds.
That said, mainstream liberal media should not be confused with genuine anti-war voices. Their objection to war is rarely principled. They tend to oppose military interventions only when those wars fail to serve US strategic interests, threaten corporate profits, or risk undermining Israel’s long-term security.
This is not opposition to war.
It is the logic of war itself.
Trump and Netanyahu insist that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon. Yet perhaps the greatest irony of this war is that their senseless aggression is giving every country reason to develop nuclear arms.
At the 2026 meeting of the World Economic Forum, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney remarked that the “rules-based international order” has ended. In its place is a system where “the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.” Sovereignty is no longer safeguarded by international law, but rather “will increasingly be anchored in the ability to withstand pressure.”
The world Carney describes is quite familiar to the nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America—the ones that never had the luxury of relying on international law. Where, for instance, were these rules during the decades of Israeli occupation of Palestine?
Still, while international law was always unevenly applied, the illegal war being waged by the US and Israel against Iran highlights the dangers of a world where superpowers can act without even those modest restraints.
A world where instead of just cause, the whims of the strong is enough cause for war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he has “longed” for this war “for 40 years.” President Donald Trump remarked, “We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first… I felt strongly about that.” Trump has even claimed that the war will end “when I feel it, feel it in my bones.”
What other lessons are countries to draw from this than that the US will engage in imperial violence against any non-nuclear power?
No congressional approval; no clear—or even consistent—justification provided to the public; no forewarning to America’s allies. When might makes right, why bother with the details?
Instead of the façade of proportionality, wars are deliberate exercises of international bullying. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth boosts that America “is unleashing the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history… with maximum authorities. No stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars. We fight to win, and we don’t waste time or lives.” Trump openly jokes that military officials have told him it’s “a lot more fun” to sink Iranian ships than capture them.
Instead of any pretense of protecting civilians, the mighty strike with callous indifference. On the very first day of the war, the US struck a girl’s elementary school, killing more than 175 people—most of them small children. A US official reports that this was likely due to outdated intelligence. However, it is worth noting that the Trump administration effectively dissolved the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, an initiative aimed precisely at reducing civilian harms during US military operations.
To date, the Iranian Deputy Health Minister Ali Jafarian reports that at least 1,255 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the war. More than 12,000 people have been wounded, and 52 health centers and 29 clinical facilities have been either damaged or destroyed.
The cruelty is the point. Trump and Netanyahu want to make Iran into a failed state—an example of what happens to their enemies. As Trump puts it, “They really are a nation of terror and hate, and they’re paying a big price right now.” This is collective punishment with no plans or care for what comes next.
It is a war with no clear off-ramp. A peaceful resolution would be ideal, but why exactly would Iran entertain this option? Prior to these attacks, they were negotiating with the Trump administration. Omani Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, who was mediating talks between the US and Iran, said that Tehran had made major concessions regarding its nuclear program. This included a willingness to reduce uranium levels below what it had agreed to under the Obama administration.
In a world where the pretense of international law has been unraveled, how can nations negotiate as equals? What guarantees could the world offer Iran that it will not be attacked again without provocation? This is, after all, the second war Israel has launched against them in nine months.
How will the world hold the US and Israel—two nuclear powers—responsible for their war crimes? Is it even possible? And if not, what precedent does it set?
Trump and Netanyahu insist that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon. Yet perhaps the greatest irony of this war is that their senseless aggression is giving every country reason to develop nuclear arms.
In a speech on March 2, French President Emmanuel Macron remarked, “The next 50 years will be an era of nuclear weapons.” He further announced that France will bolster their own nuclear arsenal, including the development of a new nuclear-armed submarine. On March 3, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk remarked that his administration is preparing “Poland for the most autonomous actions possible” with regards to nuclear security.
These moves, while dangerous, are unsurprising. In addition to war with Iran, Trump has threatened to annex Greenland and Canada; threatened to take the Panama Canal; kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro; launched military strikes in Venezuela, Somalia, Nigeria, Syria, Yemen, and Iraq; as well as imposed an oil embargo that is pushing Cuba to total collapse.
