US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has presided over unprecedented upheaval at the Pentagon that does not appear to have enhanced national defense capabilities. He faces internal dissent and discord, accused of focusing on culture war issues and his own political ambitions as the Iran war drags on. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing The Guardian.
In a different Washington, under a different president, a return to the well-worn playbook of all-out sanctions to counter Iran might have been the signal for a publicity-hungry US secretary of defense to adopt a lower profile. But these are no ordinary times. And Pete Hegseth is no ordinary defense secretary.
Barely a week after the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, unleashed a supposed "economic D-day" aimed at crushing the regime in Tehran under the weight of commercial pressures, Hegseth once again returned to the limelight – and the center of controversy. The former Fox News host usurped Bessent from center stage as the conflict with Iran reverted to open warfare and discontent at the Pentagon was laid bare once more.
Turf wars within Hegseth's own fiefdom resurfaced with the resignation of the army secretary, fresh revelations of blocked promotions and leaked disclosures of resistance from military top brass of extended deployments to the Middle East. While the Pentagon insists that any suggestion the defense department is in disarray under Hegseth is "completely baseless", alarm over his conduct in the role – and the implications – has not merely been expressed by Hegseth's political opponents.
"The secretary of defense is a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States and the world," said Randy Manner, a retired major general in the US national guard – in which Hegseth also served – and member of National Security Leaders for America (NSL4A), a group of former military leaders. "He has done more harm to the national security of the United States than any secretary of defense since the country was created."
Thom Tillis, the Republican senator from North Carolina, who is stepping down from the US Senate after clashes with Donald Trump, bluntly urged the US president this week to fire his defense secretary. "I have never witnessed more inept management of the brave men and women who serve our country," Tillis wrote on social media. "He is intimidated by competence and retreats to ginning up culture wars instead of soberly attending to the vital work of our national defense and the health and wellbeing of our fighting force."
After a month-long lull, the resumption of strikes on Iranian targets near the strait of Hormuz meanwhile renewed questions over just what the US wants to achieve in its war with the Islamic regime, which Trump and his defense secretary once loudly vowed to topple. The strikes, on mainland Iran as well as Iranian islands in the Gulf, caused multiple casualties. In one incident, Iranian media reported that five people, including a six-year-old child, were killed in the southern city of Kuhestak when a missile struck a wedding party.
Iranian authorities labelled the deaths a war crime. The episode had echoes of strikes in the city of Minab on the first day of the war on 28 February, when more than 150 people, including 120 children, were killed when missiles hit an elementary school. The US has not formally admitted responsibility, although officials have said the incident is under military investigation.
The latest strikes were quickly followed by disclosures that Hegseth had extended military deployments in the Middle East, where the US currently maintains 50,000 troops and 19 warships – partly to enforce a naval blockade on Iran – into the middle of next year. The extensions were ordered even after several commanders in other sectors voiced objections, formally known as "non-concurs", to the deployments, arguing that they could leave the US at risk of being unable to meet its commitments in other areas, while subjecting forces to the additional strain of being at sea for too long. The non-concurs were recorded in the Secretary of Defense Orders Book of 14 August, a classified document whose contents were leaked and reported by the Washington Post.
"I'm not sure what the strategy is here," Kevin Carroll, a former army colonel and military intelligence officer who served in the offices of the defense secretary and joint chiefs of staff, said of the war on Iran. "What's the enemy's center of gravity that we're going after? We tried decapitating their leadership. That didn't work. We tried going after their missile program. We were not able to destroy it. Tried sinking the navy, but they still maintain a mining capability. We could easily take out their energy infrastructure. But that would drive the price of oil much, much higher, and lead to retaliatory attacks on the energy infrastructure of our Gulf allies. It's not clear what this target set is intended to do."
Nate Swanson, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former White House and state department adviser on Iran, said Hegseth's long-term deployment orders reflected the administration's decision to embrace a policy of long-term economic blockade. "It's a recognition of the fact that the past six months has failed, but they don't know what to do," argued Swanson, who suggested that Trump was attracted by the idea of abandoning the conflict, but wanted to do so in way that enabled him to project strength.
As the war drags on, Hegseth stands accused of being insufficiently engaged with such grave policy matters, preferring instead to focus on "cultural" issues – sacrificing the careers of talented military personnel.