THIS EDITION OF THE WEEK IS SPONSORED BY |
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NATIONAL REVIEW
MAR 13, 2026 |
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◼ The Iranian regime's two specialties: stoning gays and closing straits.
◼ What is America's objective in this war with Iran? When he announced the launch of a major military operation, President Donald Trump said to the people of Iran, "When we are finished, take over your government." He continued: "For many years, you have asked for America's help, but you never got it. No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight." That sets the bar at regime change. The president mentioned other objectives, including the destruction of the Islamic Republic's missile industry, navy, and ability to export terrorism globally. It appears that the U.S. and Israel have achieved a great deal on those fronts. But if the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps remains in power at the end of this conflict, then America and its allies will be forced to live with the lingering threat of a wounded animal, itching for revenge. If something short of regime change—or, as Trump later demanded, "unconditional surrender"—is an acceptable outcome, then the president should have said so. If not, the president needs to make that clear and prepare the American people for a longer and likely much more difficult war.
◼ Meet the new boss: son of the old boss. The odds of anyone but the hardest of hard-liners ending up as the next ayatollah of the Iranian regime were never high. But there is a peculiar irony in the accession of Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Ruhollah Khomeini, the architect of the Iranian Revolution of 1979, wrote in 1970 that "Islam proclaims monarchy and hereditary succession wrong and invalid." Under the Iranian constitution, when there is an opening in the position of supreme leader, the Assembly of Experts is supposed to find the figure who is best in "scholarship, as required for performing the functions of religious leader in different fields; justice and piety, as required for the leadership of the Islamic Ummah." Much like his father, the new ayatollah may not actually be the most pious and qualified scholar. His selection is widely interpreted as a signal that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is still calling the shots. Evil and ruthless, the sons of the Iranian revolutionaries now fight to preserve a de facto hereditary monarchy, just more repressive than the shah's regime that they overthrew.
◼ The war in Iran is forcing energy consumers worldwide to tighten their belts. In retaliation, Iran began attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz, the choke point in the Persian Gulf that allows many Arab states access to the sea. Its continued threats have effectively halted transport through the strait, cutting off many of the world's largest energy suppliers. Until last week, approximately one-fifth of the global oil and liquefied natural gas trade originated from the Gulf states, mainly supplying Asia and Europe. Blocking that flow has caused energy prices to soar. Oil is the bigger concern on this side of the Atlantic, as its price is set by the global market. When other countries can't get the oil they need from the Middle East, they will buy more from other places, including the United States. This puts them in competition with American buyers, who will need to pay more to fill up their cars and run their businesses. Natural gas prices, by contrast, are set regionally. While Americans are protected by their own abundant supply, European allies are left to feel the squeeze. Iran's apparent strategy is to inflict so much pain on the world that Trump will have no choice but to call off the bombing campaign. It may not work, but it will hurt.
◼ The February jobs report showed a drop of 92,000, following January's surprisingly strong increase of 162,000. Most troubling, perhaps, were the continuing job losses within the information sector, which have been running at around 5,000 a month for a year. Could they be evidence that AI is beginning to take a toll? There are other signs that last Friday's numbers are part of a broader trend extending beyond IT or the shrinking federal government. Average monthly job gains in 2025 were the lowest in any non-recession year for two decades. Some of the weakness in the labor market may reflect the lingering effects of a post-pandemic shakeout and the fact that the official unemployment rate had sunk so low that there was only one direction it could go. But any account of the softness must include the blows inflicted indirectly and directly on business by "liberation day" and its chaotic aftermath. Consumer confidence, meanwhile, has been declining, and U.S. business sentiment (as measured by the OECD) has been depressed, although the latter had shown some recovery before war intervened. Economic uncertainty is not an incentive to invest, spend, or hire. Nor is it a reason for many voters to back Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections.
