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Saudi Arabia is pulling Europe toward a “Gulf Helsinki” deal with Iran — because Washington failed

By Tamer Ajrami | MEMO | May 17, 2026

When military power fails to impose “deterrence,” oil becomes politics. And the Strait of Hormuz is now writing Gulf security rules instead of the Pentagon.

With Hormuz still closed and the emergency oil stock releases used to calm markets running down, prices are moving _ no matter how much some people deny it _ toward a new surge. The real problem is not the price as a number. It is the chain reaction: gasoline and diesel, shipping and insurance, raw materials, and then inflation that travels from Asia to the United States. And even if the strait opened tomorrow, the damage would not vanish. Supply chains do not reset overnight, and parts of the oil and petrochemicals flow would take time to recover.

In my previous Middle East Monitor article, I said clearly that Gulf states “have nothing but to talk to Iran now”. That was not idealism or goodwill. It was hard security math: the old formula is eroding. Bases do not protect the way people assumed, and guarantees shrink the moment they face a real test. Today, this is no longer an argument. It is a reality driven by markets before politics.

Trump and China: A visit without a lifeline — and Time is against him

Trump’s attempt to turn to China produced no clear exit. Not because Beijing is powerless, but because it sees the issue in simple terms: open the strait through practical understandings, and negotiate with Iran on realistic terms.

The problem is that Washington still wants a “surrender” wrapped in diplomatic language. Iran sees no reason to give that for free as it holds leverage in a global energy shock.

This is the core of Trump’s trap: he can say whatever he wants, but he cannot cancel economics. Markets do not negotiate. They punish.

That is why countries are now moving on two tracks: a unilateral track to protect their own interests, and a collective track to design a new framework that prevents the next shock. Saudi Arabia is stepping forward to lead the collective track, not because it loves “mediation” as a headline, but because the cost of ongoing chaos has become higher than the cost of a deal.

A New “Helsinki Act” — But without the Human Rights Basket

According to Western reporting, Saudi Arabia is floating something close to a “Gulf Helsinki Act” arrangement with Iran—modeled on the Helsinki process of the mid-1970s during the Cold War. It would not be just a Saudi–Iran deal. It would extend to the Gulf and the European Union, aiming to lock in non-aggression, structured economic normalization, and monitoring and implementation mechanisms.

The original Helsinki process was built around four “baskets”: security and non-aggression; economic cooperation; human rights and self-determination; and follow-up mechanisms. In the Middle East, copying the third basket is unrealistic. The region’s unwritten rule is non-interference. Here, states do not use “human rights” language as a tool to destabilize each other internally. So, the Saudi approach seems to focus on three practical baskets: security and non-aggression, economic cooperation and stable energy flows, and verification/implementation.

It is a practical logic: if you want an agreement that can survive, you do not plant a delayed bomb inside it.

The Hard Question: Can a Deal work without the United States?

Here is the central dilemma. A Gulf–EU–Iran non-aggression arrangement without the United States creates a dangerous gap: the Gulf and Europe commit to non-aggression, Iran commits too, but Washington and Israel still retain the ability to strike Iran. What does the agreement do then? Does it become a nice document that collapses at the first air raid?

On the other hand, bringing Washington into the deal is not easy either. The US is struggling to produce a quick bilateral agreement with Iran to end the crisis, so why would it accept a broader framework that limits its freedom of action?

This opens a third, more sensitive option: Gulf states and Europe “bypass Washington” in practice. That would mean refusing the use of their airspace and territorial waters for any military or intelligence activity against Iran. And maybe refusing to enforce sanctions that destabilize the region and recreate the Hormuz shock. This is not a small move. It would be a strategic shift.

The UAE: A Different Vision — and a Dangerous Ceiling

The Gulf is not unified on strategy. Other reporting suggests Emirati efforts to push a coordinated Gulf military “response” against Iran. The problem is not the idea of response by itself. The problem is the ceiling of objectives.

If the goal is limited deterrence to reduce escalation, that is one thing. But if the goal mirrors Netanyahu and Washington _ regime change, dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, destroying its ballistic capabilities, and reshaping Iran from the inside _ that is a long war. And the Gulf does not have the luxury to absorb its costs.

Most importantly, the idea of “escaping Hormuz” through alternative pipelines is not a real solution. If peace collapses, fields, ports, and energy infrastructure across the region remain within range. And Bab al-Mandab can become another choke point. In the end, the issue is not a pipeline or a port. It is a sustainable peace that prevents the drone and the missile before it “manages” the price.

Whoever Ends the War Ends the Chaos

A way out starts from one point: ending the US–Israeli confrontation with Iran through a realistic understanding; then building a regional framework similar to “Helsinki” that locks in non-aggression, protects economies, and prevents a repeat of the strait crisis.

Saudi Arabia is trying to “hold the story together” because Washington entered, got stuck, and now wants to exit; while the Gulf cannot afford to sit between Iran’s leverage and America’s disorder.

The choice is clearer than ever: either a settlement that closes the door on choke-point warfare, or a longer crisis that bankrupts markets before it bankrupts armies. The Gulf; whether it likes it or not; no longer has the option to “wait”.

May 17, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on Saudi Arabia is pulling Europe toward a “Gulf Helsinki” deal with Iran — because Washington failed

Trump’s Failed Mission to China

By Larry C. Johnson | SONAR21 | May 15, 2026

The Beijing circus is over and Donald Trump’s talks with Xi Jinping produced nothing more than some pleasing photo ops and some performative diplomacy with no substantive accomplishments.

There was no final communique at the end of Trump’s two days of meetings with Xi Jinping. Instead, we are left to rely on the statements from each government. When you parse the two statements, the two readouts diverge significantly, and the gaps are as informative as the overlaps. When you compare what each side claims was discussed you can see what actually transpired at the summit.

The divergence between the two readouts is stark and strategically deliberate. Here is a precise accounting of what the White House emphasized that China’s Foreign Ministry either omitted entirely or mentioned only in the vaguest terms:

1. The Iran War and Nuclear Weapons — Omitted by China

This is the most consequential gap. The White House readout stated explicitly:

The two sides agreed that the Strait of Hormuz must remain open to support the free flow of energy. President Xi also made clear China’s opposition to the militarization of the Strait and any effort to charge a toll for its use, and he expressed interest in purchasing more American oil to reduce China’s dependence on the Strait in the future. Both countries agreed that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.”PBS

The Chinese readout, by contrast, merely said that “the two sides discussed the Middle East conflict” without offering any further details — no mention of the Strait, no mention of tolls, no mention of Iran’s nuclear program, and no acknowledgment of any agreed position on any of those issues. YouTube

This gap is enormous. The White House is asserting that China agreed Iran can never have a nuclear weapon and opposed Iran’s toll regime. That White House is spinning this as significant Chinese concessions that Beijing clearly did not want attributed to it publicly. However, according to a reliable source with access, Xi firmly rejected Trump’s request that China apply pressure on Iran and help open the Strait of Hormuz.

