This will be an account of where we stand—mostly with regard to the new and much-touted United Nations report on climate change. But since it’s the day after Labor Day, traditionally the start of fall campaigning (a quaint and lovely notion that), let’s start with the midterm elections. Where we stand is: All the polling shows Americans ready to vote out as many Republicans as gerrymandering allows. We’ve done our job over the last 22 months, driving up President Donald Trump’s negatives (with plenty of help from him) and making MAGA electoral poison.

Now we have to turn that into facts on the ground, with votes, and wins, and actually putting good people in Congress where they can begin to staunch a bit of the damage. Which means the next 56 days need to be real, practical effort. This newsletter may be a little unpredictable in its timing, because I’m going to be on the road in swing states, helping Third Act and GrayPac in close races; you can help too, by signing up to phone bank or door knock or fundraise or the other chores that add up to electoral success (and this time around, I fear you need to sign up for “election protection” chores as well, something that shouldn’t be necessary but is). If for some reason you’re finding yourself in need of words from me, you’ll be able to hear me helping out the wonderful Ayana Johnson at her podcast all fall—it’s a season totally focused on climate and the midterms, and it begins tomorrow when we talk with Leah Stokes. (I’ll send a special email in the morning, with the link).

And now on to the major climate news of the moment, which is the report from the UN detailing the fact that we’re not going to hit the 1.5°C climate target we set in Paris. I assume that this came as shocking news to exactly no one who reads this newsletter regularly; it was clear even in Paris that it represented a target that only a combination of extremely aggressive national policies and lots of scientific luck could hit, and it’s been very clear for years that we’ve been blessed with neither. I think it is very likely that we’re going to temporarily cross the 2°C line during the hottest phase of the now-developing El Niño (by some measurements now on track to be the strongest in a millennium), and as I’ve been writing for a long time, our current trajectory is taking us toward 3°C, and quite possibly higher.

The term we’ve been using for this condition is “overshoot,” and so indeed we’ve overshot the 1.5°C target. But in fact we’ve been in “overshoot” for decades now. In 2008 I helped start 350.org, which took its name from the carbon dioxide concentration—350 parts per million—scientists said was the upper limit for any kind of safety. We passed that in the spring of... 1986, which by my back-of-the-envelope calculation would be… 40 years ago.

Remember—every tenth of a degree that the temperature goes up moves 140 million people into a more dangerous climate zone.

The danger with reports like this new one from the UN is that they may shock some people into thinking we’re living in a suddenly different world with suddenly different requirements. Chico Harlan wrote a perfectly fine piece about the UN document for the Times, but he was ill-served by whoever furnished the headline:

"Climate Goals Missed, U.N. Says World Must Now Remove Carbon at Scale."

There are two problems with that formulation, and one is that it misses the thrust of the UN recommendations. As the aforementioned Ayana Johnson points out, in the most cogent summary of the document I’ve read:

CDR (planting trees + some much higher tech stuff that’s not yet proven at scale) is a big focus of this report, but UNEP is very clear that it’s not a silver bullet. And it’s certainly not a get out of jail free card for continuing to burn fossil fuels. In their words:“Overall, even optimistic CDR scaling is unlikely to deliver a temperature reversal beyond a few tenths of a degree this century. This emphasizes the importance of focusing on reducing greenhouse gas emissions now.”

And the reason that the UN is clear that it’s not a silver bullet is that “Now,” to use the word from the NYT headline, we have no idea how to do it at scale. I mean, the Netherlands yesterday announced that it had opened the “largest carbon capture facility” in Europe. Here’s how the company involved put it in a press release:

Yara Sluiskil, Europe’s largest ammonia and fertilizer plant can capture and liquefy up to 800,000 tons of CO2 annually from ammonia production thereby avoiding carbon taxation on these volumes. The CO2 will be transported by ship to Norway, where it will be permanently stored beneath the seabed by Northern Lights.

Important to note the “up to 800,000 tons,” because so far these systems have had abysmal success in meeting even their own Lilliputian goals. And for context, Europe produces 3.3 billion tons of greenhouse gases annually, and that in turn is about 6%of the world’s total, so this is a hair on a mole on the quite ugly backside of the world’s hydrocarbon system. So far, the main use of this technology is precisely to allow us to go on burning fossil fuels. As the Yara press release continued, in the measured tones of those who don’t want to quite blow their own cover:

The technology makes it possible to reduce emissions from energy intensive industries like fertilizers, ammonia, cement, and waste management while maintaining production, jobs, and value creation in Europe.

