John Phelan is leaving the Pentagon after months of tension with Pete Hegseth and other leaders. The tumult comes as the Navy has been engaged in war with Iran.
The Trump administration’s efforts to validate their incoherent war on Iran with some sort of Christian moral authority have led to a few, shall we say, interesting moments recently.
After bizarrely berating Pope Leo XIV as “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy”, Donald Trump posted (and later deleted) a meme of himself as a Christ-like figure healing the sick. The self-styled “secretary of war” Pete Hegseth then confused what he evidently thought was a biblical passage with a bastardised version of a speech from the Quentin Tarantino movie Pulp Fiction.
Perhaps most damagingly of all, the vice-president, JD Vance, took Leo’s carefully considered thoughts on the concept of the “just war” as an opportunity to lecture the pope on theology.
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Iran said it had attacked and seized two cargo ships near the Strait of Hormuz, state media reported. Both sides were seeking to exert control in the waterway.
After months of impasse because of objections from Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, E.U. ambassadors took a critical step toward disbursing the money.
Vice President JD Vance was set to return to Pakistan for peace talks, U.S. officials said, though Iran has not confirmed that its negotiators will attend.
The Navy destroyers enforcing a blockade of Iranian ports carry weapons fielded after a U.S. warship was attacked and nearly sunk more than 25 years ago.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi reversed limits on arms exports as Japan faces rising threats from China and unpredictability from its main ally, the United States.
An Iranian official vowed retaliation for the U.S. attack on a vessel near the Strait of Hormuz. But Iran’s president said the war “benefits no one,” as an American delegation prepared for more talks.
The government will debut a system to repay importers two months after the Supreme Court struck down tariffs at the heart of President Trump’s trade policy.
THE NEW CRITERION: The latest issue features ‘ Western Decline’ by Victor Davis Hanson; Stoppard & Stopparianism by Jonathan Gaisman; The hector’s veto by Simon Heffer; The metaphysics of murder by Theodore Dalrypmple and New poems by Alfred Corn, Michael Homolka and Sunil Iyengar…
President Trump said the officials would arrive Monday evening in Pakistan, which has been mediating negotiations. The Strait of Hormuz remained largely closed on Sunday.
As Democrats try to find a way back to power in Washington, some see tax cuts as a quick and easy way to address affordability. The wonks are freaking out.
The military said it would tighten its grip on the waterway until the U.S. ended its blockade of Iranian ports, adding to the uncertainty over the strait.
Separate from the regular Iranian Navy, with boats that often go more than 115 miles per hour, it’s what a retired U.S. official calls a “disruptive force.”
President Trump is confronting a crisis that is not bending to his narrative of a “pretty reasonable” new regime in Iran and all-but-assured U.S. victory.
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