2. Fentanyl — Omitted by China

The White House readout specifically noted that the two sides discussed “addressing fentanyl precursor flows into the United States” — a longstanding US demand that China reduce the flow of chemical precursors used to manufacture fentanyl. The Chinese readout made no mention of fentanyl whatsoever, which is consistent with Beijing’s longstanding position that it has already done enough on the issue and resists framing it as a bilateral problem. Komo News

3. Agricultural Purchases — Omitted by China

The White House noted that the two presidents discussed “increasing Chinese purchases of U.S. agricultural products.” China’s readout spoke only in general terms about trade being “mutually beneficial” and made no specific commitment to agricultural purchases. YouTube

4. Market Access for US Businesses — Framed Very Differently

The White House described the meeting as centered on “expanding market access for American businesses into China and increasing Chinese investment into US industries.” China’s readout framed this entirely differently — as China “opening its door wider” on its own terms, not as a response to US demands for market access.

5. The Business Delegation — Treated Asymmetrically

The White House noted that “leaders from many of the United States’ largest companies joined a portion of the meeting,” treating it as a substantive commercial engagement. The Chinese readout mentioned that Trump “asked each of the business leaders who were traveling with him to present themselves to President Xi” — framing it as a courtesy introduction rather than a substantive business discussion. YouTube

6. Taiwan — The Mirror Image Problem

The most telling asymmetry runs in the opposite direction on Taiwan. The White House readout did not mention Taiwan at all, while China centered its entire readout on Xi’s Taiwan warning. Trump declined to answer a reporter’s question about whether he and Xi had even discussed Taiwan. Rubio told NBC News that the US was “not asking for China’s help with Iran” — a comment that implicitly pushes back on what the White House readout seemed to suggest about Chinese cooperation. The National DeskBreitbart

The Bottom Line

Both sides released statements detailing what Trump and Xi discussed, but they only overlap in limited areas. The statements diverge most sharply on Iran — where the US claims specific Chinese commitments that China refused to acknowledge — and on Taiwan, where China made explicit warnings that the US declined to even mention. NPR

The pattern is diplomatically classic: each side published the readout that serves its domestic political needs and advances its negotiating position. China wanted the world to see Xi issuing stern warnings on Taiwan. Washington wanted the world to see China agreeing that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon and opposing Iran’s toll regime. Whether either claimed concession is real — or merely asserted — is precisely what makes the readout divergence so revealing.

The Strategic Framework

Xi opened with a sweeping philosophical framing: “Transformation not seen in a century is accelerating across the globe, and the international situation is fluid and turbulent.” He posed three questions to Trump directly: Can China and the United States overcome the Thucydides Trap and create a new paradigm of major-country relations? Can we meet global challenges together and provide greater stability for the world? Can we build a bright future together for our bilateral relations? Wikipedia

Xi announced the two leaders had “agreed on a new vision of building a constructive China-U.S. relationship of strategic stability,” defining it precisely: “Constructive strategic stability means positive stability with cooperation as the mainstay, healthy stability with competition within proper limits, constant stability with manageable differences, and lasting stability with expectable peace.” He said this framework “will provide strategic guidance for China-U.S. relations over the next three years and beyond” and stressed: “Building a constructive China-U.S. relationship of strategic stability is not a slogan. It means actions in the same direction.” Wikipedia

Trade and Economics

Xi stated that “China-U.S. economic and trade ties are mutually beneficial and win-win in nature. Where disagreements and frictions exist, equal-footed consultation is the only right choice.” He said the economic and trade teams had “produced generally balanced and positive outcomes” at preparatory talks the prior day, and that “China will only open its door wider. U.S. businesses are deeply involved in China’s reform and opening up.” Wikipedia

Military and Diplomatic Channels

Xi called on the two sides to “make better use of communication channels in the political and diplomatic and military-to-military fields” and to “expand exchanges and cooperation in areas such as the economy and trade, health, agriculture, tourism, people-to-people ties and law enforcement.” Wikipedia

Taiwan — The Sharpest Language in the Readout

Xi was unambiguous: “The Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-U.S. relations. If it is handled properly, the bilateral relationship will enjoy overall stability. Otherwise, the two countries will have clashes and even conflicts, putting the entire relationship in great jeopardy. ‘Taiwan independence’ and cross-Strait peace are as irreconcilable as fire and water. Safeguarding peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is the biggest common denominator between China and the U.S. The U.S. side must exercise extra caution in handling the Taiwan question.” Wikipedia

International Issues

The readout notes that the two presidents “exchanged views on major international and regional issues, such as the Middle East situation, the Ukraine crisis, and the Korean Peninsula” — but offered no further detail on any of those topics in the official Chinese text. Wikipedia

APEC and G20

The two presidents agreed to support each other in hosting a successful APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting and G20 Summit this year. Wikipedia


Wang Yi’s Closing Assessment — May 15

Foreign Minister Wang Yi told state media: “This was an important meeting in which the two heads of state engaged in in-depth communication and achieved substantial outcomes,” calling it “a historical meeting.” He particularly touted progress on trade and economic issues. China’s Foreign Ministry also confirmed that President Xi Jinping will visit the United States this fall at the request of President Donald Trump.

As far as Iran is concerned, the Chinese and Russians are working behind the scenes — using Pakistan as a frontman — to erect a new security architecture for the Persian Gulf. The current effort is to convince Saudi Arabia and Qatar to effectively cut military ties with the US and enter into a strategic agreement that will be guaranteed by Russia and China. If Saudi Arabia and Qatar persist with prohibiting the US to use their bases and air space for a new set of attacks against Iran, the US may be compelled to call off planned strikes.

Video interviews

May 16, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Video | , , , , | Comments Off on Trump’s Failed Mission to China

US’s war of choice on Iran imposed avoidable costs on Americans: FM

Press TV – May 16, 2026

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says the US’s unprovoked aggression towards Iran has burdened ordinary Americans with avoidable economic costs.

“Americans are told that they must absorb rocketing costs of war of choice on Iran,” the top diplomat wrote in a post on X on Saturday.

“Put aside gas price hike and stock market bubble. Real pain begins when US debt and mortgage rates start to jump. Auto loan delinquencies are already at 30+-year high,” he added. “This was all avoidable.”

Together with the Israeli regime, the United States waged its latest bout of unlawful attacks on the Islamic Republic between February 28 and April 7.

The aggression prompted decisive and uncompromising reprisal featuring devastating blows to American and Israeli targets across the region. In addition to causing extensive material damage to the targeted sites, the Islamic Republic shut down the strategic Strait of Hormuz to enemies and their allies, therefore, sending shockwaves throughout global energy markets.

