Think Tanks
Here's a look at documents from think tanks
Featured Stories
Hudson Institute Issues Commentary to Free Press: Iranian Regime Is Betting on American Casualties
WASHINGTON, March 3 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on March 1, 2026, by senior fellow Aaron MacLean to the Free Press:* * *
The Iranian Regime Is Betting on American Casualties
This time the Islamic Republic is playing for all the marbles.
*
Past rounds of violence between the United States and Iran have ended with predictable choreography. After Qasem Soleimani was killed in 2020 in retaliation for the death of an American in Iraq, Iran retaliated by lobbing a volley of ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, March 3 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on March 1, 2026, by senior fellow Aaron MacLean to the Free Press: * * * The Iranian Regime Is Betting on American Casualties This time the Islamic Republic is playing for all the marbles. * Past rounds of violence between the United States and Iran have ended with predictable choreography. After Qasem Soleimani was killed in 2020 in retaliation for the death of an American in Iraq, Iran retaliated by lobbing a volley ofballistic missiles at two American air bases in that country. No Americans were killed, the Trump administration elected not to respond, and the round was complete. It was the same story last summer after the strikes on the Iranian nuclear program. The Iranians all but submitted a permission slip before striking the largely deserted Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, causing no casualties and minimal damage.
Not this time.
Yesterday's U.S. and Israeli strikes killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other senior figures. Within hours, the regime launched a wave of retaliation across the region, relying largely on its stocks of ballistic missiles and drones.
On Sunday morning, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed credit for strikes on 27 American military and diplomatic facilities, and independent reports indicated Iranian retaliatory strikes across Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The UAE's Defense Ministry claimed that over 100 missiles and 200 drones had been launched at that country alone. Dramatic videos show strikes on civilian targets across the Arab world, including in major cosmopolitan centers like Dubai. Israel was targeted throughout Saturday, and Iran was also reported to be warning shipping that the Strait of Hormuz is closed. Already on Sunday morning there were reports of new strikes targeting Israel and Gulf countries, including for the first time strikes in Oman.
This is neither symbolic nor token retaliation. These strikes are designed to kill. They are not the behavior of a regime in search of an off-ramp. They show that the Islamic Republic believes this time it is playing for all the marbles.
We haven't necessarily seen peak intensity yet. While Iran's missile and drone capabilities may be degraded in coming days, and while the U.S. Navy has surely anticipated an effort to close the Strait of Hormuz (best of luck to the IRGC Navy with that), Iran has another weapon at hand: terror. We should all pray that European airport security officials bring their A-games to work in the coming weeks, as airliners flying American routes are obvious quarries, amidst a wide range of even softer and more inviting targets. Iran could still dial things up.
What's the regime's strategy, whether or not it goes to such extremes? The goal is, of course, survival--a dramatic change of fortune since the fall of 2023, when Israel was on the ropes and Iran's proxies had the initiative. Today, Iranian power is waning as Israel's waxes, and just making it out of the other side of this round will be achievement enough.
The retaliation, while thus far not militarily meaningful, seems to take as its premise an American intolerance for casualties. If this war turns out to be longer and more costly than June's strike on Iran's nuclear program or January's raid to capture Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, so the reasoning seems to go, President Donald Trump or the American people or both will look for their own off-ramps.
This is a dangerous game for all involved--but most of all for the Islamic Republic. It is theoretically possible that this war could play out like the American intervention in Somalia, when following the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu (in which 19 Americans were killed) President Bill Clinton hastily ended the mission. The Iranians might also have on their minds Iraq and Afghanistan, where mounting casualties combined with unclear paths to victory led not only to U.S. withdrawal but widespread political and social discontent.
But those two wars played out over many years, with American casualties in the thousands--and Trump in his sixth year in power is a very different president to Clinton not even one year into his term in office. And if Americans have a horror of casualties in hard-to-win, protracted wars, they have a mirror-image tendency to react dramatically to the sudden deaths of Americans in other circumstances--even to overreact, in purely geopolitical terms, as arguably happened after 9/11. Trump himself seems to embody this trend: having remained inactive in the face of Iranian misbehavior targeting our Arab partners through much of 2019, he only ordered the dramatic Soleimani strike after Iranian proxies killed an American.
What remains of the regime's leadership could stop the madness and sue for peace, pledging to the Americans that they will finally consider nuclear terms acceptable to Washington. But the revolutionary ferocity of the regime rested on a broader base than just one man--indeed, the retaliatory wave only occurred after Saturday's decapitation strikes.
Tehran's weak strategic hand has to be balanced with the sheer ambition of bringing about regime change after nearly 50 years through airpower alone. The true potency of Western precision bombing and exquisite intelligence will be tested if this fight continues--as will the resiliency of the Iranian people, murdered by the thousands by the regime only last month, whose presence in the streets again may be the only force that can settle this question once and for all.
Read in The Free Press (https://www.thefp.com/p/the-iranian-regime-is-betting-on-casualties?utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true).
* * *
At A Glance:
Aaron MacLean is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute and the host of the School of War podcast.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.hudson.org/foreign-policy/iranian-regime-betting-american-casualties-aaron-maclean
[Category: ThinkTank]
Center for American Progress: Trump's Attack on Iran is Reckless, Placing Americans at Risk
WASHINGTON, March 3 -- The Center for American Progress issued the following statement on Feb. 28, 2026:* * *
Trump's Attack on Iran is Reckless, Placing Americans at Risk
Today, the United States began what President Donald Trump called "major combat operations" against Iran. In response, Damian Murphy, senior vice president for National Security and International Policy at the Center for American Progress, issued the following statement:
Today, President Trump needlessly entered the United States into another conflict in the Middle East. Trump's war of choice is blatantly unlawful and reckless, ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, March 3 -- The Center for American Progress issued the following statement on Feb. 28, 2026: * * * Trump's Attack on Iran is Reckless, Placing Americans at Risk Today, the United States began what President Donald Trump called "major combat operations" against Iran. In response, Damian Murphy, senior vice president for National Security and International Policy at the Center for American Progress, issued the following statement: Today, President Trump needlessly entered the United States into another conflict in the Middle East. Trump's war of choice is blatantly unlawful and reckless,placing American servicemembers and civilians, as well as our allies and partners in the region, in serious danger. Any American president should only use military force when absolutely necessary, and only with the consent of Congress and the American people. Trump not only failed to obtain consent but also made barely any effort to explain any supposed justification for U.S. intervention. In failing to do so, President Trump has shown once again he is unfit to serve as Commander in Chief.
The administration has cited no urgent threat to the United States that justifies this action. By calling for regime change, Trump has followed an infamous precedent and raised the cost of this war for the American people. There is no neat transition to democracy in a country as big and complicated as Iran, and the United States will own the potential chaos that results from this attack, much like it did in Iraq in 2003.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.americanprogress.org/press/statement-trumps-attack-on-iran-is-reckless-placing-americans-at-risk/
[Category: ThinkTank]
Center for American Progress: How the New 'Show Your Papers' Voting Bill Is Even More Extreme Than the SAVE Act
WASHINGTON, March 3 (TNSrep) -- The Center for American Progress issued the following news release on Feb. 27, 2026:* * *
How the New 'Show Your Papers' Voting Bill Is Even More Extreme Than the SAVE Act
At President Donald Trump's urging, Congress is intent on passing an even more extreme version of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act that failed to pass last year.
But no matter what the far right calls these "show your papers" bills, a new analysis (https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-save-america-act-explained-how-the-new-show-your-papers-voting-bill-is-even-more-extreme-than-the-save-act/) ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, March 3 (TNSrep) -- The Center for American Progress issued the following news release on Feb. 27, 2026: * * * How the New 'Show Your Papers' Voting Bill Is Even More Extreme Than the SAVE Act At President Donald Trump's urging, Congress is intent on passing an even more extreme version of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act that failed to pass last year. But no matter what the far right calls these "show your papers" bills, a new analysis (https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-save-america-act-explained-how-the-new-show-your-papers-voting-bill-is-even-more-extreme-than-the-save-act/)from the Center for American Progress reveals how this push to require Americans to show a passport or birth certificate to vote threatens to silence millions.
The SAVE America Act is an effort to limit which citizens can vote, not improve election integrity. The requirement to present documents proving citizenship to register to vote could block millions of Americans who do not have such documentation from casting a ballot. The requirement to do so in person would effectively ban the voter registration methods that 94 percent of Americans use and make it much more difficult for many rural Americans to register to vote.
And despite claims from the president that the SAVE Act would ensure Republicans win elections, based on data, Republican voters are actually more likely to face obstacles under the legislation, including showing the two primary forms of citizenship required.
The analysis notes that the renewed push to pass the SAVE Act is not happening in isolation. Last summer, President Donald Trump ignited a redistricting arms race when he ordered Texas to gerrymander for five additional Republican-leaning congressional seats. More recently, there are reports that Trump plans to declare a national emergency so he can ban the use of mail-in ballots and voting machines. It's all about manipulating the rules and taking away the power of the American people to hold politicians accountable with their votes.