It is entirely prudent to keep researching and testing carbon capture technology—someday it may be part of the solution to the greatest problem humanity has ever faced. But as for “Now,” well, there is actually one thing we do know how to do, and that is build out lots of cheap solar, wind, and batteries. Doing this makes sense because it can displace fossil fuels (solar-heavy California is using 50% less natural gas than it was three years ago to produce electricity), and because it’s cheaper than the alternative, and because you don’t have to go to war to procure sunshine, and because wind turbines don’t fill your lungs with particulates. As the UN points out, there’s simply no way around it—net zero may be politically controversial, but it’s physically required, “an essential milestone that cannot be skipped.”

Indeed, as the UN points out:

Accelerating the renewable energy revolution is crucial. On the supply side, limited-overshoot scenarios suggest scaling renewables to 60-70% of global electricity generation by 2030, supported by grid expansion, storage, and demand flexibility

We’re already doing this to some extent, of course—a far far greater extent than we’re scrubbing carbon from the atmosphere. But we could be doing it far faster—the Chinese are closing down solar factories to raise the price of the panels, and a new study from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis finds that India is using less than half of its solar-panel factory capacity.

It is therefore entirely possible to imagine a worldwide campaign, led by the UN, to double or triple the pace at which we’re putting up solar panels around the world, and coupling them with the wind turbines and batteries that make them fully functional in every season. This is in fact the one thing we could actually be doing at scale and right now that really responds to the numbers about climate overshoot. It is why we’re busy preparing for Sun Day next summer.

Even that doesn’t “solve” the problem—nothing “solves” the problem—but it would reduce the ultimate temperature we are going to hit on this planet, and it would reduce the eventual amount of carbon some future people are going to have to figure out how to pull out of the sky. Remember—every tenth of a degree that the temperature goes up moves 140 million people into a more dangerous climate zone.

Building clean energy is much more likely, and much more effective, if we’re also shutting down dirty energy. The UN, under Antonio Guterres, has been consistently and powerfully calling out banks and other investors for continuing to fund fossil fuel projects, and the new report is no exception. Again, Johnson highlights the key paragraph:

Avoiding carbon lock-in in infrastructure is central to this effort. Investments in long-lived, high-emission infrastructure, such as fossil-based power plants, transport systems, and industrial facilities, can constrain future emissions reductions and lock countries into high-carbon trajectories (Seto et al. 2016; Smith et al. 2019a). Existing and planned fossil fuel infrastructure alone could exceed the CO2 emissions consistent with 1.5°C in 2030 by 120%.

The possibilities were tantalizingly displayed in China this summer, where new data shows CO2 emissions fell 1%. As Lauri Myllyvirta pointed out:

The country’s use of oil fell by 9% overall and by 16% for transport, after the disruptions to supply from the Gulf through the strait.

But it could have been far better. As the Centre for Energy on Research and Clean Air documented last week, China has built a lot of coal power for backup, but too often they’re using it instead of the clean energy they’ve built in such abundance:

Estimated wind and solar curtailment, including both reported and unreported curtailment, reached 360 TWh in H1 2026, up 49% year-on-year. Had this electricity been absorbed, the additional power supply could have met all demand growth and allowed coal power generation to fall.

The problem in China is long-term contracts that continue to reserve a “substantial share of limited electricity demand for coal.” They’re protecting the industry, at the cost of the climate, something that should be highly familiar to Americans, because under Trump we’re subsidizing ancient coal plants instead of shutting them down, and even, as of this summer, spending big to build new ones.

And all of this brings us inextricably back to where this essay began, which is with politics. If the US is to play any kind of role (except as obstacle) in this transformation, it begins with resetting the politics around energy and climate. And that begins with the upcoming elections.

A Democratic Congress will not be able to pass important new climate programs—those would be blocked by the Trump White House. But it might be able to use its oversight and budget authority to blunt the worst of the administration’s attack on clean energy. And if the Democrats start to stabilize the country, then they can turn their attention to the next election—one where energy and climate will need to play a central role, because among other things “affordability” is a dead letter without addressing them.

