It’s Tuesday, March 3. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: The deep male instinct to “monitor the situation.” Arthur Brooks and Charles Fain Lehman push back against the AI doom and gloom. And more.
But first: The war with Iran shows no sign of slowing.
“The hardest hits are yet to come from the U.S. military,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday afternoon. Earlier in the day, Donald Trump said the war could last four or five weeks, adding that it “could go far longer.”
Meanwhile, Iran continued its counterattack against a range of Arab targets in the Gulf as well as Israel. The strikes in cities like Doha, Dubai, Tel Aviv, and Manama were mostly intercepted. The U.S. embassy in Riyadh was struck by drones, Saudi officials said, while Qatar said it shot down two Iranian jets. In Lebanon, Israel relaunched strikes against Hezbollah.
Our coverage of this war continues today with stories on the situation in Israel and the American veteran helping Americans stranded in the Middle East. But first, Eli Lake on the schism in the Trump administration, and the silence that speaks volumes from the vice president.
J.D. Vance is not generally one to bite his tongue, but he said nothing publicly about the strikes for two and a half days. He broke that silence Monday, with an interview on Fox News. Eli reports on the gap between what the vice president has said publicly and what he has been up to behind the scenes—and what that says about a schism on the right that could break the MAGA coalition in two.
On Monday, the State Department urged Americans to leave the Middle East as soon as possible. That same day, Madeleine Rowley spoke to someone whose job is to help people do so. Bryan Stern is the combat veteran who runs Grey Bull Rescue. Stern’s outfit spirited Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado out of the country. Now Grey Bull is bringing back Americans stranded in the Middle East. Of Grey Bull’s 804 rescue missions, Stern himself has led 794.
For Israelis, the Iranian missiles and incessant sirens of the last few days are all too familiar. Seth J. Frantzman reports on the national mood in the country, where residents are back in bomb shelters. Read his dispatch on life under rockets.
Amid the conflict and turmoil of the last few years, a meme has emerged about the male instinct to “monitor the situation.” Think: scrolling X, tracking ships in the Strait of Hormuz, and tapping open-source satellites. It’s radically new—an NFL RedZone of combat information—but gets at something ancient, writes Nicholas Clairmont, who has been monitoring the situation obsessively since Saturday morning. He sticks up for doing so in our pages today.
The Case for AI Optimism
For all the ink spilled over AI spiking unemployment, crashing the stock market, and causing mass psychosis, there is a much likelier, less-written-about scenario, argues Arthur Brooks: an AI-driven happiness explosion. At some point, maybe soon, we will solve all of the problems AI can solve, come to relish the struggle with the uniquely human ones it can’t, and feel gratified at having had the wisdom to know the difference. For an antidote to the AI doom, read his latest column:
It might take a while for AI to increase human well-being. But in the meantime, Charles Fain Lehman has more reassuring news. If you’re one of 90 million Americans who work a white-collar job, then you’ve been told repeatedly that you’re probably going to get screwed. But that doesn’t match our experience with technology. “While some people will lose their jobs, the vast majority will end up richer and more productive,” Charles writes. Read the historical case for taking an AI chill pill.
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Was Iran an imminent threat to America to invoke the War Powers Act? I think this war in Iran is more about keeping China oil-less, more than the imminent threat of Iran to America, but also with the hope that the Iranians will revolt against the mullahs.
But, that said, what if…and it’s a big what if for a population that AI says was about 99% Muslim in the 2010s, predominantly Shia– but what if Iran threw off the mullah chains, returning to their Zoroastrianism roots – which more closely mirrors Jesus’s commandments to love God and love others, and follow the Golden Rule, and then joined the Abraham Accords?
Then, all the funding for terrorism would be over, so all those ISIS type terrorists in the ME and Africa would have no more funding, thus, basically vaporize that type of terrorism.
Maybe then, the ME would begin to thrive and the more people thrive, living well, they would no longer be a have/have not type of society that invokes anger and terrorism amongst the poor.
Could it be possible to have ME peace in our lifetime?
Oh look everyone!!!! Eli Lake has his "flying fickle finger of fate" pointing at ANOTHER schism deep inside either The Republicans, or Trump's Inner Circle or MAGA or The Right Wing Coalition or (fill in the blank). And Jessica Tarlov dug deep in her purse and found ANOTHER poll showing Americans are very much opposed to this WAR. What are we to DO? Oooo Oooo... and Bebe is MAKING Trump do this cos he has EPSTEIN stuff.
I'm soooo scared.