{"id":177328,"date":"2026-08-04T07:04:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T07:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/177328\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T07:04:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T07:04:13","slug":"pentagon-out-of-ideas-to-end-iran-war-after-hegseth-killed-woke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/177328\/","title":{"rendered":"Pentagon out of ideas to end Iran war after Hegseth killed \u2018woke\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

As President Donald Trump\u2019s war in Iran rages on<\/a>, the Pentagon is seeking suggestions on how to deal with it.<\/p>\n

According to CNN<\/a>, a senior military officer at U.S. Central Command sent a request to military analysts, asking \u201cfor new creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran\u201d\u2014which comes after the Trump administration purged and suppressed diverse voices in the armed forces.<\/p>\n

\"JournalistsJournalists in Tehran, Iran, document damage from U.S.-Israeli strikes in a residential area of the town of Fardis on April 3.AP<\/p>\n

Sources told CNN that the request was unusual because it was sent via email.<\/p>\n

The request comes months into the Iran war<\/a>, which Trump has been unable and unwilling to justify\u2014bouncing between claims of destroying Iran\u2019s military arsenal, pushing for regime change, and other arguments.<\/p>\n

Iran has been able to use Trump\u2019s war to restrict traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, causing global energy prices to skyrocket. Both Americans and Iranians have been killed, and the Trump administration has been withholding information<\/a> on the deaths, casualties, and attacks.<\/p>\n

The military\u2019s plea for assistance comes after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth blocked the advancement<\/a> of Black and women military members who were slated to be promoted. Hegseth has also been pushing<\/a> rules on grooming that would disproportionately lead to more Black soldiers being removed from service.<\/p>\n

Additionally, since Trump took office, the military has been instructed<\/a> to purge transgender members, even after years of service defending the country. Secret tribunals are being used to root out transgender members, according to a recent New York Times report<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In contrast to Republican opposition to diversity\u2014particularly within the military\u2014experts have long said<\/a> that diversity is a key weapon in making the fighting forces more effective, as more voices from outside of the straight, white, male, conservative echo chamber leads to more paths to victory.<\/p>\n

\"ABy permission of Mike Luckovich and Creators Syndicate<\/p>\n

\u201cVictory on the battlefield over the past 200 years has usually gone to the most inclusive armies, not the largest or best-equipped ones. Inclusion, in other words, is good for military effectiveness,\u201d Dartmouth college professor Jason Lyall, who has studied the effect of diversity on the military, wrote in a 2020 Washington Post column<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But back when Hegseth was a Fox News commentator, he regularly railed against diversity initiatives as a negative, calling them<\/a> \u201cwoke.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need a commander-in-chief who understands that, Donald Trump certainly does, getting woke out will go a long way to making sure we are top in the world,\u201d Hegseth said during a 2024 appearance<\/a> on Fox.<\/p>\n

But as the Pentagon missive now makes clear, if the Trump team hadn\u2019t purged so many \u201cwoke\u201d voices, maybe they would\u2019ve been able to end this devastating war by now.<\/p>\n

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Sign up for our daily top stories newsletter so you don’t miss how it’s being used\u2014and what comes next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As President Donald Trump\u2019s war in Iran rages on, the Pentagon is seeking suggestions on how to deal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[120],"tags":[9177,6404,34,1332,50,184,18,23320,546,8734,185,7549],"class_list":["post-177328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pete-hegseth","tag-diversity","tag-donaldtrump","tag-iran","tag-military","tag-news","tag-pentagon","tag-pete-hegseth","tag-petehegseth","tag-racism","tag-transgender","tag-war","tag-woke"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/117035969193860024","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}