Including reconstruction and replacement costs, the war is so far estimated to have run Washington a cost likely ranging between $40 billion and $50 billion.

Economists, meanwhile, project the overall cost of continued restrictions imposed on the Strait of Hormuz to end up astronomically higher.

Professor Linda Bilmes, a public policy expert at Harvard Kennedy School, recently forecast that the war on Iran could ultimately cost American taxpayers $1 trillion.

On Friday, Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, Iran’s Majlis (Parliament) speaker, warned that the United States’ efforts at sustaining military escalation near the strait could trigger a fresh global financial crisis at a time when Washington’s national debt already stands at a whopping $39 trillion.

May 16, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on US’s war of choice on Iran imposed avoidable costs on Americans: FM

China’s position on Iran, Hormuz remains unchanged

Al Mayadeen | May 15, 2026

China moved on Friday to publicly reaffirm its longstanding position on Iran after speculation and conflicting reports circulated regarding Beijing’s stance during recent regional tensions, with the Chinese Foreign Ministry publishing a full statement outlining its official position.

Asian diplomatic sources told Al Mayadeen that Washington is expected to continue promoting claims that it succeeded in persuading Beijing to pressure Iran, particularly following recent US-China discussions surrounding the Strait of Hormuz and the Iranian nuclear file.

The sources said that the growing American rhetoric regarding “the Iranian nuclear issue” or claims of an agreement with Beijing on keeping the Strait of Hormuz open “without fees” are merely “attempts at media flooding and covering up the essence of the matter.”

China’s position on Iran clear, unchanged

The sources stressed that China’s position toward Iran “is clear and unchanged,” dismissing reports suggesting a shift in Beijing’s stance as false. They noted that China deliberately refrained from discussing Iran publicly during earlier talks before later issuing a full Foreign Ministry statement outlining its official position in detail.

Beijing continues to oppose the possession of nuclear weapons while simultaneously supporting Iran’s right to the peaceful use of uranium and civilian nuclear technology. China also maintains its longstanding position in favor of keeping the Strait of Hormuz open and preventing its militarization, while supporting Iran’s rights as a coastal state bordering the strategic waterway.

The sources added that “China buying oil or gas from the United States is nothing new because China diversifies its energy sources, but no one can replace Iranian oil or Hormuz energy imports, which constitute 45 percent of its energy needs.”

They further noted that China continues to support the creation of a joint regional security structure among Gulf states without outside interference, describing Beijing’s current “calm rhetoric” as an attempt to contain the “arrogance” of US President Donald Trump and his allies while creating conditions for a broader agreement through mutually beneficial economic incentives.

The sources noted that narratives suggesting a major Chinese shift against Iran are either inaccurate, deliberately misleading, or attempts to present recent diplomatic developments in the best possible light for Washington.

Trump, Xi, agree to address each other’s concerns

Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump held extensive discussions on bilateral and global issues and reached a series of new common understandings, China’s Foreign Ministry said Friday, as Beijing called for accelerated diplomacy between the United States and Iran.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said the two leaders agreed to address each other’s concerns and enhance communication and coordination on international and regional affairs, describing the talks as a step toward building a “constructive and stable strategic relationship” between China and the US.

Commenting on ongoing US-Iran negotiations, the Chinese Foreign Ministry stressed that a comprehensive and lasting ceasefire should be achieved “as soon as possible,” adding that a rapid resolution would benefit the United States, Iran, regional countries, and the broader international community.

The war between Iran and the United States should not have erupted in the first place, and there is no need for it to continue,” the ministry said.

Beijing reiterated its longstanding position that dialogue and negotiations remain the best path forward, warning against military escalation and emphasizing that “a military solution is not the answer.”

Now that the door to dialogue has been opened, it should not be closed again,” the ministry said, calling for efforts to consolidate momentum toward de-escalation. China also said it would continue working with the international community to provide greater support for peace talks between the US and Iran.

May 15, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , | Comments Off on China’s position on Iran, Hormuz remains unchanged

Guatemala Admits U.S. Pressure Over Cuban Doctors

teleSUR | May 14, 2026

Guatemalan Foreign Minister Carlos Ramiro Martínez acknowledged Tuesday that the country has faced pressure from the United States regarding the presence of Cuban medical brigades, as the government moves to end a long-standing healthcare cooperation agreement with Havana.

Asked whether Washington had requested that Guatemala terminate the program a year earlier than planned, Martínez said that “there has always been pressure surrounding the Cuban medical brigades,” though he stopped short of directly confirming U.S. involvement in the decision.

Cuban medical personnel first arrived in Guatemala in 1998 after Hurricane Mitch devastated the country and caused nearly 300 deaths. The administration of President Bernardo Arévalo has now decided to end the agreement with Cuba after almost 30 years of uninterrupted collaboration.

“It is an agreement that is 27 years old and was established under a formula created 27 years ago. There is no government hiring process; the Cuban doctors are hired individually, and the Ministry of Health pays each of them,” Martínez said.

The foreign minister stated that the agreement will remain in force until August next year.

“That is the extent of our commitment to carry out this process. I do not like the word expulsion. The scenario, returning to your point about demands from the United States, has been on the agenda of those we already know,” he added.

Martínez also said the Guatemalan government is working closely with the Cuban embassy to ensure that the withdrawal of the brigades “does not violate primary healthcare services for Guatemalans.”

In February, the government announced the departure of the Cuban medical team and unveiled a replacement plan beginning in April, aimed at substituting the 412 members of the Cuban brigade with local professionals.

According to the Guatemalan Ministry of Health, the withdrawal process will take place gradually between April and December of this year and includes 333 doctors as well as technical and administrative personnel.

May 14, 2026 Posted by | Economics | , , | Comments Off on Guatemala Admits U.S. Pressure Over Cuban Doctors

Trump Visits Beijing In a World Washington No Longer Controls

By Joseph Solis-Mullen | The Libertarian Institute | May 14, 2026

When President Donald Trump arrived in Beijing yesterday for his summit with Xi Jinping, much of the American foreign policy establishment framed the meeting through the familiar lens of “great power competition.” Analysts will scrutinize every handshake, communiqué, and trade announcement for signs that Washington is either “standing up” to China or “conceding” ground to its principal rival.

But the more important reality is that the summit will likely underscore just how much the balance of leverage has shifted over the past several years—and how little appetite Beijing has for rescuing Washington from the consequences of its own strategic blunders.

The prevailing assumption in Washington remains that China is an aggressive revisionist power poised to overturn the international order through military expansion and economic coercion. Yet the actual picture is considerably more complicated. Beijing’s posture today looks less like that of a state eager for global confrontation and more like that of a rising commercial empire patiently exploiting American overextension.

That overextension is now impossible to ignore.

