Khamenei, One of Most Evil People in History, is Dead
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UPDATED: Wednesday, September 2, 2026 05:42
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Cognitive Dissonance Dominates Hormuz
Ships can’t navigate a reality that exists only in Trump’s head.
By Elisabeth Braw | September 1, 2026, 11:56 AM
https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/09/01/hormuz-trump-iran-oil-greenland-r
eality/
“I have just been informed by the United States Navy that all mines have been removed and/or detonated from within the International Waters of the Strait of Hormuz,” U.S. President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social on Aug. 25. At the beginning of the war, Iran had mined the Strait of Hormuz’s Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS), the official shipping lane that runs through the middle of the strait. Mines, of course, make it extremely risky for ships to sail through. And now, Trump has said that the mines are gone.
It is fantastic news because removing mines is painstaking and dangerous work, particularly during an ongoing conflict. “Now that the mines have been cleared, ships will be able to move simultaneously in both directions through the strait with protection from the U.S. Air Force, allowing the export of more oil to global energy markets,” Axios reported.
The shipping community, alas, didn’t believe the announcement. Despite the news from Washington, ship traffic remained steady at around 30 transits each day, compared to a daily average of 129 before the war—and most of them opted for the routes along the Iranian and Omani coasts, respectively, not the supposedly safe TSS.
Indeed, cognitive dissonance now dominates the Strait of Hormuz: There’s what Trump, the President of the United States, says, and there’s what shipowners see on the ground (or rather, on the water). Indeed, cognitive dissonance now seems to dominate Trump’s relations with the world.
“That sucker is open,” Trump insisted on Aug. 27, two days after his first announcement. The following day, U.S. Central Command leader Brad Cooper delivered a similar message on social media. “We have successfully cleared sea mines in the strait’s international shipping lanes,” he said, adding that “internationally recognized transit routes are free of Iranian sea mines thanks to the incredible work of the U.S. military.” Bravo Zulu to the U.S. Navy divers and SEALs who, with great skill and bravery, managed to clear the mines. Unlike Trump, however, Cooper didn’t say that all the mines had been cleared, because it’s impossible to know how many mines have been laid and where they are.
Trump’s messages, and even that of Cooper, appeared to have been intended to mollify global oil markets. But traffic in the strait still did not increase; the shipping community had deduced that not all mines had been cleared. What’s more, mines are not the only peril facing ships in the strait these days. On Aug. 30, the United States fired missiles and rockets at Iran once again, after Centcom discovered that Iran was planning to lay more mines in the Strait of Hormuz. The following day, Trump posted an artificial intelligence video of Iran’s Kharg Island “being blown to smithereens.” Oil prices promptly rose.
The cognitive dissonance in the White House extends far beyond a narrow maritime passage in the Middle East. In January of this year, when Trump was entertaining taking Greenland from Denmark, he let it be known that the Greenlanders “want to be with us.” But in an opinion last year, 85 percent of Greenlanders said that they didn’t want the island to be annexed by the United States, and the island’s leaders have repeatedly told the world as much.
A few weeks after weighing in on the wishes of Greenlanders, Trump attacked Iran. In his speech to the nation, he also turned to the people of Iran, promising that “the hour of your freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered. Don’t leave your home. It’s very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take.”
U.S. intelligence agencies, though, had no information indicating that the Iranian regime would collapse or fold in case of a U.S. attack. Once again, cognitive dissonance had led Trum
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Military Leadership is Concerned
By Heather Cox Richardson | Sept 1, 2026
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/military-leadership-is-con
cerned
Alex Horton and Tara Kopp of The Washington Post reported on Sunday, August 30, that military leaders are warning Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that a plan to continue large-scale operations in Iran is unsustainable and is weakening their ability to protect U.S. interests in other places, including at home.
The warning is in the classified Secretary of Defense Orders book of August 14th and is laid out by the heads of the Army, Navy, and Air Force and the four-star commanders who oversee U.S. operations in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Trump's insistence that he must keep all options open, including the ability to launch major attacks, has forced more than 50,000 troops to be kept on alert for months. Plans to extend that alert made the Navy's top admiral, along with leaders of the U.S. European Command, the U.S. Pacific Command, and the U.S. Southern Command, register that they did not concur with those plans, although their disagreement does not mean they will not execute the order.
Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Darrell Cottle warned that the Navy, which has borne the brunt of operations against Iran, cannot sustain its current level of support for the war. Barely a quarter of the Navy's destroyer fleet is currently able to deploy, while delays in maintenance are threatening the readiness of other ships.
Leaders of the Army and Air Force concurred with the plan to extend forced deployments, but warned that there would be significant risk to such an extension. Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell took to social media to push back against the story, saying, Publishing highly classified assessments from the Secretary's orders book is a crime. It's a betrayal of the force. We are in great shape around the world. This story isn't about readiness. It's Trump derangement syndrome and Pete derangement syndrome. They hate President Trump and Secretary Hegseth more than they love America.
Charlotte Clymer of Charlotte's Web Thoughts pointed out that Hegseth has either fired or forced into early retirement several admirals and generals whom he considered insufficiently loyal in what appears to be an ongoing blatant campaign of intimidation to keep senior brass in the Pentagon toeing the line and not pushing back against administration officials. And yet, a broad range of military leaders are speaking out against the administration's plans in Iran. If any of the defense secretaries under Presidents Biden, Obama, or Bush had gotten this degree and range of pushback from top-uniformed personnel, there would be immediate congressional hearings, calls for resignations, and talks of impeachment, Clymer writes. Moreover, she notes, someone had to leak the information contained in this classified briefing and did so knowing that it would further confirm the extraordinary weakness the Trump administration has exhibited in its apparently dead-on-arrival negotiations with the Iranian regime to end the war.
National security scholar Tom Nichols commented, This is a good time to note that Hegseth is terrible at his job, that the Pentagon is a mess, that he should never have been confirmed, and that he should be fired first thing in the morning. But in this administration, sycophancy is more important than competence.
At 10.18 last night, Trump posted an AI video of military strikes and fires on what appears to be Iran's Karg Island, a major storage facility for Iran's oil and the seaport for about 90% of its oil exports. The caption read, Karg Island being blown to smithereens, President DJT. The Defense Department this morning clarified that the U.S. had not attacked Karg Island. The U.S. did claim to have launched attacks on two Iranian rocket launchers yesterday as they attempted to mine the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran claimed to retaliate with strikes against Jordan, which the Jordanian military said were all interce
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