Read the analysis: "The SAVE America Act Explained: How the New 'Show Your Papers' Voting Bill Is Even More Extreme Than the SAVE Act" (https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-save-america-act-explained-how-the-new-show-your-papers-voting-bill-is-even-more-extreme-than-the-save-act/) by Greta Bedekovics
* * *
Original text here: https://www.americanprogress.org/press/release-how-the-new-show-your-papers-voting-bill-is-even-more-extreme-than-the-save-act/
[Category: ThinkTank]
Capital Research Center Issues Commentary: Iran and the Anti-American Left
WASHINGTON, March 3 -- The Capital Research Center issued the following commentary on March 1, 2026, by senior research analyst Robert Stilson:* * *
Iran and the anti-American left
The Iranian regime has apologists in the American nonprofit sector. Here's a look at who they are and who supports them financially.
Editorial note: this is a repost from February 18, 2026.
* * *
Incredible as it may seem, there are those within the American tax-exempt sector that continue to publicly equivocate on--or even outright defend--the Iranian government, and especially its bellicose foreign policy.
The ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, March 3 -- The Capital Research Center issued the following commentary on March 1, 2026, by senior research analyst Robert Stilson: * * * Iran and the anti-American left The Iranian regime has apologists in the American nonprofit sector. Here's a look at who they are and who supports them financially. Editorial note: this is a repost from February 18, 2026. * * * Incredible as it may seem, there are those within the American tax-exempt sector that continue to publicly equivocate on--or even outright defend--the Iranian government, and especially its bellicose foreign policy. Thetheocratic autocracy governing Iran has been among the world's most destabilizing influences for decades. Institutionally sworn to the annihilation of Israel, it is one of just four countries designated by the United States as a state sponsor of terrorism. Iran's network of militant regional proxies (known as the "Axis of Resistance") includes U.S.-designated terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Yemen-based Houthis. The latter's official slogan of "God is great, death to America, death to Israel, a curse upon the Jews, victory to Islam" is said to have its origins in the Iranian Revolution of 1979, and rather succinctly illustrates the ideological underpinnings of the regime's foreign policy. Against this backdrop, Iran's nuclear program has been an understandable source of major anxiety.
Domestically, Iran is notorious for its corruption and the level of censorship, repression, and human rights abuses to which its citizenry is subjected. In early 2026--under the cover of an engineered internet blackout--government forces were reported to have massacred thousands to potentially tens-of-thousands of civilians who had taken to the streets to protest the country's dire economic conditions. Many demonstrators were calling for an end to the regime, the brutality of which has few modern parallels.
The regime's sympathizers in the American nonprofit sector, some of which the Capital Research Center has previously profiled through the lens of the "anti-American left," are broadly characterized by left-wing (often far-left) politics and a global worldview that is unremittingly hostile to the influence of the United States, Israel, and the entire democratic West. Whether stemming from genuine ideological affinity or a crude "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" calculus, these organizations have--to one degree or another--aligned themselves with one of the planet's most openly malevolent governments.
Committee of Anti-Imperialists in Solidarity with Iran
Referring to attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea perpetrated by the Iran-backed Houthis, the People's Forum promoted a protest chant of "Yemen, Yemen, make us proud! Turn another ship around!"
* * *
To illustrate this, consider an obscure coalition called the Committee of Anti-Imperialists in Solidarity with Iran. While it does not appear to be currently active (the most recent blog post on its website was from August 2024) or have its own IRS tax-exempt status, it has been endorsed by a number of nonprofit activist groups and fiscally-sponsored projects. The Committee rejects what it calls "the misrepresentation and orientalist framing of Iran and its people and movements by the Western media," and asserts that "the parroting of State Department propaganda and the demonization of Iran serve only to promote U.S. imperial goals in the region."
In April 2024, during a period of direct military conflict between Iran and Israel, the Committee released a statement entitled "No War on Iran, Stand with Resistance." It condemned what it called "Zionist aggression" by "the occupation state" against the "Axis of Resistance," while defending Iranian actions as being "part of the long decolonizing tradition and [an] expression of principled international solidarity among the peoples of the Global South." The statement claimed that "Iran has practiced great restraint in the face of Zionist aggression," but warned that "force is a legitimate response to the genocidal occupation state's aggressions." It declared that "the days of the US subjugating the nations of the region are over," and praised "the steadfastness of Palestinian resistance and the growing deterrence capabilities developed by the Axis of Resistance from Palestine to Iran, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen." Israel, according to the statement "has no right to self-defense against a population under its subjugation or against nations that it repeatedly violates and attacks."
This statement, which amounts to a full-throated endorsement of Iran's orchestration of international terrorism and a rejection of Israel's very right to exist, was endorsed by twenty groups. Notable American tax-exempt signatories included:
The People's Forum
The People's Forum, a far-left 501(c)(3) nonprofit activist group that reported just over $7 million in 2024 revenues, $5.79 million of which were from contributions and grants. $5 million of this total--86 percent of the grants it received and 70 percent of its total revenue--came from the People's Support Foundation, a private foundation created by pro-China activist-donor Neville Roy Singham and capitalized with proceeds from the sale of Thoughtworks. Singham's wife, Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans, is the People's Support Foundation's president. In 2019, the People's Forum received over $3 million from another Singham-linked nonprofit called the United Community Fund. From 2017 through 2022 it received a remarkable $22.44 million from the GS Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management, a donor-advised fund provider associated with Goldman Sachs which The New York Times has reported Singham is known to have used. The nature of donor-advised funds, however, makes it impossible to say definitively how much of this money may have originated with Singham.
The People's Forum is active across a spectrum of left-wing initiatives, which it frequently approaches from an international angle. This has included helping to organize demonstrations declaring that "the greatest source of chaos in the Middle East isn't Iran--it's U.S. imperialism and Zionism!" The People's Forum celebrated the October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attacks upon Israel as "an unprecedented liberation struggle" carried out by "Palestinian resistance factions" which "shattered the myth of Israeli military invulnerability." Referring to attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea perpetrated by the Iran-backed Houthis, the People's Forum promoted a protest chant of "Yemen, Yemen, make us proud! Turn another ship around!"
National Lawyers Guild
The National Lawyers Guild (specifically its international committee), which is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit that reported $827,926 in total 2024 revenue. Most of this came from its affiliated 501(c)(3) National Lawyers Guild Foundation, which had net assets of $4.45 million that year. Significant funding for the National Lawyers Guild Foundation has in turn come from donor-advised fund providers such as the American Online Giving Foundation ($138,936 from 2022-2025) and Donor Advised Charitable Giving ($104,350 from 2022-2024). The Amalgamated Charitable Foundation gave the group $105,500 from 2022-2023. The Community Foundation of Central Missouri provided $80,000 from 2022-2023, while the CS Fund gave the same amount from 2023-2024. From 2022-2024, the National Lawyers Guild Foundation received $600,000 from the NoVo Foundation (controlled by Warren Buffett's son Peter Buffett), but this money appears to have been earmarked for the benefit of a separate nonprofit called the Water Protector Legal Collective.
The Guild has been thoroughly ensconced within the American radical-left since the 1930s, and while it has always tended to align itself with the United States' geopolitical adversaries, its hostility towards Israel (and support for its Iranian-backed enemies) has veered in a particularly extreme direction. The Guild justified the October 7 attacks as a legitimate exercise "of the right of the Palestinian people to resist," and characterized the Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping as "principled actions in solidarity with the people of Palestine." During the June 2025 military conflict between Israel and Iran, in which the United States also struck Iranian nuclear sites, the Guild declared its support for "the legitimate right of Iran, a sovereign nation, to defend itself" from what it called "unprovoked" and "unlawful aggression."
The Palestinian Youth Movement
The Palestinian Youth Movement, which was formerly a fiscally-sponsored project of the WESPAC Foundation and is now a project of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Honor the Earth. As a sponsored project, the Palestinian Youth Movement does not disclose its own financials, though $1 million was transferred from WESPAC to Honor the Earth sometime between September 2023 and August 2024 for the purpose of supporting it. Recent grants specifically earmarked to support the Palestinian Youth Movement have come from the California Endowment ($125,000 from 2023-2024), the Solidaire Network ($75,000 in 2024),and the Bafrayung Fund ($60,000 from 2022-2024).
Regarding Iran, the Palestinian Youth Movement has published a statement supporting what it calls the country's "right to defend itself" against unprovoked Israeli "atrocities" and "aggression." In the group's view, "Iran is confronting a project of global domination" being undertaken through "Western imperialist violations of Iranian sovereignty," with the goal being "to de-develop, subdue, and crush any state or actor that opposes or resists Western hegemony." According to the Palestinian Youth Movement, Western nations are waging an "existential war against Iran because Iran has rejected American and Zionist interests in the region, instead safeguarding national and regional sovereignty, and building power that challenges Western imperialism's sphere of dominance."
The ANSWER Coalition
The ANSWER Coalition, a fiscally-sponsored project of the 501(c)(3) Progress Unity Fund, which itself reported $650,576 in total 2024 revenue. Groups which have made recent grants to the Progress Unity Fund include the WESPAC Foundation ($62,000 in 2024), the LEF Foundation ($37,000 from 2022-2025), and the People's Forum ($26,356 in 2023). ANSWER's national director, Brian Becker, also co-founded the explicitly communist Party for Socialism and Liberation.
ANSWER has posted material characterizing the 1979 Iranian Revolution as an "anti-imperialist revolution" which overthrew a "U.S. client." In June 2025, it helped organize "nationwide emergency protests" against what it called the United States' "unprovoked bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities," arguing that they constituted a war crime. One such protest in Washington, DC was co-organized with the Democratic Socialists of America, Code Pink, the People's Forum, the Palestinian Youth Movement, and the National Iranian American Council--a group which has been accused of promoting polices aligned with the interests of the Iranian regime (an accusation it has repeatedly and forcefully denied).
