from WNYC studios. I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast. It's Monday,

March 16th. Here in week three of the war against Iran, you know some of the headline

developments, most notably from a U.S.

and global impact standpoint. The Strait of Hormuz remains mostly closed, as President Trump

asked other countries to send their militaries to help escort ships through, and gasoline

is up more than 80 cents a gallon on average in the U.S. at last report, at least temporarily,

much more in countries that depend more on Middle East oil than the U.S. does.

The war is still widening in that respect, right?

So how to resolve the Strait of Hormuz issue, how much power Iran has to keep that front

open is a key question right now. Also, how much of

Iran's military supply or enriched uranium supply has to be destroyed for the U.S. to declare victory.

Now, NPR was reporting this morning that about 70% of their missiles have been destroyed. Iran is

definitely being weakened militarily to a very

substantial degree. How much is the goal? But I also want to start the week by mentioning two

things getting less attention. One is simply that tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day. And the Pentagon

says they're celebrating it in cities around the country. Nothing wrong with St. Patrick's Day, and the Pentagon says they're celebrating it in cities around the country.

Nothing wrong with St. Patrick's Day and celebrating Irish Heritage. We will do some of that here on the show tomorrow.

But this after the Pentagon, under Pete Heck Seth, banned just about every other kind of official identity observance,

Black and Women's History Months,

Martin Luther King Day, Holocaust Remembrance Days, anything LGBTQ? Is St. Patrick's Day an exception

because Irish people are white or the holiday has a Christian religious underpinning and it

doesn't look like identity to him?

...