Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth whined Thursday that the world should be grateful for President Donald Trump’s disastrous war in Iran. Speaking during a press briefing, Hegseth turned his cultish rantings on, well, everybody.“The world, the Middle East, our ungrateful allies in Europe, even segments of our own press should be saying one thing to President Trump: thank you,” Hegseth said. “Thank you for the courage to stop this terror state from holding the world hostage with missiles while building or attempting to build a nuclear bomb. Thank you for doing the work of the free world.”The actual content of Hegseth’s request for gratitude was almost as preposterous as the plea itself. Trump’s war hasn’t prevented Iran from “holding the world hostage with missiles”—in fact, his actions have invited retaliatory attacks on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz that have brought global trade to a screeching halt, and sent energy prices skyrocketing. Should Americans be thanking Trump for sending gas prices close to $4 a gallon, with no hope of bringing them down anytime soon?Trump’s war hasn’t stopped Iran from building or attempting to build a nuclear bomb. The U.S. intelligence community’s annual global threat assessment found that Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was already “obliterated” and that “there were no efforts since then to try and rebuild their enrichment capability.” Should Americans be thanking Trump for launching an increasingly expensive military campaign against a threat that was not actually imminent? Hegseth’s childish antagonism of U.S. allies simply underlines how desperate things have become. Those “ungrateful allies” in Europe are the very same ones that Trump is begging to help him clean up his mess in the Strait of Hormuz. And allies in the Middle East are the same ones being targeted by Iran, as Israel strikes energy infrastructure on which Gulf nations rely, with Trump unable to rein them in. Should our allies get on their knees and kiss Trump’s feet for the chaos he’s sown, or his reckless, feckless approach to starting massive global conflict?