Washington’s latest entanglement in Iran has once again demonstrated the limits of American power projection. Years of interventionism, sanctions escalation, proxy commitments, and military signaling have produced precisely what critics of U.S. foreign policy long warned about: another unstable regional crisis with no clear off-ramp and no coherent strategic objective.

And notably, China has shown almost no interest in helping Washington navigate the mess.

Despite endless warnings from hawks that Beijing and Tehran are inseparable strategic partners, China’s actual behavior has been far more restrained and transactional. Beijing benefits from Iranian energy flows and prefers regional stability, but it has little reason to actively bail out an American foreign policy establishment that helped create the crisis in the first place. From Beijing’s perspective, every additional dollar and hour Washington spends bogged down in the Middle East is a dollar and hour not spent in East Asia.

That reality carries profound implications for Taiwan.

For years, American policymakers have insisted that Washington could effectively deter—or if necessary defeat—a Chinese effort to forcibly reunify Taiwan with the mainland. Yet recent events reveal how implausible that confidence increasingly appears. If the United States struggles to maintain readiness, logistics, and political cohesion while managing comparatively limited Middle Eastern operations thousands of miles from China, what exactly convinces anyone that it could successfully wage and sustain a high-intensity conflict directly off the Chinese coast?

The uncomfortable truth is that Beijing likely sees America’s Iran difficulties not as a warning, but as confirmation of long-standing Chinese assumptions about U.S. decline and strategic exhaustion.

China, meanwhile, has continued strengthening the areas that matter most in long-term competition: trade, industrial capacity, and monetary influence.

Over the past year especially, Beijing has deepened commercial ties throughout the Global South while accelerating efforts to denominate trade outside the dollar system. None of this means the dollar is about to collapse tomorrow, as breathless commentators sometimes claim. But it does mean that Washington’s ability to weaponize the global financial system is gradually eroding at the margins.

That erosion matters because American coercive power increasingly depends less on productive economic strength and more on financial leverage, sanctions architecture, and control of chokepoints. China understands this perfectly, which is why it has spent years systematically reducing vulnerabilities while building leverage of its own.

Perhaps nowhere is that leverage more obvious than in rare earths processing.

Washington often speaks as though China’s dominance in rare earth supply chains is merely an unfortunate market distortion that can easily be corrected with sufficient industrial policy. In reality, Beijing possesses something far more significant: a near-stranglehold on the processing infrastructure necessary to convert raw materials into usable industrial inputs for advanced manufacturing, electronics, defense systems, and green technologies.

This gives China a remarkably effective whip hand.

Even modest Chinese export restrictions over the past year have demonstrated how fragile Western supply chains remain. Despite years of rhetoric about “reshoring” and “de-risking,” the United States still lacks the capacity to rapidly replace China’s processing ecosystem. Building mines is difficult enough. Replicating decades of accumulated industrial infrastructure, refining expertise, environmental tolerance, and integrated supply chains is another matter entirely.

This reality may help explain why the Trump-Xi summit will likely focus less on ideological confrontation and more on managed coexistence.

Speculation about some form of institutionalized “Board of Trade” arrangement, floated by Michael Froman at the Council on Foreign Relations, may sound fanciful at first glance, but it fits the emerging logic of the relationship. Neither side appears genuinely interested in comprehensive economic decoupling because neither side can actually afford it. The likely trajectory instead is selective compartmentalization, with tariffs and controls in sectors deemed strategic, combined with continued deep integration elsewhere.

Ironically, such arrangements would represent a tacit admission that decades of maximalist rhetoric from Washington about fundamentally remaking China’s economic system have failed.

And that failure may be the central story to watch in Beijing.

For all the alarmism surrounding the so-called “China threat,” the summit may ultimately reveal something much simpler. Beijing increasingly believes time is on its side, while Washington appears trapped between military overextension abroad, industrial weakness at home, and a foreign policy establishment still struggling to distinguish genuine national interests from ideological crusades.

Trump may well secure commercial deals, soybean purchases, aircraft orders, or even the outline of some new trade-management framework—but beneath the symbolism and spectacle, the larger reality will remain unchanged.

China does not appear eager for war with the United States.

It simply appears increasingly confident that it can outlast it.

May 14, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , | Comments Off on Trump Visits Beijing In a World Washington No Longer Controls

How Iran’s Strait of Hormuz cable sovereignty could reshape global internet governance

By Yousef Ramazani | Press TV | May 11, 2026

In the wake of the US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran and the subsequent maritime banditry and piracy, the Islamic Republic is reportedly moving to assert its long-dormant sovereign rights over the submarine internet cables that traverse the waters of the Strait of Hormuz.

This strategic reorientation – as confirmed by some reports – promises to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue while fundamentally reshaping the legal and economic architecture of global data transmission.

The unprovoked military aggression against Iran, which halted with a ceasefire on April 8, 2026, has fundamentally altered the strategic calculus of the Persian Gulf.

During the 40 days of aggression against Iran, a previously overlooked dimension of the country’s sovereign territory emerged as a critical vulnerability for the global digital economy.

Beneath the waters of the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran’s territorial sea extends 12 nautical miles and overlaps completely with Omani jurisdiction, leaving no high seas whatsoever, lie at least five major submarine fibre-optic cable systems.

These cables carry approximately 99 percent of all intercontinental internet traffic and an estimated 10 trillion US dollars in daily financial transactions.

Now, in the aftermath of the aggression, which came in the middle of nuclear talks, Iran is moving to exercise its full and legal sovereign authority over this hidden infrastructure.

The plan is increasingly centered on a comprehensive governance model that would include permit requirements, transit fees, Iranian legal jurisdiction over foreign technology companies, and exclusive Iranian control over cable maintenance and repair operations.

Forgotten dimension of the Strait of Hormuz

For decades, international discourse surrounding the Strait of Hormuz focused almost exclusively on traditional dimensions: freedom of navigation for oil tankers, security of energy flows, and the legal regime governing the passage of commercial and military vessels.

This narrow framing, however, systematically ignored one of the most vital emerging dimensions of this strategic corridor: the fibre-optic communication infrastructure and submarine data transmission cables that lie on the seabed of Iran’s territorial waters.

These cables, which include major systems such as FALCON (owned by Tata Communications of India), the Gulf Bridge International (GBI) system, and the TGN-Gulf system, form the backbone of the digital economy, not just for the Persian Gulf region but the entire world.

They carry international internet traffic, cloud data centre synchronization, enterprise virtual private networks, voice-over-IP communications, and – most critically – international banking and financial transactions, including SWIFT messages.

Any disruption to these communication highways, whether from natural disasters, ship anchoring, or military action, could cause irreparable damage to the tune of tens to hundreds of millions of dollars daily.

What makes this issue particularly significant for Iran is the undisputed legal reality that the Strait of Hormuz is not, and has never been, international waters.