◼ It would be reasonable to infer that the attacker who drove a truck into a Detroit-area synagogue and childhood learning center sought to kill as many Jews as he could. Reports indicate that the attacker made it as far into the building as he could before he was eliminated; he only injured one security officer. "Something" in the vehicle "ignited" during the attack, according to police; no word yet on whether that was an incendiary device. Still, preliminary assessments suggest that this was the sort of antisemitic attack that has become all too familiar. At Old Dominion University in Virginia, meanwhile, a gunman opened fire on a classroom, killing one person and wounding two others. The attacker, Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, pleaded guilty in 2016 to attempting to provide material support to ISIS. The war in Iran might have inspired it, but it's not as though this sort of violence was exotic prior to February 28. Radicalization isn't limited to the so-called dark web anymore. |
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Instagram Teen Accounts: Automatic protections for teens. |
Instagram Teen Accounts have built-in protections for who can contact teens and the content they can see, now inspired by 13+ movie ratings.
Nearly 95% of parents say Teen Accounts are helpful in safeguarding their teens. We will continue adding features to help protect teens online. Learn more |
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◼ An internet troll named Jake Lang staged an anti-Muslim protest in front of Gracie Mansion—currently the residence of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. He expected angry counterprotesters and received them in due course. Neither side expected two young men—identified in reports as Emir Balat (age 18) and Ibrahim Kayumi (age 19)—to rush forward, shout "Allahu akbar," and hurl improvised explosive devices into the crowd. The bombs, filled with bolts and screws, thankfully failed to detonate, and the two men were immediately apprehended by a fast-moving NYPD. There is no doubt as to their motivations: Both men spoke freely and unrepentantly to police at the scene, proudly claiming inspiration from ISIS. Yet the mainstream media was reluctant to face reality. The New York Times, for instance, wrestled with curiously tortured locutions: "Smoking Jars of Metal and Fuses Thrown at Protest Near Mayor's House." Other outlets carefully crafted headlines of their own to avoid stating a politically inconvenient truth: Islamic terrorists came horrifyingly close to detonating bombs in a crowd of protesters. "The hardest thing to see," Goethe said, "is what is in front of your eyes." Judging by the performance of the media and New York Democrats in the aftermath of this attack, it's even harder for them to tell the truth about what they've seen.
◼ According to the political press, Texas representative and Senate candidate James Talarico is set to overperform in November because, as a white, polite Christian man, he is precisely what Texas's long-suffering moderate voters have been waiting for. There are several problems with this narrative. Chief among them is that Talarico is not, in fact, a moderate, unless "moderate" is now a synonym for "white man." It's true that no party or faction has a monopoly on the Gospel, but among the policies that Talarico has insisted are biblically mandatory are abortion on demand, sex-change operations for minors, gay marriage, the abolition of prisons, and de facto open borders. Voters in Texas are no different from voters anywhere else: They have earnest beliefs about taxes and education and foreign affairs and abortion and firearms and God and the environment, and, so far as is possible within our system, they want their representatives to share those earnest beliefs. Talarico has picked up a mantle that does not belong to him.
◼ Representative Tony Gonzales (R., Texas) announced that he will not seek reelection. The news followed the revelation that Gonzales had an extramarital affair with a staffer, Regina Santos-Aviles, who later committed suicide. As a House Ethics Committee investigation into the congressman's conduct looms, Republican leaders, including Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, urged Gonzales to withdraw from the race. Republicans maintain razor-thin margins in the House, and Gonzales's vote remains crucial for Republicans' plans to advance the party's agenda. He says he plans to complete the remainder of his current congressional term representing his district—we'll see if this promise holds. |
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Instagram Teen Accounts: Automatic protections for teens |
Instagram Teen Accounts have built-in protections for who can contact teens and the content they can see, now inspired by 13+ movie ratings.
Nearly 95% of parents say Teen Accounts are helpful in safeguarding their teens. We will continue adding features to help protect teens online.
Learn more |
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◼ AI giant Anthropic sued the Trump administration after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth designated the company a "supply chain risk." The dispute arises from the restrictions that Anthropic imposed on the Defense Department's use of its AI tool, Claude. These prevented the department from giving AI autonomous control over weapons systems (i.e., allowing it to operate without oversight by a human agent) and from employing Claude to conduct mass surveillance of Americans. The restrictions are reasonable: Anthropic knows its AI best and fears it is not safe for fully autonomous use in lethal force missions, and the Defense Department has no business doing mass domestic surveillance. Moreover, Anthropic was under no obligation to do business with the government, and the government had accepted its services with the restrictions. Hegseth's designation of Anthropic as a supply chain risk was an attempt to punish Anthropic for resisting Hegseth's pressure to drop the restrictions. Congress had created the designation to prevent hostile foreign entities from corrupting U.S. manufacturing and stealing intellectual property. The designation would bar all government contractors from working with Anthropic. The absurdity is underscored by the department's ongoing use of Claude in operations against Iran, which it would never do if the company truly posed a supply-chain risk. Expect the court to see it that way.