Which is why the next eight weeks (precisely) are so crucial. We’ve overshot—and not just in terms of climate. We need to start reining the horrors back in, so we can go to work not on solving them but at least on keeping them from destroying all that we’ve inherited. I hope you’ll figure out ways to join me in helping make November 3 the most useful day of the last few years. Usefulness may not be sexy, but it’s what we’ve got.

Editor's Note: The following is the second excerpt from Nancy J. Altman's latest book, The Road to Medicare for All: A Call to Action (Routledge, 2026), now available for purchase wherever quality books are sold. Read the first excerpt published by Common Dreams here. As the United States continues to spend substantially more on health care than other wealthy nations but with poorer health outcomes, Altman's book analyzes the dysfunction of the current system and sets forth the solution. "Medicare for All won’t happen without a fight," she argues, "but it is a fight we can win."

Imagine having more money in your pocket. Imagine being able to see any doctor you want without checking whether the provider is in your network and covered by your insurance. Imagine having more time with your doctor and, at the end of the appointment, simply walking out the door without having to take out your wallet or even ask what you owe for the visit. Imagine being free of filing insurance claims. Imagine being able to simply get any medicine your doctor prescribes without discovering it is exorbitantly expensive and asking your doctor what, if anything, they can prescribe that is covered by your insurance. Imagine no such thing as medical debt. Imagine simply getting the care, procedures, hospital stays, therapies, and medications your doctor prescribes with your only focus and thought being on how to restore and optimize your health. That is what you will experience.

Where is that destination? It is tantalizingly close. In fact, those who, on average, have the greatest medical needs—seniors and people with disabilities—are already almost there. Medicare, having recently celebrated its 61st anniversary, is well known to Americans. Most people are either covered by Medicare or know someone who is. It already covers Americans from age 65 to the grave. To reach the destination that health care is a right, not a privilege, with all those imaginations a reality, it has to be extended back to the cradle and improved, so that its coverage is completely comprehensive and available without premiums, co-payments, co-insurance, or deductibles. (To be clear, the destination is the expansion of traditional Medicare, not privatized Medicare—the deceptively named Medicare Advantage—whose serious shortcomings are discussed throughout this book.)

As important as Medicare is... it should be improved.

Medicare, which currently covers only seniors and people with disabilities—those who, on average, have the highest healthcare costs—does so more efficiently, comprehensively, and fairly than commercial insurance does, or indeed can. Medicare is the most important birthday gift those turning age 65 get. Too many Americans in their late fifties and early sixties lack adequate health insurance and desperately seek to hang on until they reach that special birthday that brings Medicare. As important as Medicare is, though, it should be improved. As Chapter 3 explains, soon after Medicare was enacted and expanded to people with disabilities, the most powerful forces organized against it. They succeeded in stopping further expansion of its coverage and the services and treatment it provides. They also stood in the way of reducing the costs of those it covers.

On the road to Improved Medicare for All, traditional Medicare should be expanded to cover all essential services. As the nation is driving toward Improved Medicare for All, traditional Medicare should be expanded to cover all safe and effective prescription drugs, also. Under the current system, without Medicare simply covering all safe and effective prescription drugs automatically at no cost, beneficiaries must repeatedly answer the following impossible, ludicrous questions: What illnesses will you contract next year? What medications will your doctor prescribe to treat those yet-to-be-contracted illnesses? Only if you know the answers to those unanswerable questions, can you intelligently decide, in today’s dysfunctional system, which insurance plan has the right drug formulary or list of covered drugs at a price you can afford.

Expanding traditional Medicare to cover all prescription drugs will mean that people can fill all of their prescriptions without worry about their cost. In addition, Medicare should be expanded to cover long-term care—both care at home and in nursing homes.

If Medicare were expanded to cover in-home services and supports as well as nursing home care for those who had no other alternatives, people who were able could age at home, as most want, with the security to know that they would not be a financial burden to those they love. An expanded Medicare for All would meet Americans’ needs today and their unforeseeable needs in the future. As it does today for seniors who have traditional Medicare, it would pool risk among everyone so that everyone is protected; people with costly and complex medical conditions would not be saddled with huge costs.