The Black Alliance for Peace
The Black Alliance for Peace, which is a fiscally-sponsored project of Community Movement Builders--a far-left 501(c)(3) nonprofit with over $2.9 million in 2023 revenues and a history of supporting disruptive street protests. It was formerly a project of a different nonprofit called the Latin American and Caribbean Community Center, which has since rebranded as AfroResistance. The Black Alliance for Peace received $100,000 from the Common Counsel Foundation in 2024, and it has also received five-figure grants from Arc of Justice (formerly known as the Benjamin Fund) and ImpactAssets.
During the June 2025 Iran-Israel conflict, the Black Alliance for Peace reposted an extensive statement on its website entitled "We Stand With Iran." The statement attacked the "terrorist state" of Israel for striking Iranian military and nuclear sites and thereby "reducing its ability to provide support for legitimate liberation organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas." The statement claimed that "the real reason that Iran is portrayed as a pariah, as dangerous, as an enemy of humanity [is] not because of anything they've done to harm the US or Israel, but because of the threat of unseating imperialism's global economic dominance." Elsewhere, the Black Alliance for Peace has decried "the notion that a rogue ethnostate [Israel] that is currently carrying out a genocide believes that it possesses the right to determine which countries can and cannot develop a nuclear weapon." It labeled Israel and the United States as "the most dangerous nations in the world," and stated that "their power must be dismantled."
Other signatories of the Committee of Anti-Imperialists in Solidarity with Iran's statement include Samidoun and the United National Antiwar Coalition (both of which have been projects of the Alliance for Global Justice, examined in more detail below), National Students for Justice in Palestine (which as of 2024 was a project of the WESPAC Foundation), Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, Nodutdol for Korean Community Development, the Bronx Anti-War Coalition, Friends of Swazi Freedom, the International Action Center, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, Sanctions Kill, and the Workers World Party. Some, but not all, of these groups are tax-exempt.
In addition to those groups which endorsed the Committee's statement, it is worth examining several other nonprofits which have expressed notably sympathetic views towards Iran in the context of their broader anti-American and anti-Israel activism.
Democratic Socialists of America
Indeed, since 2025 it has been an expellable offense within the DSA to publicly speak in opposition to the Palestinian cause or to acknowledge Israel's right to defend itself.
* * *
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the self-described largest socialist organization in the United States. It claims more than 95,000 members, including some prominent elected officials such as New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani and U.S. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). The DSA's national headquarters operates as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, and it reported over $6.3 million in 2024 revenues. The vast majority of this came from membership dues.
Though it has always existed at the left edge of the American political spectrum, the DSA has become increasingly radicalized over the past decade. In the international context, this has included expressions of support for Iranian actions and those of its regional terrorist proxies, especially vis-a-vis their conflict with Israel. Indeed, since 2025 it has been an expellable offense within the DSA to publicly speak in opposition to the Palestinian cause or to acknowledge Israel's right to defend itself.
A statement released by the DSA in early 2024 asserted that "since October 7th [2023], Israel has continuously engaged in provocative military aggression," and dismissed efforts to link Iran to the October 7th attacks as Israeli propaganda. The group also declared--in an apparent reference to Hamas and the Houthis--that "socialist internationalism obligates us to act in solidarity with the Palestinian and Yemeni people who have bravely resisted imperial aggression by the US and its partners for decades." The statement characterized Houthi attacks on commercial Red Sea shipping as a "humanitarian blockade of Israel's genocide in Gaza."
In another statement, published in the aftermath of the April 2024 exchange of strikes between Israel and Iran, the DSA's international committee affirmed its support for "Iran's right to self-defense" and "recognize[d] that Iran has long been targeted by the U.S. and its allies for its efforts to establish national self-determination and champion Palestinian liberation." It praised what it called the "success" of Iran's "defensive strikes" for "highlight[ing] the ability of Iran to defend itself against Zionist aggression" and for "restor[ing] crucial deterrence against increasingly rogue Israeli actions." The DSA predicted that these Iranian strikes would "further undermine the mantle of invincibility which the Zionist project has constructed in order to allow its continual ethnic cleansing and genocide in their colonial occupation of Palestine."
Alliance for Global Justice
An internationally oriented far-left activist group that has traditionally prioritized support for Latin American authoritarian regimes--such as those governing Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela--the Alliance (and its projects) have also occasionally made favorable references to Iran.
* * *
The Alliance for Global Justice is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that reported $6.7 million in total 2024 revenues. More than thirty different grantmakers gave at least $20,000 to the Alliance that year, with some of the largest totals coming from donor-advised funds such as the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program ($392,100), the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund ($303,908), and the Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust ($180,000). Other major funders in 2024 included the Colorado Health Foundation ($300,150), the William Penn Foundation ($250,000), the Groundswell Fund ($220,170) and the Common Counsel Foundation ($130,000).
In addition to its own activities, the Alliance serves as fiscal sponsor to numerous other groups that share its mission. It has described itself as "the accounting department for the movement for social change." An internationally oriented far-left activist group that has traditionally prioritized support for Latin American authoritarian regimes--such as those governing Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela--the Alliance (and its projects) have also occasionally made favorable references to Iran.
For example, in 2021 the Alliance co-sponsored (alongside Code Pink, the Black Alliance for Peace, and one of its own projects called Popular Resistance) a webinar exploring the "natural alliance" between Venezuela and Iran, through which they provide "mutual life lines in defiance" of the United States and its "illegal sanctions." Material posted on the Alliance's website in June 2025 spoke of how "Venezuela and Iran stand together against US aggressions," and quoted Venezuelan National Assembly president Jorge Rodriguez in claiming that Iranian missile and drone attacks had "brought the criminals of the Israeli government to their knees" by supposedly revealing the country's Iron Dome air defenses to have been a "paper dome."
At least two projects that the Alliance has fiscally sponsored--the United National Antiwar Coalition and Samidoun--endorsed the statement from the Committee of Anti-Imperialists in Solidarity with Iran examined above. Samidoun has been sanctioned by the governments of Canada and the United States as "a sham charity that serves as an international fundraiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization," and as of February 2026 the Alliance remains unable to accept credit card payments on its website.
The United National Antiwar Coalition helped organize an "All Out for a Weekend of Action" protest against "Zionist-US aggression" in June 2025, which declared that "Iran has supported the regional resistance in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Syria for decades and is under attack because of its support for regional liberation from the clutches of US imperialist domination and Zionist colonialism." The group subsequently posted a letter of "sincere gratitude" from an organization called the Global Resistance for Peace and Justice and its Iran-based co-founder, which noted how "the brave supreme leader of Iran" had "stood firm at the forefront of the historical liberation struggles of our heroic nation." The letter predicted that Iran would secure "our final triumph...sooner than what our adversaries may even think."
Code Pink
Another suggestion is to emphasize that "it's not our business who governs Iran--or anywhere outside our borders." This would seem to directly conflict with Code Pink's demand that the United States arrest Israeli prime minster Benjamin Netanyahu.
* * *
Code Pink is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that reported over $1.3 million in total 2024 revenues. One of its major funders ($952,600 from 2017-2020, plus $355,350 in 2022) is a private foundation called Arc of Justice (formerly known as the Benjamin Fund), which is controlled by Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin. The donor-advised fund provider GS Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund For Wealth Management granted Code Pink a total of $1.33 million from 2017-2023. Other major funders have included the Justice and Education Fund ($490,886 from 2020-2022) and the Tides Foundation ($372,500 from 2018-2024).
Code Pink is a well-known leftist agitation group whose activism stems from a core precept that the United States--which it has described as "a decadent, declining empire stumbling blindly into its agonizing death spiral"--is the central font of global misery. It attributes Iran's ongoing economic collapse entirely to U.S. sanctions, not to the Iranian government's profound corruption or its belligerent and self-isolating foreign policy. After the United States withdrew from the Iran Nuclear Deal in 2018, Code Pink published an open letter to the Iranian people saying that it was "ashamed" of its own government and apologizing for America's "dreadful history of meddling in the internal affairs of your country."
The following year, an official Code Pink delegation traveled to Iran, where they were "honored" with an audience with the country's then-foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who was said to have "argued persuasively that the United States couldn't be opposed to Iran for any of the reasons it routinely gives for its hostile stance." A trip participant described him as "speaking for an isolated nation with few refuges aside from the moral high ground to fall back upon." Another participant wrote in a blog for Code Pink's website that "as I return home, I feel sickened by the US assault on Iran...It's time to end US aggression against Iran and instead begin reparations."
Code Pink's website also features suggested talking points for protesters about Iran. These include a maxim that "we should not be talking about Iranian aggression, but about US aggression." Another suggestion is to emphasize that "it's not our business who governs Iran--or anywhere outside our borders." This would seem to directly conflict with Code Pink's demand that the United States arrest Israeli prime minster Benjamin Netanyahu. Elsewhere, Code Pink has criticized the U.S. government's 2019 decision to designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, and it has repeatedly opposed designating the Iran-backed Houthis as such.
Final thoughts
Though it may be tempting to explain away these radicals as paid puppets of malign foreign influence, the uncomfortable reality is that repugnant worldviews can be sincerely held and acted upon without requiring financial incentives, foreign-sourced or otherwise.
