
Out former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg expressed disgust for the way the Trump administration has approached the war in Iran, saying Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are treating it “like a video game.”
The president, Buttigieg said on CNN, “Went off and launched a war without planning, without being ready for even some of the most basic things.”
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Buttigieg said the administration seemed caught off guard by the fact that Iran essentially cut off access to the critical oil shipping waterway known as the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for the U.S. attacks.
“This is clearly amateur hour at the Pentagon and in the White House,” Buttigieg said, “and again the price is being paid by all of us.”
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Indeed, one former U.S. official who served in both Democratic and Republican presidential administrations told CNN that “preventing this exact scenario… has been a bedrock principle of U.S. national security policy for decades.”
The official said they are “dumbfounded” by what has happened.
Approximately 20 million barrels of crude oil and oil products pass through the Strait of Hormuz each day. The International Energy Agency called it “one of the world’s most critical oil transit chokepoints.”
“With around 25% of the world’s seaborne oil trade transiting the Strait and options to bypass it being limited, any disruption to flows through the Strait would have huge consequences for world oil markets,” the organization explained.
Multiple sources told CNN that both the National Security Council and the Pentagon “significantly underestimated Iran’s willingness to close the Strait of Hormuz” in retaliation for U.S. strikes.
Hegseth has refuted these accusations, claiming during a press briefing that it’s “patently ridiculous,” he wasn’t prepared for this scenario since Iran has threatened to distrupt trade in the Strait of Hormuz for decades.
But CNN pointed out: “At a moment where global oil and LNG [liquefied natural gas] supplies were plentiful, U.S. oil production sat at record highs and Trump officials were basking in a pliant Venezuelan government and the potential for rapid expansion of new production from a former foe, the global scale of the downside risks was not viewed as a major consideration.”
Buttigieg also slammed the administration’s overall “attitude” toward the war.
“They’re putting out videos treating this like a video game,” he said. “This is not a video game for the families of the fallen.”
You’re making fools of yourselves and our country. You should all be ashamed.
— Amy Siskind
Source: LGBTQ Nation