Under today’s patchwork system, out-of-pocket costs in the form of deductibles, co-pays and co-insurance force people into the arms of commercial insurance, whether they like it or not. Those with traditional Medicare must buy, if they can afford it, private supplemental insurance, colloquially known as Medigap, since traditional Medicare lacks an overall cap on out-of-pocket expenses. Those who can’t afford Medigap may be forced to purchase an inadequate Medicare Advantage plan which includes an overall cap, one more thumb on the scale placed by those who are hostile to single-payer health insurance.

With comprehensive coverage, without co-pays, co-insurance, deductibles, or premiums, there will be no need for supplemental, so-called Medigap, private insurance. We do not pay out of pocket for public libraries, schools, fire protection, or the military. Rather, those services are paid from taxes. We should not be required to pay out of pocket for health care, either. Like those other services, we should have universal, national health insurance, paid for completely out of taxes. The United States is the wealthiest nation in the world at the wealthiest moment in its history. It doesn’t feel that way to many, because so much of that wealth is concentrated in the hands of the very few. A fairer system of taxation which finances an Improved Medicare for All would allow all of us to share the wealth that all of us have created.

We do not pay out of pocket for public libraries, schools, fire protection, or the military. Rather, those services are paid from taxes. We should not be required to pay out of pocket for health care, either.

The nationwide network of Improved Medicare for All providers, which would likely cover all doctors and hospitals nationwide, would ensure that people can continue to get care from the doctors they know and trust. Everyone would be free to see doctors and use hospitals anywhere in the nation. There would be no restrictive networks that keep people from using centers of excellence and seeing the doctors they want to see, including the best specialists. Improved Medicare for All would ensure that everyone—people with costly and complex conditions, people who want good specialty care from doctors and hospitals they know and trust, people who need continuity of care, and those who are currently in excellent health—could get needed health care without financial stress or anxiety.

Improved Medicare for All is fully affordable. Given the unsustainability of the current system, as described in the last chapter, the wrong question is how can we afford Improved Medicare for All. Rather, the right question is how can we afford not to enact it. Relatedly, Improved Medicare for All will cost less than we pay currently. Consequently, the other correct question is not how are we going to pay for Improved Medicare for All, but, rather, how should we divvy up the savings!

Improved Medicare for All will save the nation trillions of dollars while covering everyone comprehensively. In addition to money saved, Improved Medicare for All will save lives. It will result in a higher quality of life for individuals and also a healthier population overall, generating greater productivity for the nation as a whole. Doctors will have more freedom and flexibility. They will be free from the micro-management of commercial insurance companies, concerned about turning a profit.

An Improved Medicare for All system will provide dependable income to healthcare providers. They can count on their bills being paid in a timely manner without the need to chase patients or, even more dispiriting, seek the assistance of loan collection agencies.

Part of the savings should go to doctors, nurses, and other providers to ensure that they are well compensated. They should do better under Improved Medicare for All, not just financially, but also in terms of job satisfaction and time to focus on healing, not paperwork.

Hospitals and those they serve will do better, as well. Improved Medicare for All can reduce physician shortages in underserved areas, often described as healthcare deserts, and help to reduce shortages in areas of medicine where they exist now or are projected to exist. Rural hospitals too often have limited staff without backup. The loss of a surgeon can cause the surgical unit to close, which, in turn, can have a cascading effect, ultimately resulting in the inability to receive care close by, quickly, in an emergency.

Despite all the advantages, Improved Medicare for All won’t happen without a fight.

Like the need to reimburse doctors fairly, in a timely manner, hospitals must be, as well. Whether for-profit, nonprofit, or governmental, hospitals want to remain state-of-the-art, with the latest equipment, and be fully staffed. Consequently, they need to cover their costs and ideally, maintain reserves. Under Improved Medicare for All, hospitals will have reduced costs along with more certainty and dependability of payments, free from charitable cases, which will become a thing of the past. In addition to fairly reimbursing hospitals and other facilities, the costs of maintaining, updating, and constructing them should be a priority, so that all communities are adequately served. At base, under Improved Medicare for All, hospitals, physicians, nurses, and other practitioners should be paid generously. They can and should be paid fully and on a timely basis for care given to every patient. Improved Medicare for All can and should be structured to ensure that providers have the ability to spend the time required to see patients.