* * *
There are a range of legitimate views regarding how the United States should engage with Iran, and the point here is not to weigh in on the relative merits of any of them. But even among those who favor some measure of diplomatic rapprochement, there must be firm moral clarity in condemning the country's governing regime and rejecting any attempt to shift responsibility for its myriad domestic abuses and direct sponsorship of international terrorism onto the United States (or Israel).
This is the real problem with the groups detailed above, and others like them. Their entire worldview is premised on the belief that America (or the democratic capitalist West more broadly) is ultimately to blame for any given manifestation of global human misery. Because this is objectively false--indeed, reality is the near-polar opposite--these groups routinely find themselves in the position of trying to defend the indefensible. They may attempt this directly on its own terms, or through a combination of equivocation, moral relativism, whataboutism, and boilerplate sloganeering. It is extraordinary and revealing that nothing even remotely approximating the nationwide anti-Israel protests that have spread across the country in response to the war in Gaza have manifested to denounce the Iranian government's cold-blooded massacre of thousands of its own citizens.
It might naturally be asked: are these groups, or others like them, being funded by Iranian or other sympathetic foreign sources? The nature of nonprofit disclosures in the United States generally makes this impossible for the public to determine, though some groups (such as Code Pink) have emphatically denied it. Such questions might also be something of a red herring--the past several years have provided ample evidence of virulent anti-Israel (and even antisemitic) sentiments within certain segments of the American left. This frequently overlaps with equally virulent anti-Americanism. Though it may be tempting to explain away these radicals as paid puppets of malign foreign influence, the uncomfortable reality is that repugnant worldviews can be sincerely held and acted upon without requiring financial incentives, foreign-sourced or otherwise.
One final observation: by virtue of being located in the United States, these tax-exempt activist groups enjoy broad First Amendment rights to denounce what they consider to be a malicious American government bent on inflicting misery upon the people of Iran--whose interests they generally purport to be speaking on behalf of. Meanwhile, the people of Iran are being massacred in the streets by an autocratic regime bent on preventing them from ever securing such rights for themselves. Posterity is rarely kind to authoritarian apologism.
* * *
Robert Stilson, Senior Research Analyst
Robert runs several of CRC's specialized projects.
* * *
Original text here: https://capitalresearch.org/article/iran-and-the-anti-american-left-2/
[Category: ThinkTank]
Capital Research Center Issues Commentary: Al Gore's 30-plus Years of Climate Errors
WASHINGTON, March 3 -- The Capital Research Center issued the following commentary on March 2, 2026, by Ken Braun, managing editor and editor of content:* * *
Al Gore's 30-plus years of climate errors
The former VP has been reliably wrong on climate & energy for more than three decades. Just 537 votes prevented him from winning the presidency in 2000 and turning his bad plots into policy.
Editorial note: This retrospective on the career of former U.S. Vice President and anti-energy advocate Al Gore first appeared in the January 2023 issue of Capital Research magazine.
* * *
In the summer ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, March 3 -- The Capital Research Center issued the following commentary on March 2, 2026, by Ken Braun, managing editor and editor of content: * * * Al Gore's 30-plus years of climate errors The former VP has been reliably wrong on climate & energy for more than three decades. Just 537 votes prevented him from winning the presidency in 2000 and turning his bad plots into policy. Editorial note: This retrospective on the career of former U.S. Vice President and anti-energy advocate Al Gore first appeared in the January 2023 issue of Capital Research magazine. * * * In the summerof 1992, an otherwise formulaic U.S. senator of average impact and influence published Earth in the Balance, a climate policy book that landed on the best seller list. The book helped land its author, U.S. Sen. Al Gore Jr. (D-TN), the veep spot on Bill Clinton's successful 1992 presidential ticket.
Just try to name another vice president who didn't become president, yet kept his name on the front page? After his inauguration as vice president in January 1993, Gore began what is now a 30-year run as an influential cultural lighting rod. Prior to that, the son of former U.S. Sen. Al Gore Sr. (D-TN) had done little more than literally inherit the name of the family business.
In 1976, Al Jr. won a seat from Tennessee in the U.S. House. In 1984, during an open race with no incumbent for one of Tennessee's U.S. Senate seats, no other Democrat even bothered to challenge the "Al Gore" name for the nomination. Gore went on to win easily in the general election.
By Christmas 1986, Gore the Elder was whispering into the ear of Al the Younger, telling him he would win the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination. The son listened and got in the race.
Up through 1988, Gore had already spent most of his dozen years in DC trying to make climate policy a big issue for the nation and a political winner for himself. It didn't catch on. During his 1988 presidential campaign, Gore was better known for holding hearings in support of his then-wife Tipper's prudish and politically awkward crusade against dirty words in rock music lyrics.
Gore was still sufficiently unremarkable prior to his presidential run that authors of a January 1988 profile in the New York Times still felt the need to physically describe him to readers: "Mr. Gore is solidly built, dark and indisputably handsome."
His presidential campaign was not so durably constructed and imploded three months later in late April 1988. Trailing badly, Gore lasted just 14 days longer than the otherwise forgettable U.S. Sen. Paul Simon (D-IL). A distant fourth place finisher, Simon was nobody's idea of "dark and indisputably handsome."
Nonetheless, by the end of 1988 Simon and Gore were looking equally unpresidential and forgettable. But just four years later Gore was rescued from history and on his way to being "just one heartbeat away" from the highest office.
As the iconic account of Gore's climate creed, Earth in the Balance was eclipsed by the 2006 film An Inconvenient Truth. The documentary narrated by Gore turbo-charged his post political career. It won an Academy Award for best documentary and an Emmy for best original song, and it helped Gore score a share of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
A lot of what we know of Gore's climate beliefs over the past three decades comes from this excessively prized film.
Early in the performance, Gore quoted a warning from Mark Twain: "It ain't what you know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."
By that standard, Gore has been well-equipped to get into a lot of trouble.
Glacial Recount
By January 2020 Glacier National Park's "say goodbye to the glaciers" signs had been sheepishly replaced with carefully vague warnings that the glaciers are indeed shrinking and will one day vanish.
* * *
"I'm Al Gore and I used to be the next president of the United States," said Gore, early in An Inconvenient Truth, to adoring laughter and applause.
This was a reference to the 2000 presidential election when Democratic nominee Gore lost the state of Florida--and thus the White House--by 537 votes to Republican George W. Bush. As the votes were being counted on Election Night, Gore initially conceded the presidency to Bush.
But as Bush's reported margin of victory in Florida narrowed, Gore called back to announce he had changed his mind. An incredulous Bush reportedly asked: "You mean to tell me, Mr. Vice President, you're retracting your concession?"
During the ensuing weeks of recounts, it was revealed that Floridians using paper punch ballots didn't always do a nifty job of fully punching through the paper to indicate their vote preference. This allegedly fouled up the ballot-reading scanners.
In their theory of the case, Gore partisans seemed to argue that Florida Democrats were disproportionately incompetent at punching holes in paper and that jurisdictions disproportionately run by Democratic voters were particularly incapable of counting votes correctly.
Gore's joke at the start of An Inconvenient Truth demonstrates the degree to which he had not moved past this theory and the belief he would have won if we had just kept recounting Florida.
Today, it is common for the corporate media to refer to these delusions as "election denial," but they leave out references to Gore.
Back in late 2000, Bush's lead still held up after 36 days. The U.S. Supreme Court ordered Florida to cease its investigation into whether the state's Democrats were less competent voters, and Gore criticized the High Court's decision, but grudgingly accepted defeat a second time.
The same general joke about the vote count in the 2000 election is repeated a second time by Gore in An Inconvenient Truth, this time regarding the counting of glaciers at Glacier National Park.
"Within 15 years this will be the park formerly known as Glacier," Gore tells the audience.
The keepers of the park even agreed at some point or other. They affixed signs telling tourists to say "Goodbye to Glaciers" and that "Computer models indicate the glaciers will all be gone by the year 2020."
But Gore's 15-year prophesy about the glaciers expired quietly in 2021. The 2021 visits to Glacier National Park exceeded each of the previous five years. The glaciers were still there.
"At the end of the Little Ice Age around 1850, there were about 80 glaciers in what would eventually become Glacier National Park," proclaims the official park website today. "Based on aerial imagery from 2015 there were 26 named glaciers that met the size criteria of 0.1 km(2), nine fewer than in 1966."
By January 2020 Glacier National Park's "say goodbye to the glaciers" signs had been sheepishly replaced with carefully vague warnings that the glaciers are indeed shrinking and will one day vanish. The park website blames human impact for some of the loss, but of course not all. The name of the park is still the same and the official website warns prospective visitors to expect "about three million people visiting during each summer season."
Glacier National Park's website also says the "onset of a warming trend" at the end of that Little Ice Age caused the glaciers to begin their retreat and that their continued pace of decline is "due to both natural and human-caused climate change."
The end of an ice age, little or otherwise, is an unpleasant development for glaciers. Somewhere between 7,000 and 32,000 years ago the bodies of water currently known as the Great Lakes were created from what were formerly known as glaciers.
The man who thinks he used to be the next president was wrong about the park that would be formerly known as Glacier. The decline of the glaciers at the eponymously named national park is inevitable, someday. But the alarmist catastrophe portrayed in An Inconvenient Truth was a convenient and alarmist deception.
Snow Job
Gore said there'd be no more snow on Kilimanjaro, the mountain still catches more annual snow than the people who live in the snowiest American cities will see over several years.