The careful repetition of the phrase “international waters” by Western media and think tanks is part of a cognitive and legal battle designed to diminish the legitimate sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran over one of the world’s most vital waterways.

Why is the Strait Iranian territory

The legal status of the Strait of Hormuz must be understood through the precise geometry of international maritime law.

According to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, each coastal state has the right to determine the width of its territorial sea up to a maximum distance of 12 nautical miles from its baselines.

Iran has never ratified this convention, but it serves as a reference point for international practice. Within these 12 miles, the coastal state exercises absolute sovereignty over the water column, the seabed, the subsoil, and even the airspace above.

This is exactly the same sovereignty it exercises over the territory of its capital city.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has determined the width of its territorial sea in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman to be 12 nautical miles. The Kingdom of Oman has adopted exactly the same procedure.

The Strait of Hormuz, at its narrowest point between Iranian islands and the Omani coast, measures approximately 21 nautical miles in width.

When Iran extends its territorial sea 12 nautical miles southward from its northern coast, and Oman extends its territorial sea 12 nautical miles northward from the Musandam Peninsula, the combined territorial waters of the two countries total 24 nautical miles.

This exceeds the total width of the strait at that point by three nautical miles.

The result is geometrically inevitable: the territorial seas of Iran and Oman collide and overlap in the middle of the Strait of Hormuz.

There is not a single drop of water in the narrowest points of the strait and its main shipping channels that can be legally classified as high seas or even as an exclusive economic zone.

Any vessel, submarine, or cable that passes through this point is legally passing within the sovereign borders of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

To this geometric reality must be added the clarifying force of Article 34 of the Convention on the Law of the Sea.

That article states definitively that the regime of passage through straits used for international navigation does not in any way affect the legal status of the waters forming these straits.

Nor does it affect the exercise of sovereignty and jurisdiction by the bordering states over those waters, their airspace, their bed, and their subsoil.

The international community possesses only the right of passage through these waters under the rules set by Iran. This right of passage is limited to the rapid and continuous movement of ships and aircraft.

It does not extend to the laying of fixed infrastructure such as internet cables or energy pipelines on the seabed.

Sovereignty over the seabed, for laying communication cables, energy pipelines, and conducting research, remains entirely the exclusive preserve of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Value of what passes through Iranian waters

The economic significance of the cables transiting the Strait of Hormuz is staggering.

According to data from the TeleGeography database updated to January 2026, the main cable systems crossing the strait form a complex network connecting the Persian Gulf countries to the global network spanning Europe, India, and East Asia.

These systems carry not only public internet traffic but also the most sensitive and valuable data streams in the global economy.

Global content providers known as hyperscalers, companies including Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta, use these fibre-optic cables to connect their local nodes to the core of their global networks.

The traffic these companies carry consists primarily of cloud data centre synchronization, including real-time copies of distributed databases, virtual machine migrations, internal application programming interface traffic, and user-generated content.

In cloud computing architecture, maintaining stability and reliability at the level of 99.999 percent uptime, known as the “five nines” standard, is a mandatory requirement in service level agreements.

Rather than purchasing small amounts of bandwidth, these companies lease long-term dark capacity or purchase irrevocable rights to use submarine cables for periods of 15 to 25 years, keeping network latency in the millisecond range.

Level 1 and Level 2 telecommunications operators, including Etisalat of the UAE, Ooredoo of Qatar and Oman, the Telecommunications Infrastructure Company of Iran, and STC of Saudi Arabia, are responsible for transporting international internet traffic.

This traffic includes Border Gateway Protocol routing information, enterprise virtual private networks, international mobile roaming traffic, and network-based voice packets.

These operators are the gateway to the internet for the countries of the region, receiving terabits per second of capacity from the submarine cables in the Strait of Hormuz and then distributing it to smaller operators and end users.

These cables form the backbone of the digital economy of the Persian Gulf countries, creating a near-total dependence on connectivity to the global network.

Most critically, global financial institutions and content distribution networks, including Akamai, Cloudflare, and the SWIFT financial messaging network, depend on these cables.

Bank settlement messages and high-frequency transactions require dedicated, encrypted, low-latency paths with minimal signal variability.

In global stock market trading, a delay of even one millisecond can result in millions of dollars in losses. Submarine cables are the safest, fastest, and most reliable physical medium for transporting these sensitive intercontinental financial transactions.

According to analytical reports from British think tanks and transaction data from international payment networks, including SWIFT and the Central Interbank Dollar Payments System CHIPS, submarine cables carry more than 10 trillion US dollars in financial transactions every single day.

This colossal figure represents bank settlements, stock market transactions, foreign exchange operations, and all financial activities that form the lifeblood of the global economy.

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development confirms in its annual Digital Economy Reports that more than 99 percent of all international data traffic is transmitted through this cable network.

At the regional level, the West Asia international broadband market, for which the Strait of Hormuz serves as the main thoroughfare, is worth several billion dollars annually.

This value derives from the bulk sale of capacity by cable owners such as FALCON, GBI, and TGN-Gulf to national telecommunications operators.

The damage caused by a disruption or complete outage at this strategic bottleneck, however, is far larger than the direct revenues of this market.

Modelling based on studies of transatlantic cable outages estimates that a five-day disruption of cables through the Strait of Hormuz could inflict tens to hundreds of millions of dollars in damage daily to the combined economies of the Persian Gulf countries.

Failure of alternatives

In response to Iran’s assertion of its sovereign rights, some Western analysts have suggested that alternative routes or technologies could bypass the Strait of Hormuz.

The technical reality, however, offers no fast and reliable alternative.

Next-generation low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations such as Starlink offer lower latency than fibre-optic cables for very long distances, because lasers in space travel at actual light speed while light in glass fibres travels at roughly two-thirds of that speed.

However, while a single submarine cable can carry terabits of data per second, an entire satellite constellation offers bandwidth measured in gigabits.

Satellites cannot yet handle the massive bandwidth demands of artificial intelligence training, high-definition streaming for millions of users, or cloud backups. They are, in the assessment of industry experts, a boutique solution not scalable to millions of users.

Terrestrial overland corridors represent the most practical alternative, with massive land cables running through Iraq to Turkey or through Syria to the Mediterranean.

Ambitious projects such as Saudi Arabia’s SilkLink and Qatar’s FiG are underway. However, these routes must cross war-torn regions, including Syria and Iraq, where West-backed wars have previously destroyed similar infrastructure and where local militias and unstable governments remain capable of seizure, taxation, or sabotage.

These are not peaceful alternatives; they merely exchange one set of vulnerabilities for another. Free-space optical systems using lasers transmitted through air or vacuum are not a solution for the Strait of Hormuz at all.

Such systems are extremely susceptible to weather interference, including the fog and sandstorms common to the Persian Gulf, and have a limited range of less than 50 kilometres.