In addition to all of the health and health-related advantages that Improved Medicare for All will bring, it can also usher in improvements unrelated to health care. They include a fairer federal tax system, together with reduced income and wealth inequality; more revenue for Social Security; an improved system of workers’ compensation, and more funds for state governments. Improved Medicare for All will provide intangible benefits for everyone, including reduced stress, less paperwork with the accompanying added free time, and, most importantly, greater peace of mind. All of those byproducts are explained at length in the book. They are just some of the fortuitous byproducts that will accompany the enactment of Improved Medicare for All.

Despite all the advantages, Improved Medicare for All won’t happen without a fight. The special interests will fight ferociously, but they will be no match for the hundreds of millions of Americans who will be benefited, as long as the public is engaged and active.

Twenty-five years ago, 19 hijackers took control of four American airliners and crashed them into symbols of American power, killing upwards of 3000 people. The American population watched the events unfold in real time. It was an emotionally jarring event that changed the country.

In some respects, the events of 9/11 needed no explanation. The destruction of the World Trade Center buildings and the massive, and random, loss of life were horrifying to all. The meaning of the attacks, however – and the motivations of the hijackers – were less clear.

The effort to explain the motives behind the attack, and to understand “why they hate us,” brought a pre-existing debate over Islamist militancy to the center of American public life. In the decade leading up to 9/11, the Washington policy community had been divided over how to deal with the Islamist movement and particularly those extremists who sought to use violence to impose a narrow vision of religious orthodoxy upon reluctant societies.

At the heart of the 1990s policy debate was a dispute over causation: are religion and ideology the sources of violent extremism, or are poverty, marginalization and authoritarian misrule to blame? Commentators and politicians on the political right viewed the issue in terms reminiscent of the Cold War. The conflict with Islamism (or “Islamic fundamentalism”) was ideological in nature and, like international communism, had to be confronted with force. Hence, American foreign policy should prioritize security and support our regional allies in their efforts to eradicate both the Islamist opposition and violent extremists.

Those on the other side of the debate rejected this vision of a new “green peril” and saw the underlying claims as inaccurate and misleading. To operate from such flawed assumptions, it was argued, would result in a foreign policy that served neither American interests nor those of the Arab (and Muslim) populations most directly affected. The best strategy for dealing with both militant violence and the non-violent opposition was economic development and political reform.

Both the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations sought to find a common ground between these two perspectives, one that addressed both security concerns and the need for reform. The terrorist attacks of 9/11, however, upended this balance. The shock and horror of that day provided the George W. Bush administration a free hand to reshape American foreign policy. In doing so, the second Bush administration embraced the security side of the argument and the corresponding policy prescriptions. What motivated the administration was a view that this new war on terror was – like WWII and the Cold War – an existential “conflict between freedom and tyranny.” In the face of such a dire threat, the “gloves come off.”

Many experts now recognize that the militarized response to 9/11 was counter-productive. In the two decades that followed, the number of groups and fighters that claimed allegiance to the jihadist cause increased, as did their geographic areas of operation. Even as U.S. forces made gains against al-Qaida, new groups such as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) emerged that were even more extreme and violent. The precipitous demise of the Afghan government in August 2021 – and the return of the Taliban to power – further illustrated the limits of American military power.

All of this occurred despite the concerted effort by the U.S. government and others to rein in Islamist militancy and counter the ideology of violent extremism. The problem, in short, got worse, not better.

Misdiagnosing the problem

The failures of America’s war on terror were rooted in a misdiagnosis of the problem. The Bush administration promoted the idea that the 9/11 hijackers were motivated by their hatred of American values and rejected any notion that U.S. policies contributed to either anti-American sentiment or violent extremism. “They” hated us for who we are, it was argued, not what we do.

By framing the challenge of Islamist militancy within a discourse of terrorism and civilizational struggle, governmental leaders embraced a belief common on the political right that “the application of [military] power is the most important thing in winning the war on terrorism.” American policy makers subsequently pursued a military strategy to effect political change in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa at the expense of diplomatic, legal and other alternatives. The 1990s debate was effectively over; those arguing for a policy of confrontation had won.

While the intent of the American military strategy was to deny terrorist groups safe havens, the practical effect was the opposite. American military interventions destabilized entire regions and created the kind of lawless anarchy in which militant groups proliferated. U.S. interventions also exacerbated anti-American sentiments and allowed militant groups to portray themselves as nationalist defenders fighting an occupying enemy.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq exemplified this trend, with the American occupation becoming a “‘cause celebre’ for jihadists” and inadvertently breathing new life into the militant movement. American policy in the Sahel, the Horn of Africa, and Yemen paint a similar picture. In each instance, military intervention created the conditions in which Islamist militancy flourished. This, in turn, justified further U.S. interventions, creating a vicious cycle of perpetual conflict.