◼ The Trump administration's worrisome posture on the abortion pill continues. While abortion in general is regulated by the states, the majority of American abortions are carried out by the mifepristone-based pill that requires approval by the Food and Drug Administration and typically travels by mail or by interstate commerce in violation of federal law. The pill's availability by mail without in-person medical supervision makes it more accessible to women in states that ban abortion, and also more dangerous. Yet this administration has done nothing to enforce federal laws against the practice. The FDA has not even restored the requirement for an in-person consultation, which was stripped during the Covid-19 pandemic by the Biden administration. Red states and groups of doctors have sued. Now, Trump's Department of Justice is taking the same position as the Biden administration in arguing that the case should be dismissed for lack of standing or stayed while the FDA conducts a conspicuously slow-moving review of the pill. Pro-life groups are furious: Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, thundered that "the Trump-Vance Justice Department is taking the side of abortion drug dealers and the radical Left." Republicans should stand for life and the rule of law, and not make pro-lifers feel as though they are being taken for granted.
◼ We must be getting close to the presidential primary season, because Democratic hopefuls are unveiling fanciful fiscal plans again. Their new idea is the same as their old idea: that middle-class Americans can enjoy a sprawling entitlement state without paying for it. The bombastic Senator Cory Booker (D., N.J.) has introduced a bill to double the standard deduction on the federal income tax, exempting the first $75,000 of family earnings. His colleague, Chris Van Hollen (D., Md.), can do one better, exempting $46,000 of income for individuals and $92,000 for married couples. The aim is to ensure that most American families pay no income tax at all, but that's mostly true already. Because of existing credits and deductions, the bottom half of U.S. households pay less than 5 percent of their earnings in federal income tax. Millions of low-income taxpayers receive refundable credits that exceed their tax liability. Ironically, therefore, the main effect of raising the standard deduction would be to reduce the tax burden on higher-income earners. To compensate, Representative Ro Khanna (D., Calif.) is championing an unworkable wealth tax on billionaires, which would raise only a fraction of the promised revenue. As European governments already know, the real money lies in soaking the middle class. If progressives really believe that Americans want more welfare spending, they shouldn't be so afraid of giving voters the bill.
◼ Overwhelming bipartisan majorities on Capitol Hill can owe less to good sense than its opposite. This seems to be the case with the housing legislation that is currently working its way through Capitol Hill, a version of which the Senate has just approved. This bill is being promoted as a response to the unaffordability of housing—the flip side, in part, of earlier made-in-Washington ultralow interest rates. Even though that era has passed and its consequences will fade over time, this process needs to be accelerated by a substantial increase in the supply of new homes. This is more likely to happen if the federal government does as much as it sensibly can to get out of the way. With welcome exceptions here and there, that is not what is on the menu. The House is a lesser offender than the Senate, but much of what is proposed involves poorly directed spending, the scapegoating of institutional investors, and the opening up of opportunities for almost certainly counterproductive federal meddling. But Washington's incompetence should not be an excuse for local governments to do nothing. Their role as deregulators would be indispensable.
◼ Since 1970, banknotes issued by the Bank of England have featured prominent figures from Britain's past. Currently, such figures include Winston Churchill, Jane Austen, J. M. W. Turner, and Alan Turing. It has now been announced that they will be the last to be so honored. Last year, the bank "consulted" the public—including children and (of course!) focus groups—about possible new themes, stipulating only that they must not be "divisive." Of the 44,000 who gave an opinion, 60 percent opted for "nature," which edged out architecture and landmarks, and ended up well ahead of historical figures and other also-rans. Probably delighted by the result, the bank declared "nature" the winner. It is to be represented by native "wildlife," which will give the whole exercise a suitably green if regrettably xenophobic tinge. However, there may be relief in Threadneedle Street that this will rule out lions, animals dangerously symbolic of a deep-rooted idea of Britishness for which many in the country's ruling class feel only disdain. |
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