The verdict is clear: there exists no single alternative that is simultaneously fast, high-capacity, and secure. The Strait of Hormuz remains an irreplaceable chokepoint for global digital communications.

Repair regime and Iran’s essential role

The maintenance and repair of submarine cables in the Strait of Hormuz present another dimension of Iran’s sovereign authority.

According to International Cable Protection Committee technical documents and performance reports, the repair process for a complete cable cut follows a well-established sequence: fault location using optical time-domain reflectometer tools, application for navigation permits under international law, and dispatch of a cable repair ship.

The process of dispatching a ship, retrieving the two ends of the cable from the seabed, performing the reconnection, and returning the cable to the seabed typically requires between 7 and 30 days, depending on weather conditions and the availability of repair vessels.

In the Strait of Hormuz specifically, the exceptionally high volume of maritime traffic requires intensive traffic coordination during cable laying and repair operations.

Under normal conditions with full cooperation from the countries exercising sovereignty over the strait, the repair process would be expected to take up to 45 days.

During the recent joint US-Israeli aggression, however, major cable installation contractors, including Alcatel Submarine Networks, declared force majeure on Persian Gulf operations, halting both new installations and maintenance of existing systems.

Billions of dollars’ worth of cable projects were suspended or abandoned, with some reportedly 90 percent complete before work stopped.

Given that the Strait of Hormuz lies entirely within Iranian territorial waters, the logical conclusion is inescapable: the user companies whose cables transit Iranian sovereign territory must conclude contracts for cable repair and maintenance exclusively with Iranian companies, specifically companies owned more than 50 percent by Iranian entities and operating entirely under the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

This is not a matter of political choice but of legal necessity arising from the undisputed fact that foreign vessels, including cable repair ships, cannot operate in Iranian territorial waters without Iranian permission.

Global recognition of the new reality

The world media has taken notice of Iran’s digital sovereignty initiative. Indian media outlets, including ABP Live and the Economic Times, have warned that a significant portion of India’s internet passes through the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, and that any disruption to these routes could disrupt online services, digital banking, and communications, pressuring the digital economy of countries, including India.

Russian media outlet AIA Daily reported that Iran has effectively conveyed the message that it possesses physical access to vital routes of the global internet, emphasizing that at least seven major internet cables pass through the Strait of Hormuz and serve as the backbone of e-commerce, cloud services, and international communications.

Asian media, including Korea’s Asia Business Daily and the English-language Asia Times, have described the Strait of Hormuz as one of the world’s most important internet bottlenecks.

Asia Times wrote that data infrastructure and fibre-optic cables have become part of the deterrence equation in the region, warning that an attack on cables could disrupt the global economy without firing a missile, and that future wars may take place on the seabed and over data cables rather than traditional battlefields.

Western media have also acknowledged the vulnerability. Reuters reported in a piece that Iran’s warning about the vulnerability of undersea cables has raised concerns, emphasizing that several important fibre-optic cables lie in the Strait of Hormuz connecting countries in Asia, the Persian Gulf, and Europe, and that any damage in this area would disrupt cloud services, online communications, and the digital economy.

The Washington Post warned that submarine cables have become one of the most vulnerable parts of the world’s digital economy, with Western governments concerned that undersea cables could be used as a tool of strategic pressure.

The French newspaper Le Monde wrote that the joint US-Israeli aggression against Iran has placed infrastructure, including submarine cables, data centres, and cloud computing networks under the simultaneous pressure of geopolitical and security crises.

Three practical steps

Based on the legal, technical, and economic factors, the Islamic Republic of Iran can implement three practical steps to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue from the Strait of Hormuz internet cables while exercising its full sovereign rights.

First, all companies wishing to use this infrastructure must obtain an initial license from Iranian authorities, and because this license must be renewed annually, these companies must pay all outstanding amounts on a recurring basis.

The fee model can draw from international precedents, including the Egyptian model based on providing exclusive services, the Singaporean model based on policy-making and administrative licensing, the Indonesian bureaucratic model based on permits and corridors, and the Russian model based on strategic control and state participation.

Egypt, for example, earns between 250 million and 400 million US dollars annually from submarine cable infrastructure alone, representing 15 to 20 percent of the Egyptian Telecommunications Company’s total operating revenues.

Second, all cross-border communications and information technology companies operating in the region, including US companies such as Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft that transfer Iranian user data abroad through these cables, must be subject to the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran and supervised and regulated by the Iranian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.

With the official activities of these companies and their cooperation with the Iranian side, there would no longer be any need for filtering or blocking of their platforms.

Third, because the Strait of Hormuz is entirely part of Iranian territory, the user companies must conclude contracts for cable repair and maintenance exclusively with an Iranian company, meaning a company owned more than 50 percent by the Iranian side and operating fully under the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The proceeds from this entire framework will flow to the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, specifically to the Fibre-Optic Development Fund, and will be used to create and improve the country’s information technology infrastructure.

May 11, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Comments Off on How Iran’s Strait of Hormuz cable sovereignty could reshape global internet governance

French presidential hopeful pushes to end Russia sanctions

RT | May 11, 2026

French presidential hopeful Florian Philippot has called for lifting sanctions against Russia and restoring Russian energy imports. In an interview with RT, the politician claimed that Brussels-driven EU policies run counter to France’s national interests.

A former vice president of the National Front (now National Rally) and ex-member of the European Parliament, Philippot announced on Saturday that he will run in the 2027 election. He leads the sovereigntist movement ‘Les Patriotes’ and is a longtime critic of the EU, the euro, and NATO. He advocates restoring French sovereignty, reducing dependence on supranational institutions, and ending French military and financial aid to Ukraine.

“I want, and it is in my program, for France to regain its independence by leaving all the supranational globalist structures: the EU, the euro, NATO,” Florian Philippot told RT France on Sunday. “And I want a policy of dialogue and friendship with Russia, and not, as today, one of mistrust, war, and insults. All of this is absurd for our national interests.”

The politician said Paris should “take back control” by withdrawing from free trade agreements such as Mercosur, which he said “condemn French farmers to death.” He added that sanctions on Russia imposed by Brussels should be ended in order to restore the flow of Russian gas and oil.

Philippot also called for France to regain control over immigration and migration flows while pursuing a broader reindustrialization strategy. He said the country’s industrial base had been weakened under the euro and advocated restoring a national currency better suited to the French economy.

In addition, the politician pledged to expand the use of referendums, including citizen-initiated votes, as part of strengthening popular sovereignty. He also called for reducing France’s dependence on the EU, which he said is largely shaped in Berlin and Washington rather than in Paris. Philippot stressed that leaving the EU would allow France to lower energy and electricity costs.

