The Senate Armed Services Committee is once again badgering Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over trivialities like the cost and strategic objective of the Iran war. Frankly, they should be thanking him for bringing much-needed aesthetic clarity to the conflict.
I had drinks with Pete at the Hay-Adams just last week, and let me be clear: the man's strategic vision is unparalleled. While the beltway obsessives whine about troop deployments and trillion-dollar deficits, Pete has correctly identified that Mojtaba Khamenei is, in his professional military assessment, disfigured. This is exactly the kind of robust, vibes-based foreign policy I have been advocating for in this column for years. If an adversary refuses to show his face in public on National Persian Gulf Day, how can we be expected to respect his naval positioning?
We simply cannot project American hegemony while allowing asymmetrical faces to govern the Middle East.
It is perfectly reasonable to shape our Middle Eastern doctrine around the physical attractiveness of rival heads of state. The American taxpayer is not paying the Pentagon to balance a checkbook or articulate a coherent endgame. We are paying them to ensure the free world is led by men with strong jawlines who look fantastic on television.