* * *
Gore's prophecy regarding Kilimanjaro National Park in Tanzania was more precise, and just as wrong.
"Within the decade there will be no more snows of Kilimanjaro," he said to the audience in An Inconvenient Truth. This occurred moments before he makes his prediction for Glacier National Park.
Alluding poorly to the title of the Ernest Hemmingway short story The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Gore was trying to claim that Africa's tallest mountain, with a peak that stands higher than 19,000 feet, would no longer have measurable snow cover on or before 2016.
As of November 2022, Snow-forecast.com, a webpage for skiers, reported that an average of 93 combined inches of snowfall (almost 8 feet) hits just the middle altitudes of Kilimanjaro during November and December. And 9 inches of combined snowfall is the average expected for the middle elevations for July and August, the lightest two-month period for snowfall on the middle part of the mountain.
The upper altitudes of Kilimanjaro supposedly get pummeled with an average of 171 inches (more than 14 feet) of snow during November and December. Another 127 inches (10 more feet) is expected during April and May. The expectation for September and October is 59 inches. According to Snow-forecast, every two-month period on Kilimanjaro's higher elevations is expected to feature well over a foot of snowfall.
For perspective, Syracuse, New York, sometimes crowned America's snowiest city, records average snowfall of 127.8 inches for the entire year.
More than 20,000 people annually climb to the summit of Kilimanjaro. Pull up a Google image search for "summit of Kilimanjaro" and the results will show a majority of the climbers celebrating with snow under their feet or piled nearby. And it stands to reason most don't try the five-plus day trek to the top during the months when well over a foot of snow is expected each week.
Going on seven years past the day when Gore said there'd be no more snow on Kilimanjaro, the mountain still catches more annual snow than the people who live in the snowiest American cities will see over several years.
Hurricane Hyperbole
No comparable era of docile hurricanes appears in the NOAA records going back more than a century.
* * *
These failed prognostications about the future disasters of climate change were bad enough. But the hyperbole over hurricanes in An Inconvenient Truth was far worse.
"We have seen in the last couple of years, a lot of big hurricanes," said Gore, in the 2006 film. "The summer of 2005 has been one for the books."
In his history lecture on the hurricanes of 2005, Gore claimed the lesson to learn was that we had been ignoring "warnings that hurricanes would get stronger" because of human-inflicted climate change.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) hosts a regularly updated webpage titled "Global Warming and Hurricanes: An Overview of Current Research Results." The update as of October 2022 has this to say:
We conclude that the historical Atlantic hurricane data at this stage do not provide compelling evidence for a substantial greenhouse warming-induced century-scale increase in: frequency of tropical storms, hurricanes, or major hurricanes, or in the proportion of hurricanes that become major hurricanes.
The NOAA lists six named hurricanes making landfall on the continental United States in 2005, including four major ones.
What Gore knew (or should have known) but did not mention when he claimed there had been "a lot of big hurricanes" was that the four "major" storms of 2005 were all measured at Category 3 intensity when they made landfall. This includes the star of Gore's presentation, the obviously devastating Hurricane Katrina that ravaged New Orleans in August 2005.
Category 3 is the lowest category that still qualifies as a "major" hurricane by the NOAA's definition.
What neither Gore nor anyone else knew was the hurricane silence that would follow.
In 2006 not a single hurricane of any kind made landfall in the continental United States. And then, over the next 10 years through 2016, not a single major hurricane hit the USA. During seven of those years (2009-2015) just four total hurricanes of any kind made landfall, three of them Category 1 and one a Category 2.
No comparable era of docile hurricanes appears in the NOAA records going back more than a century. This period of unprecedented calm following immediately on the heels of Gore's hurricane hyperbole really was--to borrow his analysis-- "one for the books."
If Gore proved anything at all, it was that Mother Nature might be real, with a wicked sense of humor, and she decided to spend 11 years making a mockery of his movie.
The deadly Hurricane Katrina obviously wasn't funny at all. The real story needed no exaggeration, but that's what it got from An Inconvenient Truth.
Gore's description of the tragedy is heavy on hyperbole and emotional images:
Before it hit New Orleans, it went over warmer waters. As the water temperature increases, the wind velocity increases, and the moisture content increases. And you'll see Hurricane Katrina form over Florida. And then as it comes into the Gulf over warm water it picks up energy and gets stronger and stronger and stronger. Look at that hurricane's eye. And of course, the consequences were so horrendous; there are no words to describe it.
Katrina did indeed pick up speed as it left Florida, briefly ramping all the way up to a Category 5 while still over open water.
The Scary Seas
... the annual upward trend works out to 3.43 millimeters, a depth less than the thickness of two quarters stacked atop each other.
* * *
What isn't so cinematic is the real story of sea level increases.
NASA has an online tracker of ocean levels that shows monthly changes back to January 1993. (Perhaps not coincidentally, this was Gore's first month as vice president). NASA shows the sea rose about 6 millimeters during 1993. A visual representation of this depth would be four pennies stacked on top of each other.
While net sea change has been upward, and (according to NASA) happening "as a result of human-caused global warming," the tracker also shows a few sharp declines. During one 10-month period from June 2010 through April 2011 the ocean dropped 9.1 millimeters. That equates to the thickness of a stack of six pennies.
NASA's full 30 years of measurements since January 1993 adds up to a total net gain in sea level of 103 millimeters. That's about the height of a coffee mug.
Averaged on a yearly basis, the annual upward trend works out to 3.43 millimeters, a depth less than the thickness of two quarters stacked atop each other. At that rate, total sea level increases over the next 100 years will equal 13 inches.
To put that in perspective, NASA reports the ocean rose about 8 inches over the previous 122 years, while nearly all of the world confronted much bigger problems.
If Gore had wished to honestly portray the relative degree of peril we face, he might have held up a ruler and warned us (accurately) that those living near sea level will need to continue developing coastal defenses sufficient to hold back just a little bit more seawater over the next century.
He could have reminded us that adaptation is feasible, has been going on for a long time, and is not very frightening. About one-third of the Netherlands sits below sea level, some of it 22 feet below. Sand dunes, dikes and pumps keep the ocean right where the Dutch want it. They'll likely find and deploy even better solutions in the future.
However honest it may have been for Gore to portray this global challenge with tiny stacks of coins and nods to the brilliance of the Netherlands, that wasn't going to win Oscars and other prizes.
So instead, he showed the consequences of a wildly hypothetical 20-foot increase in sea level. This was done with an alarmist video showing Manhattan, most of Florida, Beijing, Shanghai, and many other regions being submerged under the waves.
At the current rate of sea level increase, it will take 1,800 years for the ocean to go up another 20 feet.
Let's say the annual average pace of sea rise quadruples, from the thickness of two quarters stacked atop each other to the thickness of eight quarters. That still puts the 20-foot total increase at 450 years away.
What would happen in 450 years: Obviously, a lot has been invented since 1573, when even the fiercest warships were still relying on weather-dependent wind power. (But hey, it was renewable!)
And Bible scholars estimate the Gospel of John was written roughly 1,900 years ago, so there is no easily recognizable technological marker to properly convey progress over the last 1,800 years.
If human ingenuity was sufficient to accidentally cause the ocean to rise somewhat more over the past mere century or so, then we have a lot of time left to develop better and cheaper ways to abate, adapt to, or even reverse the process.
In 2007 a British judge ruled there were nine important factual errors presented in An Inconvenient Truth that made it unsuitable for the nation's schoolchildren unless accompanied by materials to correct the mistakes. The court ruled that the bit about sea level increases was "distinctly alarmist."
How does Gore justify spinning such a hysterical hypothetical into one supposedly imminent catastrophe?
The 20-foot sea level increase was introduced with this preamble: "If Greenland broke up and melted, or if half of Greenland and half of West Antarctica broke up and melted, this is what would happen . . ."
A recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that under even their worst-case warming scenario it will take until the end of the current century for ice melt in Greenland and Antarctica combined to add half a meter of sea level increase.
Compared to 20 feet, this worst-case scenario is a little more than 20 inches over the next 77 years. And under the least alarming estimate provided, the IPCC pegs the contribution to be just 1.6 inches through the end of the century.
It wouldn't be box office gold to show Manhattan finding a way to carefully adapt to a few inches of sea level increase over the length of an average human lifetime.
So instead, Gore decided to explain what happens when 20 feet of extra water washes the world away:
After the horrible events of 9/11 we said, "Never again." But this is what would happen to Manhattan. They can measure this precisely, just as the scientists could predict precisely how much water would breach the levees in New Orleans. The area where the World Trade Center Memorial is to be located would be under water. Is it possible that we should prepare against other threats besides terrorists? Maybe we should be concerned about other problems as well.
This was an unpleasantly revealing moment because of what it implied about the man's priorities.
If Gore had collected another 600 votes in Florida during the 2000 election, he would have been president during the 9/11 attacks. And here he was, five years later, selling a mad Doomsday fantasy as a threat co-equal with a mass murder fresh in the minds of an audience who had lived through it.
In a wide field with many options, this may have been the most deplorable moment in An Inconvenient Truth.
The Bridge Fuel to Nowhere
From 2006, when Gore spoke those words, through 2021 total U.S. carbon emissions fell by 17.3 percent, back to roughly the American carbon emissions of 1988.
* * *
The end of the film features the former vice president in solutions mode, previewing the policy recommendations that have become his agenda ever since.