American military strategy also relied upon regional autocracies to prosecute the war on terror. This aspect of American policy represented a key paradox. While U.S. actions were said to be defending freedom, the reality is that U.S. government agencies prioritized support for the militaries and security services of authoritarian allies. Little was done to promote democratic accountability or protect civilian populations from abuses inflicted by these same governments. The prosecution of the war on terror, thus, meant diminished freedom for populations living under authoritarian rule and failed to address the relationship between government repression and radicalization.

The failure of America’s military strategy reflected a tendency to focus on symptoms, rather than causes. While the budgets of the Department of Defense, various intelligence agencies and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) expanded dramatically in the post-9/11 period, similar investments were not made in other aspects of American power. There was no corresponding expansion of the mission or budgets for the U.S. Department of State or for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Funding for democracy promotion, moreover, paled in comparison to military spending and little was done to address the economic stagnation and marginalization that fueled extremism.

While this lopsided approach to counterterrorism was, in part, a continuation of past American policy, it was also due to the wartime paradigm that prioritized military power over all else. The result was “indiscipline and disappointments” as military operations failed to fix problems and Americans tired of the country’s wars.

As we reflect on the terrible events of 9/11, we can honor those who perished by learning the central lesson of the war on terror: the overreliance on military power to accomplish political objectives does not serve American national security interests. As in the current war with Iran, the U.S. military has consistently demonstrated that it can secure tactical victories while still failing to achieve strategic ends.

What is needed is not just a change in policy, but a shift in the way that the United States political leadership thinks about the problems that it is trying to solve. We owe it to those millions of Americans who have grown up in the shadow of 9/11 not to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Live at 9 AM Eastern & Streaming 24-7 Thereafter:

Editorial cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM Eastern time.

Today we discuss:

• There are major anxieties about interference in the 2026 midterm elections. Will the Trump administration use executive orders or declare a national emergency to sow confusion? Will there be federal agents at polls, ballot seizures, and restricted mail-in voting? Gerrymandering and eroded trust compound fears that results could be delegitimized or overridden. Investigative journalist Greg Palast joins Ted and Jamarl to tell us what fears are real.

Greg Palast is an investigative journalist and author whose reporting for the BBC, Guardian, and Rolling Stone has exposed voter-roll purges, Crosscheck programs, and suppression tactics since Florida’s 2000 election. His bestsellers The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, plus films like Vigilantes Inc., document how officials and contractors have disenfranchised millions, especially voters of color.

• Middle East Escalation: A wave of Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia wounds more than 70 people and ignited fires at several oil facilities and utilities in the kingdom’s southern region, raising oil prices and threatening to squeeze shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb strait. Iran plans to announce an “exclusion zone” outside the Strait of Hormuz aimed at vessels it believes are attempting to transit the waterway. The United Kingdom is expected to announce trade restrictions on illegal Israeli settlements, the latest sign that UK-Israeli relations have taken another downturn. And Israel orders settler outposts removed in the West Bank.

• The centrist-conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) was defeated by the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in a Saxony-Anhalt state election. Friedrich Merz’s party lost more than half of its seats in the state parliament, while the AfD increased its count from 23 to 39.

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On September 1, a US airstrike hit a family compound in Kuhestak, southern Iran, as women and children gathered for a wedding celebration. At least five people were killed and dozens more injured. Associated Press reporters who visited the town documented extensive damage and civilian suffering. Reuters later reported that imagery, debris, and weapons assessments were consistent with a direct hit by a US munition, while US officials said the incident was under review. The immediate facts matter. But the larger question is already unavoidable: What happens to the laws of war when civilian spaces repeatedly become part of the battlefield?

The significance of Kuhestak extends beyond the number of casualties or the identity of the weapon. The deeper danger is what incidents like this can do to the norms meant to limit warfare. If homes, schools, hospitals, wedding gatherings, or refugee sites are repeatedly treated as tolerable consequences of military necessity, the distinction between battlefield and civilian life begins to lose practical meaning.