France is heading toward a highly fragmented presidential race, with around 30 people already expressing interest in being on the 2027 ballot. These include Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of ‘La France Insoumise’, Bruno Retailleau, president of ‘Les Republicains’, Xavier Bertrand, a senior center-right politician, David Lisnard, mayor of Cannes, Laurent Wauquiez, a prominent conservative figure, and Edouard Philippe, France’s former prime minister.

May 11, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , | Comments Off on French presidential hopeful pushes to end Russia sanctions

By rejecting Iran’s proposal, US enters a strategic nightmare with no escape

Press TV | May 11, 2026

In a theatrical move that fooled no one, US President Donald Trump rejected Iran’s comprehensive plan to end the war he illegally imposed on the country 70 days ago.

The US president postured as a victor, dismissing Tehran’s proposal with the bluster of a leader who expects capitulation. But the reality on the ground tells a starkly different story.

By every measurable metric, America is the defeated party in the asymmetric war that was imposed on Iran amid the nuclear talks in Geneva on February 28. And his rejection of Iran’s terms in a social media post has not opened new options for Washington, but it has only trapped the US in a deadly three-way crossroads from which there is no easy escape.

Trump’s rejection of Iran’s plan, which was submitted early on Sunday through Pakistani mediators, is a grave strategic error as Americans hold no winning cards.

Iran’s proposal: Fundamental, natural, and uncompromising

Iran’s plan to permanently end the war was never meant to please Washington. It was designed to restore justice, recognize strategic realities, and secure Iran’s undeniable rights after the unprovoked military aggression against the country and maritime banditry.

The core elements of Iran’s proposal are not maximalist. They are rooted in natural and fundamental principles that any nation subjected to unprovoked aggression and holding the upper hand would rightfully insist upon:

  • War reparations – Payment of damages and reparations by the aggressor for the destruction inflicted on Iran’s infrastructure, economy, and civilian population.
  • Management of the Strait of Hormuz – Recognition of Iran’s sovereign control over this vital waterway, based on the mechanism already announced by Tehran.
  • Lifting of sanctions – The complete removal of all oppressive and illegal sanctions that have targeted the Iranian people for decades.
  • Release of frozen assets – The return of billions of dollars of Iranian assets illegally seized by the United States.
  • Permanent end to the war – A cessation of hostilities not only against Iran but also against the entire resistance front, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and other allied forces across the region.

None of these demands is unreasonable or impractical. They are the basic entitlements of a nation that has been attacked, bombed, and subjected to economic warfare for nearly half a century. What Iran is asking for is not special treatment but justice.

The American non-offer: Irrelevant demands and nuclear obsession

In stark contrast to Iran’s focused, reasonable and practically sound proposal, the American counteroffer reads like a wish list written by someone who has lost sight of reality.

Washington’s plan has nothing to do with ending the war. Instead, it resurrects the long-dead nuclear file – demands that were irrelevant before the war and are absurd now.

The United States insists on:

  • Closure of Iran’s nuclear sites – A non-starter that Iran has rejected for decades.
  • Long-term halt to enrichment – Effectively disabling Iran’s nuclear program for years to come, which is totally unacceptable to Iran.
  • Transfer of enriched uranium to America – A humiliating demand that no sovereign nation would accept, least of all Iran.

What is striking about the American proposal is what it omits. There is no mention of the American responsibility for starting the war in the middle of nuclear diplomacy.

There is also no acknowledgment of the thousands of Iranian civilians killed in the 40-day aggression. There is no offer of reparations. There is no commitment to withdraw the occupation forces from the region. There is no guarantee against future aggression.

Washington simply pretends the war never happened and pivots back to its failed nuclear fixation to deflect attention from the real issue.

The posture of defeat: Trump’s fake victory pose

Trump rejected Iran’s plan while posing as the victor. But this is pure theater. International experts, military analysts, and even sober voices within Western capitals acknowledge what Trump refuses to admit – the United States lost the asymmetric war against Iran.

Consider the evidence. The US entered this war with ambitious objectives: “regime change,” destruction of Iran’s missile program, dismantling of nuclear facilities, and unrestricted access to the Strait of Hormuz.

None of these objectives has been achieved. Iran’s missile cities remain intact. Its nuclear program continues to make progress. Its control over the Strait of Hormuz has been consolidated. And the Iranian people, far from rising against their government, have poured into the streets by the millions to support the leadership and the armed forces.

Trump’s hallucinatory “victory” exists only in his own press releases. In the real world, the United States has been defeated on every front. And rejecting Iran’s proposal does not change that fact – it only prolongs Washington’s agony.

The three-way crossroads: All paths lead to disaster

By rejecting Iran’s plan, Trump has trapped the United States in a deadly strategic dilemma. He now faces three options and none of them are good:

  • Resume full-scale war

This is the most dangerous path. Starting the war again would plunge the United States and its Israeli proxy into a “dark corridor” from which there may be no return.

Iran has not yet deployed all its strategic cards. Throughout the 40 days of war, Tehran fought with its eyes fixed on the possibility of an even larger confrontation. The weapons systems, tactics, and capabilities that Iran deliberately held back would be unleashed in a second round, if that actually happens.

The result would likely be far heavier defeats for the US-Israeli war machine, defeats that could become irreversible. Iran’s unrevealed cards, combined with the lessons learned from the first phase of the war, would make any renewed American military campaign a gamble with catastrophic odds.

  • Accept Iran’s terms

This is the only path to ending the imposed war, but it requires Trump to swallow his pride and acknowledge defeat like someone who understands the ground realities.

The United States would have to pay reparations, accept Iran’s complete and sovereign control of the Strait of Hormuz, lift illegal sanctions, release frozen assets, and agree to a comprehensive end to the war on all fronts.

For a president who has built his political identity around “maximum pressure” and “America First,” this option is politically toxic. But rejecting it does not make it disappear. It remains the only sustainable exit from a war that Washington cannot win.

  • Continue the naval blockade

An ambiguous, indefinite naval blockade that neither ends the war nor escalates it decisively is the current situation. But this option is also unsustainable. Iran’s top military command has already made its position clear that for every vessel intercepted or attacked, American centers and American vessels will be struck.

The Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters has announced this equation publicly. It is not a threat but a binding warning. The continuation of the naval blockade will trigger Iranian responses that escalate incrementally but inevitably. There is no “safe” stalemate.

The economic dimension: A losing battle for Washington

The closure of the strategic waterway due to the war imposed on war and US maritime banditry and piracy has already sent shockwaves through global energy markets.

Oil prices have surged past $110 per barrel. Inflationary pressures are mounting across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. The continued naval blockade of Iran, coupled with Iranian retaliatory strikes on regional energy infrastructure, will only worsen these trends.

And who bears the blame? Global public opinion increasingly points to Washington. The United States started this war, and the United States rejected a reasonable peace plan.

The United States continues to strangle Iran’s economy while Iranian civilians suffer. The further economic indicators deteriorate, the more pressure will mount on Trump from domestic constituencies and international allies alike.