"Are we going to be left behind as the rest of the world moves forward?" Gore asked. "All of these nations have ratified Kyoto. There are only two advanced nations in the world that have not ratified Kyoto, and we are one of them. The other is Australia."
He was speaking of the Kyoto Protocol climate pact that committed the signatories to cutting their greenhouse gas emissions.
But, once again, much as with the hurricanes, a very convenient thing happened in the years after An Inconvenient Truth.
From 2006, when Gore spoke those words, through 2021 total U.S. carbon emissions fell by 17.3 percent, back to roughly the American carbon emissions of 1988. On a per capita basis, the decline was 26.5 percent, a bigger drop than what Germany accomplished and close to the European Union's 28 percent per capita decline.
Instead of "left behind," we leaped ahead. But it wasn't because we adopted "renewable energy," "carbon capture sequestration," or the other policy options Gore preached about in the film and continues to promote today.
It was the fossil fuel industry that got us there. Compared to coal, natural gas emits half the carbon per unit of energy produced. That added up to a big opportunity after 2006, when the United States became a natural gas superpower due to the hydraulic fracturing shale gas revolution. In the electricity sector, a massive switch from coal to natural gas ensued in the United States, and that slashed our carbon dioxide output.
By 2021, that trade of fuels alone had led to a net reduction in annual American carbon emissions of 680 million tons. For perspective, that is slightly more than the total 2021 carbon emissions of Germany.
So, since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, the growth of the American natural gas industry has reduced annual American carbon emissions by an amount that now exceeds the annual carbon output of the planet's fourth largest economy.
Of course, Gore should have celebrated and encouraged this striking progress. Instead--to borrow his words--he was "left behind as the rest of the world moves forward."
And it required truly ponderous political dancing for him to wind up on the wrong side.
Thirty years ago, in late November 1992, as the previously banal senator was about to become vice president, a New York Times report said this of the agenda the incoming Clinton-Gore administration was promoting:
The blueprint being put together by industry executives as well as staff members close to Mr. Clinton and Vice President-elect Al Gore conforms with the promises Mr. Clinton made during the campaign. He said he wanted to wean the nation from its reliance on coal and oil by converting to cleaner, less costly alternatives like natural gas . . .
With the benefit of hindsight, we know this part of the 1992 Clinton-Gore agenda was on the right track. In 1992 coal was the source fuel for 52.6 percent of U.S. electricity production, and natural gas was just 13.1 percent of the total. By 2021, the cleaner burning natural gas was up to 38.2 percent of the total, and coal had fallen to 21.8 percent.
Gore was still on the correct side of history when he ran for president in 2000. His campaign plan for the environment aimed to "promote expanded exploration for cleaner burning natural gas."
Even as late as February 2009, just as the shale gas revolution was about to transform American energy, the U.S. economy, and dramatically slash carbon emissions, Gore was still willing to say this: "We should use natural gas for the 18-wheelers as a bridge fuel."
But those statements ended as soon as the natural gas policy succeeded.
By the 2018 mid-term election Gore recommended a "Yes" vote on Colorado Proposition 112, which would have prohibited natural gas drilling wells from operating within 2,500 feet (nearly a half mile) of an occupied building.
Gore said a "yes" vote would "make climate justice history!" Wisely, 55 percent voted "no."
By 2019, he had denounced natural gas as a "losing game" and "just as bad as coal."
And in November 2022, with the Ukraine War scrambling the worldwide natural gas market and causing nations reliant on the fuel to consider developing alternative delivery infrastructure, Gore went to the COP27 annual climate policy talks in Egypt and told the Associated Press that natural gas was no longer a bridge fuel, but rather a "classic bridge to nowhere."
Favoring Failure
So, according to the Nobel laureate, the planet's weather is becoming dangerously crazy, and we must rely on this murderously unstable weather to provide our life-sustaining electricity.
* * *
Finding a way to favor failure has been a consistent theme.
In the years since An Inconvenient Truth Gore has consistently and specifically championed weather-dependent wind and solar energy as the options that should replace carbon-emitting fuels. He makes a specific pitch for both near the end of the film.
But as noted, the first hour the movie is filled with gory warnings that the notoriously unpredictable weather will become even wilder still. And today he still preaches the weather is out to kill us all.
"I think these extreme events that are getting steadily worse and more severe are really beginning to change minds," he said to NBC News in July 2022. He made the same point to ABC News, adding that "the survival of our civilization is at stake."
So, according to the Nobel laureate, the planet's weather is becoming dangerously crazy, and we must rely on this murderously unstable weather to provide our life-sustaining electricity.
George Orwell analyzed this school of thought in his novel 1984:
DOUBLETHINK, means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise of DOUBLETHINK he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated." [Emphasis in original]
Understanding Al Gore's energy agenda requires harnessing the power of doublethink.
But even James Hansen can't do it.
The former NASA scientist is far from a critic of Gore's overheated apocalyptic warnings about the fate of the planet. In the summer of 1988, following the implosion of his presidential campaign, Gore went back to work in the Senate and invited Hansen to testify in a now famous public hearing about global warming.
The hearing elevated the public profile of both men and the issue. After years of trying, Gore had finally put climate policy at the center of American political debates. Two decades later, Hansen remained an ally, warmly praising An Inconvenient Truth as a "a coherent account of a complex topic that Americans desperately need to understand."
But in a 2011 analysis the much-celebrated climate alarmist wrote. "Suggesting that renewables will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy." Hansen concluded that renewables were "grossly inadequate for our energy needs now and in the foreseeable future."
In 2015, The Guardian published an essay from Hansen and three other climate scientists titled "Nuclear power paves the only viable path forward on climate change." Noting that France and Sweden were both able to "ramp up nuclear power to high levels in just 15-20 years," Hansen and the others argued that a worldwide build rate of 115 new reactors annually was "technically achievable" and by 2050 would "entirely decarbonise the global electricity system."
For Gore, failure was the option. In a 2020 TED Talk he dismissed nuclear energy as a "crushing disappointment." This was not a new position for him. In a November 2000 statement released just days before his loss in the presidential election, Gore pandered to and thrilled anti-nuclear extremists with this statement: "I do not support any increased reliance on nuclear energy. Moreover, I have disagreed with those who would classify nuclear energy as clean or renewable."
When Gore gave that TED Talk in 2020, nuclear energy was--by a healthy amount--the largest source of carbon-free energy consumed in the United States. As of 2021, nuclear kicked in 2,057 terawatt-hours of power, nearly equal to the combined output from wind, solar, and hydro-electric dams.
Nuclear energy's dominance as America's greatest source of carbon-free power was even more pronounced in November 2000, when Gore gave up on it, and has held true since at least the mid-1980s.
In March 2021, the U.S. Department of Energy declared nuclear the nation's "largest source of clean power" and estimated that using nuclear rather than coal had removed the equivalent of 100 million carbon-emitting cars from the road. The Department of Energy also calculated that a "typical 1,000-megawatt nuclear facility" needed "a little more than 1 square mile to operate" yet did the work of 430 wind turbines or 3 million solar panels.
And with some . . . ahem . . . political leadership, the United States could have done far more with nuclear power and still could. In 2000, nuclear was--without even the "carbon free" qualifier--the largest source of power consumed in France, edging out even oil. By 2020, nuclear accounted for 36.6 percent of total energy consumed by the French, oil was a distant second at 30.5 percent, and nothing else was remotely close.
If these realities of nuclear power represent a "crushing disappointment" for carbon reduction and conservation of the natural environment, then it's difficult to figure what could possibly ever make Gore happy.
The amazing technical marvel that is nuclear energy receives only a tangential mention in An Inconvenient Truth, when Gore announces that a nuclear-powered submarine took him on a trip underneath the North Pole. He doesn't try to explain how this voyage could have been accomplished with a wind- or solar-powered boat. The effort might have won him another Oscar, though they would have needed a new category for "Best Comedy."
Blood & Gore
When your bottom line depends upon portraying someone else as a grave threat to humanity, then it's hard not to share that message with the next generation.
* * *
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett knows which way that wind blows. In 2014 he explained to Fortune magazine that he would "do anything that is basically covered by the law" to lower the taxes paid by his investment firm.
"For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms," continued Buffett. "That's the only reason to build them. They don't make sense without the tax credit."
Buffett is a self-aware investor in weather-dependent energy who is willing to admit to the perverse incentives that he is profiting from.
Not everyone is like that, according to a different quote used in An Inconvenient Truth.
"Upton Sinclair wrote this: 'You can't make somebody understand something if their salary depends upon them not understanding it,'" said Gore, near the end of the film
He was addressing those who don't buy into his exaggerations and climate alarmism. But he could have been speaking of himself.
In 2004, Gore and a Goldman Sachs investment manager named David Blood teamed up to form Generation Investment Management. The Blood & Gore investment firm now promotes itself as a "pure-play sustainable investment manager" that has "played a pioneering role in the development of sustainable and environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing."
ESG is the process whereby Big Money pushes big corporations into prioritizing lefty social and environmental policies. With that mission statement, the Blood & Gore firm could be renamed "WeWoke" to better explain what they're up to.
Gore is the chairman, and Blood is the senior partner. As of June 2022, Generation Investment claimed $30 billion in customer assets under management.
Central to the Blood & Gore investment strategy is the notion that carbon-based fuels represent stranded assets--assets that will become worthless to their owners well before the currently presumed value has been depleted. In October 2013 the pair penned a Wall Street Journal opinion warning that the collapse of carbon fuel value would occur because of a combination of three pressure points: stricter government regulation, displacement by weather-dependent energy systems, and political campaigns that cause investors to flee from fossil fuels.