International humanitarian law was designed precisely to prevent that erosion. Its rules do not make war safe, and they do not prohibit every attack that may harm civilians. They do, however, require parties to distinguish between civilians and military objectives, prohibit attacks expected to cause excessive incidental civilian harm in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated, and require feasible precautions to minimize civilian loss. The principles of distinction, proportionality, and precaution are not political preferences. They are the legal architecture intended to preserve a minimum boundary between military necessity and human life.

International law rarely collapses in a single dramatic moment. More often, norms weaken when exceptional conduct is repeated, defended, or left without meaningful scrutiny.

That distinction matters when assessing the US position as well. Washington says it does not target civilians and that its operations in southern Iran were aimed at military infrastructure, including air-defense, communications, and maritime assets. The Associated Press reported those stated objectives alongside the civilian toll in Kuhestak. Under the laws of war, the existence of a legitimate military objective can matter greatly. Civilian casualties, by themselves, do not automatically prove an unlawful attack. But that is precisely why transparent investigation is essential: Was the target properly identified? Were the expected civilian risks assessed? Were feasible precautions taken? And was the anticipated military advantage sufficient to justify those risks?

Kuhestak is especially troubling because it follows another catastrophic episode in the same province. On February 28, a strike hit a school in Minab. In March, Amnesty International said its investigation found US forces responsible for the attack, which killed 156 people, including 120 children, and concluded that the United States had failed to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian harm. Amnesty called for a transparent and thorough investigation and accountability for those responsible. Minab therefore cannot simply be treated as an unresolved rumor in the background of the current war.

Seen together, Minab and Kuhestak raise a deeper concern. One catastrophic civilian strike may be explained as a failure of intelligence, targeting, weapon performance, or judgment. A pattern of incidents, however, raises a different question: whether civilian protection is being pushed too far to the margins of operational decision-making. The danger is not only the immediate loss of life. It is the gradual normalization of exceptions.

If civilian protection becomes a principle honored only when convenient, the damage will not stop with one town or one conflict.

International law rarely collapses in a single dramatic moment. More often, norms weaken when exceptional conduct is repeated, defended, or left without meaningful scrutiny. Each time a serious civilian-harm incident is absorbed into the routine language of war without transparent findings or accountability, the practical force of the rule diminishes. What is described today as an exceptional mistake can become tomorrow's accepted risk.

Some will argue that this concern overstates the implications of incidents that occur in a high-intensity conflict. War is chaotic. Military assets may be located near civilian areas. Information can be incomplete, and even precision weapons cannot eliminate human error or unintended harm. Those points are real, and international humanitarian law itself recognizes that civilian casualties can occur even in attacks directed at lawful military objectives.

But acknowledging the realities of war is not the same as accepting the erosion of its limits. The law matters most precisely when military pressure is intense and operational decisions are difficult. If the protections owed to civilians become flexible whenever the strategic stakes are high, then their universality becomes conditional on power, geography, and political convenience. A rule that constrains only weak states, while powerful ones receive the benefit of endless exceptions, is not a universal rule for long.

The consequences would reach far beyond Iran. The laws of war function only if states expect them to apply across conflicts and regions. A standard weakened in the Middle East will not remain neatly contained there. Future belligerents in Europe, Africa, or East Asia can point to conduct tolerated elsewhere and demand the same latitude for themselves. Selective enforcement does more than produce unequal justice; over time, it changes what governments believe they can do.

A rule that constrains only weak states, while powerful ones receive the benefit of endless exceptions, is not a universal rule for long.

The appropriate response, therefore, is not to prejudge every disputed strike or to assume that every civilian death proves a war crime. It is to insist on independent, transparent, and verifiable investigations; publication of meaningful findings; and accountability wherever violations are established. The United States should be held to the same standards it expects other states to observe. The same standard must apply to Iran, Israel, and every other party to an armed conflict. Universality is the point.

The question raised by Kuhestak is ultimately larger than one wedding, just as Minab was larger than one school. It is whether the international community still believes that even in war there are people, spaces, and rules that military necessity cannot simply sweep aside. If civilian protection becomes a principle honored only when convenient, the damage will not stop with one town or one conflict. What will have been weakened is the boundary that keeps war from becoming limitless—and once that boundary disappears, no nation can assume that its own civilians will remain safely on the other side of it.