What other lessons are countries to draw from this than that the US will engage in imperial violence against any non-nuclear power? It will threaten Cuba for dealing with “hostile countries” like China and Russia, while also inviting President Xi Jinping and President Vladimir Putin to be part of Trump's Peace Board. The Trump administration will condemn human rights abuses in Iran, while also sharply scaling back its annual human rights report on North Korea.
This is the reality of Trump’s no-rules international order. If Iran had nuclear weapons, neither the US nor Israel would have dared attack them. Their sovereignty would be safe.
At Davos, Carney remarked that while the “great powers can afford for now to go it alone,” other nations must work together “because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.” The precedent Trump has set is clear: A seat at the table is only guaranteed to nuclear powers. That is how nations will “withstand pressure.”
Importantly, this dynamic does not end with the Trump administration. Even if a competent leader is elected in 2028, no country can rest assured that another Trump is not on the horizon. The threat of unmitigated American violence will drive further nuclearization. It will make nuclear war increasingly more likely. That will be Trump’s legacy—one of death, destruction, and nuclearization.
Future presidents will inherit the terrible burden of repairing America’s image on the global stage. For now, we must do everything we can to end this war before Trump’s madness goes truly nuclear.
Failing to address climate change is a failure for our planet and for humanity. Why pay trillions in disaster relief, conflict mitigation, aid, and migration management when the solutions are at our feet today?
Climate change is now the single biggest health threat facing humanity. The Emergency Events Database reports a record rise in natural disasters globally since the 1960s, detailing over 26,000 mass disasters. The number of reported extreme weather incidents increased from 39 in 1960 to 399 in 2023.
According to the World Economic Forum, climate-related weather disasters will cost the global economy over $2 trillion annually by 2030, with costs escalating dramatically to an estimated $38 trillion per year by 2050, according to the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).
Since the Industrial Revolution, global economies have been built around the fossil fuel industry. In 2025, the global oil and gas industry's revenue was estimated at $4 trillion. Despite all the devastating warnings, we are still failing to meet almost every target aimed at curbing emissions.
The burning of fossil fuels comes at a massive price for people, the planet, and our economies. Not only are we spending exorbitant amounts on climate damage, but we are also paying more than ever at the pump and on our energy bills.
Policymakers and world leaders need to start thinking longer term and take steps to prevent the huge economic losses from climate disasters in the first place.
As the US-Israeli war on Iran rages, prices are set to rise further. Targeted attacks on energy facilities have all but closed the Strait of Hormuz, a shipping lane which facilitates the transportation of 20% of global oil and gas supply. The price of crude oil is already 20% higher than it was before the first strikes on Iran on February 28.
Despite the known fact that adaptation is far cheaper than inaction, politicians continue to sit on their hands. Meanwhile, they continue to subsidize the fossil fuel industry, fail to adequately invest in the energy transition, and pass the costs of climate change on to taxpayers.
In the last two full years alone, global economic damages reached $451 billion—a 19% increase compared to the previous eight years. An amount significantly more than that needed to close the global climate adaptation gap.
"Climate change will cause massive economic damages within the next 25 years in almost all countries... We have to cut down our emissions drastically and immediately—if not, economic losses will become even bigger in the second half of the century, amounting to up to 60% on global average by 2100," says Leonie Wenz, a scientist at PIK.

Climate change is not a future problem; it is affecting each and every one of us today.
According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, climate change costs the world 12% in gross domestic product (GDP) losses for every 1°C of warming. This puts the social cost of carbon at around $1,056 per metric ton of carbon dioxide emissions. The report predicts that by the "end of the century, people may well be 50% poorer than they would've been if it wasn't for climate change."
Heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, and storms cost the world more than $120 billion in 2025 alone as 55 billion-dollar weather disasters pounded the Earth. The US bore the brunt with the devastating Californian wildfires, which caused $60 billion of damage and led to the deaths of more than 400 people.
No continent, however, was spared from crippling climate disasters in 2025. It was also noted that disasters are becoming increasingly expensive and their impact underestimated. The Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR) 2025 estimates the annual cost of weather disasters at $202 billion. When other impacts, such as ecosystem costs, are taken into account, the true cost is likely to exceed $2.3 trillion.