Although dressed up as wise investment predictions, these were really descriptions (some might say threats) of the policy agenda that Gore promotes and that his firm aims to profit from.
Gore is a reliable supporter of regulatory assaults on energy development. In July 2022, with the average retail price for a gallon of gasoline hovering near $5, he said President Joe Biden should refuse to open any additional federal land for oil and gas exploration.
Generation Investment is also a prominent investor in the weather-dependent energy firms. As noted in the Warren Buffett quote, this industry is implicitly funded by the taxpayers with billions of dollars in government tax credits and subsidies.
In November 2021, for example, Octopus Energy announced that it had inked a $600 million partnership with Generation Investment Management. Octopus claimed to be "Europe's largest investor in solar energy, managing $4.5bn of renewable energy assets across the continent." In a news release, the Octopus CEO praised Gore's movies as the inspiration for the Octopus growth strategy. In return, Gore said Octopus was a "living example of the kind of company that Generation was founded to invest in."
And if you have enough loot to call Gore in for a speech, then he's likely to promote disinvestment from the carbon-based energy firms, an outcome favorable to the Blood & Gore investment strategy. In a 2019 commencement address to his alma mater, Harvard University (which definitely has the loot), Gore asked: "Why would Harvard University continue to support with its finances an industry like this that is in the process of threatening the future of humanity?" In a December 2021 visit to Vanderbilt University, he said he endorsed "in no uncertain terms" a proposal that the school dump its investment holdings in fossil fuel energy firms.
To paraphrase Upton Sinclair: When your bottom line depends upon portraying someone else as a grave threat to humanity, then it's hard not to share that message with the next generation.
Perhaps that is the meaning behind the "Generation Investment Management" name? At the least, that's more marketable than "Blood & Gore" might have been.
It Could Have Happened Here
Energiewende reached peak stupid in October 2022 when one of the once-celebrated wind turbine facilities was partly dismantled so Germany could make expanded use of a century-old coal mine.
* * *
The entirety of three current generations were either not yet born or too young to vote in the 1992 presidential election: Millennials, Generation Z, and (apparently what we're being told to refer to as) Generation Alpha.
Similarly, the oldest of GenX (born 1965-1981) were just 27 that year, and the youngest weren't yet in middle school.
So, most of today's America has either come of age or lived their entire lives since 1993. They have experienced Al Gore mostly in the roles preferred by today's corporate media: vice president, "man who used to be the next President of the United States," venerated Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Oscar-awarded filmmaker, best-selling author, and environmentalist hero.
As argued to this point, overwhelming evidence indicates that he remains the mediocre, yet personally ambitious federal politician who was forced into a quick and quiet exit from the 1988 presidential race. In the words of former hockey coach Don Cherry, finding evidence of that man today "ain't rocket surgery."
But outside of his days as understudy in the scandal-seeking Clinton administration, the conventional media hasn't broken a sweat to talk about that Al Gore. Their collective credulity has helped transform him from easily forgettable to a very wealthy and influential figure.
That influence matters. Gore and others of his stature are major drivers of bad energy policy decisions in America and across the world. Three billion people worldwide still live in what energy analysts refer to as "energy poverty"-- defined as little to no access to modern electricity and fuel for heating and cooking meals. More of them will remain in the cold, in the dark, and poor because of the media's sins of omission regarding what Gore and those like him are selling.
Even the wealthy could get left in the cold following Gore's advice. To find an example of where it may lead America, look to Germany, the world's fourth largest economy and third-largest wealthy industrial economy behind Japan. (China, though the planet's second largest economy, still had a GDP per capita in 2021 that lagged behind nations such as Romania and Iran).
In 2000, Germany launched Energiewende--or "energy transition"--a radical plot to kick the major industrial giant off fossil fuels and onto "renewable" energy. Over the next 20 years, they provided massive subsidies to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars to juice the buildout of wind turbines, solar panels, and biogas from fermenting crops. It was everything Al Gore could have asked for, with the added extra-Gore-y decision in 2011 to go at it by phasing out Germany's zero-carbon nuclear power stations.
A hint of how smart this all was: Thunder Bay, Ontario, way up on the north shore of Lake Superior, has more average annual hours of sunlight than every major city in Germany.
In September 2013, the German newsweekly Der Speigel ran a progress report titled "How Electricity Became a Luxury Good." The phrase "energy poverty" was already being used to describe the plight of some of Germany's citizens. "If the government sticks to its plans," said the magazine, "the price of electricity will literally explode in the coming years."
They did, and it did. By 2019 German households were paying 55 percent more for electricity than the French (who were also emitting far less carbon, due to their extensive use of nuclear energy) and 162 percent more than Americans.
A 2019 Der Speigel report on the situation was titled "German Failure on the Road to a Renewable Future" and characterized Energiewende as a "massive failure." Driving the bad policy dagger in deeper, it said "German CO2 emissions have only slightly decreased this decade," while in the United States, because of the switch from coal to natural gas for electricity generation, "the country's CO2 emissions are trending in the right direction."
By August 2022 the Russian attack on Ukraine was forcing an energy-desperate Germany to scramble for new natural gas supplies. The German chancellor begged Canada for access to its rich bounty . . . and got turned down. In November, Germany landed a natural gas deal with Qatar, during the same month that Germany's World Cup soccer team was in Qatar trying to shame that same nation over its odious human rights record.
Before the Qatari deal, Energiewende reached peak stupid in October 2022 when one of the once-celebrated wind turbine facilities was partly dismantled so Germany could make expanded use of a century-old coal mine.
It's far from unfair to draw a direct line from these fiascos to Al Gore. In a very plausible alternative universe, 300 Floridians might have changed their mind on Election Day 2000 and switched their vote to Gore. By April 2008, he may have been in the second of two terms in the White House.
Back in the world as it was, Gore founded and was chairman of the Climate Reality Project, a worldwide advocacy nonprofit promoting the feckless energy and climate policies he may have implemented as president.
In April 2018, promoting a seminar scheduled for Germany, Gore heaped effusive praise on Energiewende: "As a global leader on climate action, Germany has demonstrated that investment in renewable energy and technology can help usher in a successful transition toward a clean energy economy without compromising economic strength." He added, "I look forward to meeting and hearing from the inspiring climate activists in Germany who are helping drive climate action that will continue to accelerate the global shift away from fossil fuels."
Following the quote from Gore, the Climate Reality Project news release added this:
Germany has taken initiative to implement a far-reaching energy transition strategy to help move the country away from coal . . . climate action policies like these have influenced other countries in Central and Eastern Europe to reexamine their own.
According to Our World in Data calculations, German CO2 emissions per capita declined by 7.1 percent from 2010 (the year Energiewende was enacted) through 2017 (just before Gore's praise for Germany in early 2018).
The decline in the United States over the same period was 13.5 percent.
Stepping back from that snapshot, consider the bigger picture from 2000, the year Gore became "the man who used to be the next President of the United States," through 2021, the most recent year measured by Our World in Data.
Over that span, American CO2 emissions per capita fell 30.2 percent. In Germany, the nation Gore has praised as the shining policy example for how to save the planet, the cumulative decline over the same period was 28.4 percent.
The United States achieved better results, with far lower electricity prices and a booming natural gas revolution. We did it without energy poverty, without embarrassingly begging Canada to ship us some natural gas, and without the lifeblood of our economy being held hostage by Vladimir Putin.
We did it all without following Al Gore and his highly influential, awful ideas. It was a near miss, and it's still a mistaken path he's trying to send us down.
* * *
Ken Braun
As managing editor and director of content of CRC, Ken Braun edits Capital Research magazine. He also conducts investigative research and drafts profiles for InfluenceWatch.org.
* * *
Original text here: https://capitalresearch.org/article/al-gores-30-plus-years-of-climate-errors/
[Category: ThinkTank]
American Action Forum Issues Commentary: Global Oil Market Implications of U.S.-Israel Attack on Iran
WASHINGTON, March 3 -- The American Action Forum issued the following commentary on March 2, 2026, by Shuting Pomerleau, director of energy and environmental policy:* * *
Global Oil Market Implications of U.S.-Israel Attack on Iran
Executive Summary
* The U.S.-Israel attacks on Iran and the subsequent Iranian retaliatory strikes have triggered a de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz--a major oil chokepoint for 20 percent of global petroleum consumption at 20 million barrels per day, flowing from major oil producing countries in the Gulf region to the rest of the world.
* The ultimate impact ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, March 3 -- The American Action Forum issued the following commentary on March 2, 2026, by Shuting Pomerleau, director of energy and environmental policy: * * * Global Oil Market Implications of U.S.-Israel Attack on Iran Executive Summary * The U.S.-Israel attacks on Iran and the subsequent Iranian retaliatory strikes have triggered a de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz--a major oil chokepoint for 20 percent of global petroleum consumption at 20 million barrels per day, flowing from major oil producing countries in the Gulf region to the rest of the world. * The ultimate impacton global energy markets hinges on the duration and scope of the conflict: If the disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz escalate to a prolonged blockade, the resulting supply void will pose a serious threat to global energy supply and economies; for the United States, there is also significant uncertainty ahead with the geopolitical volatility and domestic energy affordability challenges.
