{"id":26286,"date":"2026-08-03T17:06:21","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T12:06:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=26286"},"modified":"2026-08-03T17:06:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T12:06:21","slug":"u-s-troops-asked-to-pitch-creative-ideas-to-punish-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=26286","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Troops Asked to Pitch &#8216;Creative&#8217; Ideas to Punish Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"post-body\">\n<div id=\"attachment_5747663\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5747663\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5747663\" src=\"https:\/\/am14.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Brad-Cooper.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" srcset=\"https:\/\/am11.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Brad-Cooper.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/am11.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Brad-Cooper-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/am11.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Brad-Cooper-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/am11.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Brad-Cooper-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"\/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-5747663\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Rod Lamkey, Jr.\/AP photo)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>U.S. Central Command has appealed to troops to submit their own ideas on \u201ccreative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran,\u201d according to a report.<\/p>\n<p>An email making the bizarre request was sent last week to military analysts, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/08\/03\/politics\/us-military-iran-war-troops-punish\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CNN reported<\/a> exclusively on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are looking for new creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran,\u201d read the message from a CENTCOM intelligence branch officer, the network reported, citing a source familiar with the message.<\/p>\n<p>The report drops a day after President <strong>Donald Trump<\/strong> told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday that negotiations with Iran would begin \u201ctomorrow afternoon,\u201d with a focus on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and ensuring Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n<p>The president also claimed he had abandoned plans for what he described as \u201cthe biggest attack since World War II\u201d after appeals from Iran and regional allies including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not looking to kill people, \u2019cause people die,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/politics\/im-not-looking-to-kill-people-trump-declares-iran-peace-deal-is-imminent\/\">Trump said<\/a>. \u201cA lot of people die. And we don\u2019t want that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He added: \u201cNow what we\u2019re doing is we\u2019re talking to them in the form of a negotiation. It begins tomorrow afternoon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Iran, however, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/iran-denies-its-in-talks-with-us-hours-after-trump-teased-imminent-deal\/\">has denied<\/a> that any such talks are taking place.<\/p>\n<p>CENTCOM did not deny the report in a statement to CNN, instead saying that Admiral <strong>Brad Cooper<\/strong> often reaches out for new ideas.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cU.S. Central Command has a long history of thinking and working in innovative ways,\u201d CENTCOM spokesman Capt. <strong>Timothy Hawkins <\/strong>said in the statement. \u201cAdmiral Cooper, in particular, reaches out to members of our great team, regardless of rank, to achieve the highest levels of operational performance possible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>New: The Mediaite One-Sheet &#8220;Newsletter of Newsletters&#8221;<\/strong><br \/>Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/subscribe\">Subscribe now!<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\nn.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;\nn.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\nt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,\ndocument,'script','https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Rod Lamkey, Jr.\/AP photo) U.S. Central Command has appealed to troops to submit their own ideas on \u201ccreative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran,\u201d according to a report. An email making the bizarre request was sent last week to military analysts, CNN reported exclusively on Monday. \u201cWe are looking for new creative and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26287,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Brad-Cooper.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}