Some of the most damaging climate events in 2025 hit poorer nations, including the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam. These countries have historically contributed little to the climate crisis, have the fewest resources to respond, and are often on the front lines of climate disasters.

"On climate finance, the world must pay up, or humanity will pay the price... Climate finance is not charity, it's an investment; climate action is not optional, it's imperative."—António Guterres, United Nations secretary-general.
In relation to the climate crisis, the Polluter Pays Principle states that those who have historically contributed the most to greenhouse gas emissions should bear the costs of repairing the damages caused and adaptation measures. It also acts as a deterrent to end massive investment and subsidies into the fossil fuel industry and instead promotes the development and integration of clean energy sources.
The Loss and Damage fund was created at COP27, the 2022 climate conference. This fund is to compensate developing countries for losses and damages (L&Ds) from natural disasters caused by climate change, for which wealthy countries are disproportionately responsible. It was hailed as a major milestone at the time, but financial commitments have fallen well short of the $400 billion needed annually to address L&Ds and climate injustices adequately.
Over the past four decades, the costs of wildfires, storms, hurricanes, droughts, and floods have spiraled. These disasters have become more frequent and far more severe. The cost of all disasters between 1985 and 1995 was $299 billion. Yet the same figure for between 2014 and 2025 was $1.4 trillion.
Below, we list the five most costly disasters over the last three decades. The figures provided are estimates, and likely the true cost was much higher. They are adjusted for inflation and, of course, do not include the social costs, such as the devastating human toll, the health crises that follow, the psychological impact, massive displacement, ecosystem destruction, resource depletion, habitat loss, and agricultural fallout.

Climate adaptation is the process of adjusting to the impacts of climate change to reduce damage, prevent loss of life, and protect people and infrastructure before disaster strikes. It also includes reducing global carbon emissions by transitioning to clean energy to prevent climate change from worsening even further.
Adaptation requires upfront investment, but it is far more cost-effective than inaction, which allows the climate crisis to escalate, causing irreversible damage and out-of-control social and environmental costs.
Examples of adaptation measures include flood defences, the creation of urban wetlands, drought-resistant crops and climate resilient agriculture, ecosystem restoration and conservation, and investment in early warning systems.
There is a huge funding gap in climate adaptation, and the longer governments postpone, the greater the need and the higher the costs become. Annual estimates for developing countries alone range from $215 to $387 billion.
Once we reach 2°C of warming, the global annual cost to protect everyone exposed to climate hazards will reach $1.2 trillion, equivalent to almost 1% of GDP. Heat and drought are the most pressing challenges, with more than three-quarters of adaptation funding needed to provide adequate protection.
Estimates indicate that the benefits of adaptation exceed the upfront costs by a factor of seven. Policymakers and world leaders need to start thinking longer term and take steps to prevent the huge economic losses from climate disasters in the first place.
Adaptation investments also have wider secondary benefits such as improved health and social welfare, a more resilient agricultural sector, stable levels of biodiversity, lower levels of migration and conflict, and reduced inequalities.
The 2019 Global Commission on Adaptation Report found that every $1 invested in adaptation can generate up to $7.1 trillion in total benefits globally by avoiding damages and building social and environmental value.

Climate inaction is already leading to massive economic losses from extreme weather. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies' 2019 Cost of Doing Nothing report estimates that those in need of annual international humanitarian assistance for climate-related disasters could double to over 200 million by 2050, costing an additional $20 billion annually.
The Climate Policy Initiative estimates the financial cost of inaction to be $1,266 trillion. The social cost is much higher:
The two-year Global Stocktake for the Paris Agreement at COP28 confirmed that we are way off track from the targeted 1.5°C target. The window for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and specific climate goals is rapidly closing.
If governments won't act on climate change for people or the planet, they should at least be motivated by the trillions it will cost them if they continue to do nothing.
Failing to address climate change is a failure for our planet and for humanity. Why pay trillions in disaster relief, conflict mitigation, aid, and migration management when the solutions are at our feet today?
As the Climate Policy Initiative says, "The longer our home remains aflame, the harder and more expensive it will be to extinguish the fire and repair the damage."