* This insight provides an overview of Iran's oil and gas exports capabilities, the strategic significance of the Iran-controlled Strait of Hormuz, and the potential impact on the global and U.S. energy markets.
Introduction
The United States and Israel launched military attacks on Iran on February 28, 2026. Subsequently, Iran launched retaliatory strikes against private and public facilities across at least nine countries in the Gulf region. The conflicts have triggered a de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which is a major oil chokepoint that sees 20 percent of global petroleum consumption (20 million barrels per day) flowing from major oil producing countries in the Gulf region to the rest of the world.
The ultimate impact on global energy markets hinges on the duration and scope of the conflict. If the disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz shift from a temporary standoff to a prolonged blockade, the resulting supply void will pose a serious threat to global markets. For the United States, there is also significant uncertainty ahead with the geopolitical volatility and domestic energy affordability challenges.
This insight provides an overview of Iran's oil and gas exports capabilities, the strategic significance of the Iran-controlled Strait of Hormuz, and the potential impact on the global and U.S. energy markets.
Iran-controlled Strait of Hormuz--A Major Global Oil Chokepoint
Iran, a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), ranked fourth in crude oil production among all the members in 2023. Despite Iran's large oil and natural gas reserves, its total production has been limited due to international sanctions on its energy exports. Iran produced about 4 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2023, accounting for 4 percent of the world's total oil production. China is the dominant destination for Iranian oil exports, importing most of Iran's crude oil at 1.4 million b/d on "shadow ships"--tankers that conceal their activities to avoid sanctions.
Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz--one of the world's most important oil chokepoints--which connects the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, and the Arabian Sea (Figure 1). The strait's depth and width can accommodate the largest crude oil tankers.
* * *
[View map in the link at bottom.]
* * *
Approximately 20 million b/d were transported through the Strait of Hormuz in 2024, which was about 20 percent of global petroleum liquids consumption. As shown in Figure 2, major oil-producing countries including Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Iraq, Kuwait, and Qatar, transport their crude oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz to the rest of the world. Of these countries, Saudi Arabia accounted for 38 percent of total crude flows through the strait at 5.5 million b/d, leading all other countries using the strait.
* * *
[View chart in the link at bottom.]
* * *
Additionally, about one-fifth of the world's liquefied natural gas (LNG) trade goes through the strait. As shown in Figure 3, most of the LNG comes from Qatar, at about 9.3 million cubic feet per day in 2024.
* * *
[View chart in the link at bottom.]
* * *
There are very limited alternatives to replace the Strait of Hormuz, with Saudi Arabia and the UAE's pipelines infrastructure able to accommodate only about 2.6 million b/d to bypass the strait. In other words, about 18 million b/d of crude oil trade through the strait would be disrupted if Iran were to close the strait completely.
Potential Impact on Global Energy Market
The impact on the world energy markets of the U.S.-Israel attacks on Iran will depend on the severity of Tehran's retaliatory strikes, and the duration and scope of the conflicts.
Outcome 1: Limited and short-lived impact
Provided that gulf states' energy infrastructures remain intact, any temporary disruption of shipments through the Strait of Hormuz would likely have a limited and short-lived impact on global energy markets due to the world's current oversupply in crude oil.
Additionally, the OPEC+ cartel (OPEC members and other non-OPEC oil producing nations) have just agreed to boost oil output by a more-than-expected amount of 206,000 b/d starting in April. The countries that will increase oil production include Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, the UAE, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman.
Although Iran has not formally announced that it would close the Strait of Hormuz, the strait is de facto closed to commercial shipments. Transits through the strait have essentially ground to a halt, with firms adopting a cautious stance as soaring war-risk premiums drive shipping costs up by $1500 for a standard 20-foot-long shipping container, or $3500 per container for specialty cargos.
The military conflicts across the Middle East have also led to spikes in oil and gas prices in the global market. Brent crude futures, a benchmark for global oil prices, rose by 8 percent to about $79 a barrel, two days after the start of the war. U.S. crude futures increased as much as 11 percent at the same time, reaching as high as $75 a barrel.
Additionally, Europe is seeing natural gas prices surging by roughly 25 percent, escalating the continent's already high energy costs due to the Russia-Ukraine war. A substantial portion of Europe's LNG imports are from Qatar via the Strait of Hormuz, making it especially vulnerable to the conflicts in the region.
If the military fights conclude in the Gulf region within the next few days, the disruptions in the shipping industry and the oil and gas markets will ease off, giving the global markets an opportunity to rebound quickly.
Outcome 2: Severe and long-lasting impact
If U.S.-Israel attacks and Iran's retaliatory strikes lead to a larger regional conflict in the Gulf, or even a full-scale war in the Middle East for a prolonged period of time (weeks or more), it will certainly have a severe impact on the global oil and gas markets and economies.
The primary concern for global energy markets remains the threat of Iranian retaliatory strikes against Gulf oil and gas infrastructure. With incidents already reported in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, further escalation risks severe disruptions to the global oil and gas supply. In a worst-case scenario--with a combination of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and sustained regional conflict--crude prices could surge past $100 per barrel, particularly if damaged facilities require extensive repairs or reconstruction.
Additionally, prolonged conflicts and closure of the Strait of Hormuz will likely result in a global recession. As shown in Figure 4, major economies of the world such as China, India, South Korea, Japan, Europe, and the United States rely heavily on the crude oil shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, with China importing as much as almost 6 million b/d. In 2025, 17 percent of China's oil imports came from Iran and Venezuela. The conflicts in the Gulf region and U.S. incursion into Venezuela in early 2026 essentially have cut off close to one fifth of China's oil supply.
A hypothetical one-month closure of the Strait of Hormuz would lead to a vast gap of 600 million b/d of oil, which would be impossible to replace. Non-OPEC oil producing countries such as the United States does not have spare capacity to ramp up oil production quickly to meaningfully offset the large oil trade disruption in the Strait of Hormuz. Abrupt energy supply shocks to major economies will inevitably destabilize the broader global market, dampening both investment appetite and the economic outlook.
Implications for the U.S. Energy Market
The impact on the U.S. economy and energy market will depend on how the situation unfold. Several key factors are at play:
* Gasoline prices: It's difficult to forecast the exact impact on U.S. gasoline prices. Experts estimate that a $100 per barrel of oil would translate into roughly $4 per gallon at the pump. To mitigate the impact of a drastic surge in oil prices, the U.S. government may authorize releases from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to stabilize domestic gasoline prices. As of February 20, 2026, the U.S. inventory in the SPR was approximately 415 million barrels.
* Investments in Venezuelan oil: U.S. military incursion into Venezuela in early January has opened up opportunities for U.S. oil and gas companies to invest in Venezuelan oil, though numerous significant challenges remain as detailed in a previous AAF analysis. Even if companies are going to invest in Venezuelan oil, it will take a long time for oil production to materialize. The Trump Administration is also working with Venezuela to ship between 30 to 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil to the United States, which could help alleviate the negative impact from the disruption in the Gulf.
* Energy affordability: Surging oil prices would significantly complicate the Trump Administration's push for domestic energy affordability. This challenge is further compounded by the artificial intelligence data center boom, which is driving unprecedented energy demand across the country.
Looking Forward
While the U.S.-Israel military campaign against Iran is in its early stages, its ultimate impact on global energy markets hinges on the duration and scope of the conflict. If the disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz shift from a temporary standoff to a prolonged blockade, the resulting supply void will pose a serious threat to global markets. For the United States, there is also significant uncertainty ahead with the geopolitical volatility and domestic energy affordability challenges.
* * *
Shuting Pomerleau is the Director of Energy and Environmental Policy at the American Action Forum
* * *
Original text here: https://www.americanactionforum.org/insight/global-oil-market-implications-of-u-s-israel-attack-on-iran/
[Category: Think Tank]
AFPI Celebrates First Lady Melania Trump's Historic Leadership at U.N. Security Council
WASHINGTON, March 3 -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following statement on March 2, 2026:* * *
AFPI Celebrates First Lady Melania Trump's Historic Leadership at U.N. Security Council
The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) released the following statement from Chief External Affairs Officer and America First Women's Initiative Chair Stacey Schieffelin in recognition of First Lady Melania Trump's historic role presiding over today's U.N. Security Council meeting:
"We congratulate First Lady Melania Trump on this historic milestone. Her position in the U.N. Security Council ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, March 3 -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following statement on March 2, 2026: * * * AFPI Celebrates First Lady Melania Trump's Historic Leadership at U.N. Security Council The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) released the following statement from Chief External Affairs Officer and America First Women's Initiative Chair Stacey Schieffelin in recognition of First Lady Melania Trump's historic role presiding over today's U.N. Security Council meeting: "We congratulate First Lady Melania Trump on this historic milestone. Her position in the U.N. Security Councilpresident's chair today marks the first time a sitting U.S. First Lady has taken the gavel, underscoring the importance of strong American leadership in shaping international discussions on peace, security, and the protection of future generations.
The First Lady's focus on protecting children, championing education, and advancing technology highlights the importance of equipping the next generation with the tools needed to foster resilience, opportunity, and peace. Her leadership on these issues reflects a broader commitment to advancing human dignity while recognizing that peace and security begin with empowered individuals, strong families, and capable nation-states. Thank you, Mrs. Trump, for approaching all you do with grace and grit."
* * *
Original text here: https://www.americafirstpolicy.com/issues/afpi-celebrates-first-lady-melania-trumps-historic-leadership-at-u.n-security-council
[Category: ThinkTank]