Iran understands this dynamic perfectly. Continued economic disruption is not a bug in Tehran’s strategy but a feature. Every day the war continues, the United States bleeds economically and reputationally.

Iran’s trap: No escape for the United States

World media have accurately described the current situation as “Iran’s trap” for the United States. It is a trap with no exit and Trump is yet to wrap his head around this reality.

Trump can neither win the war nor end it on acceptable terms. Resuming full-scale war invites catastrophic defeat. Accepting Iran’s proposal requires humiliating capitulation. Maintaining the status quo triggers escalating Iranian retaliation that systematically degrades American interests in the region.

This is the strategic nightmare that Trump has created for himself and his country. He started a war he could not win. He rejected a peace that would have ended it. And now he stands at a deadly three-way crossroads, with every direction leading to danger.

Iran, meanwhile, holds the strategic advantage. Tehran’s proposal remains on the table — reasonable, principled, and rooted in natural rights. But if the US chooses not to accept it, Iran is prepared to continue the war, escalate it, and inflict far heavier costs than anything seen in the first 40 days.

The choice is Washington’s. The consequences will be for Iran to impose. And history will record who acted with wisdom – and who walked willingly into a trap of their own making.

May 11, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , | Comments Off on By rejecting Iran’s proposal, US enters a strategic nightmare with no escape

How The US Blockaded Itself In The Strait Of Hormuz

By Robert Inlakesh | Palestine Chronicle | May 10, 2026

Far from a stroke of genius, the US Trump administration’s decision to impose its own blockade on the Strait of Hormuz was a reactionary act of desperation, not a real strategy. The reason behind this quickly became clear and led to immediate doubt, even from the US domestic corporate media.

On April 7, when US President Donald Trump declared a two-week temporary cessation of hostilities between his armed forces and Iran, he almost instantly faced an Israeli refusal to acknowledge that any such agreement had been struck. Not only did the Israelis violate the ceasefire agreement by launching a 10-minute terror bombing campaign on Beirut, which killed around 300 Lebanese, but they also began pressuring Washington to ensure that they could have their say on the course of Iran-US negotiations.

While the Iranians declared that the US had accepted their 10-point plan of demands, within 24 hours, the United States had signaled that it would respect none of them. This could have reasonably justified Iran continuing its campaign of self-defense, especially as US military assets continued to be transported into West Asia.

Instead, Tehran chose to ignore the fact that the very basis of the temporary ceasefire had been torn up in front of them, and the US was demanding precisely what it sought prior to its attack on Iran. The one thing that the Islamic Republic chose to do was to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed and impose its sovereignty over it, causing a real crisis for the Trump administration.

The Iranians just managed to fend off the world’s top military superpower, dealing blows to all of its allies and collaborators throughout the region while it was at it. At least 16 US military bases were smashed beyond recognition, many rendered inoperable, with the multi-million/billion dollar equipment losses numbering into the hundreds of units across the region.

Iran may have been fighting the US military, but the problem it faces and continues to face is that the commander-in-chief does not sit in Washington, but instead in Tel Aviv. Israel simply was not degraded to the extent that it saw a reason for the war to end, but the US, which was doing its bidding, had all but run out of options to achieve regime change.

This led to the ceasefire predicament. Because the next stop on the escalation ladder was a large-scale coordinated campaign of attacks against civilian infrastructure across Iran, which would inevitably trigger a retaliation in kind from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Although the escalation was evidently welcomed by the Israelis, if it still failed to achieve their goals, the repercussions regionally would have international implications.

Then came the temporary truce that Pakistan managed to mediate, likely by leading both sides on a bit too much, but it was nonetheless accepted by Washington and Tehran alike. As noted above, while the Iranians did manage to achieve a historic defensive victory of sorts, exceeding all expectations of it, neither side emerged as the decisive victor, and no one secured a long-term strategic victory.

Therefore, the opposing sides went back to the drawing board, re-arming themselves and preparing for the inevitable escalation ahead, while leaving the door open for negotiations. In a bid to keep the Iranians from escalating against the Israelis, the US decided to step in and execute a temporary strategy in Lebanon instead.

Tel Aviv had hoped to secure a “ceasefire” in Lebanon that enabled it to return to the 15-month ceasefire status quo that had existed prior to the regional war, bombing Lebanon at will as Hezbollah held its fire. That never materialized, which ended up leading the Israelis into a strategic military trap in southern Lebanon, one that Washington is attempting to undo by using their puppets in Beirut to undergo a process that will lead to another Lebanese civil war.

Meanwhile, Tehran, which was refusing to lift its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz until a full ceasefire in Lebanon, temporarily began allowing selected ships to transit the key chokepoint after paying a fee. This was quickly interrupted by not only the Israeli decision that they would not implement the ceasefire, but also the US aggression.

Trump’s uno-reverse-card strategy was then implemented, as the leadership in DC declared that they were going to blockade the blockade. Although this evidently has an impact on Iran’s economy, it was a failing strategy from the get-go, one designed to keep the President’s fragile ego stable, more than anything else.

The reason why it was so ridiculous to begin with is that it only further strained the international economy and sent oil prices surging further. When the Israel Lobby ordered Trump to unilaterally withdraw from the Iran Nuclear Deal in 2018, the US’s ‘Maximum Pressure’ sanctions managed to dramatically impact Iran’s oil export rates. For around 33 months, Iran’s daily exports plummeted to around 350,000 barrels before later recovering to roughly 2.5 million barrels per day.

It will take at least three months for the Iranian economy to start truly suffering from the US’s blockade strategy, but such a long term economic pressure plan was always going to impact the US and its allies way more. The Islamic Republic has been under sanctions and suffered constant economic hurdles for 47 years, all at the hands of the US and its Western allies, which has led to a certain kind of sanctions immunity.

No routine exports for Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the UAE for three more months will spell catastrophe for all of them. This will also have additional ramifications that are going to impact the entire planet. This means that the Iranians are simply being given time to re-arm, dig out their missile bases, rebuild sites struck by US-Israeli airstrikes, devise new military plans, all as their blockade squeezes the US and its allies.

In a way, it’s actually the perfect predicament for the Iranians to be in. Yes, they will suffer economically, but it isn’t like they haven’t been here before; their opposition has never had to go through such hardships. Hezbollah is also inflicting dozens of Israeli soldier casualties every day, while the Israeli population loses more and more confidence in their ability to achieve anything resembling victory in Lebanon.

All without having to endure round-the-clock airstrikes on their major cities like Tehran and Isfahan, all without losing assets or civilian life. Playing the game of who can outlast the other with the Iranians is a losing strategy, one that was born out of desperation.

These reasons, amongst others, were always going to force the US’s hand into yet another escalation. Israel won’t allow their puppet in the White House to retreat and bow down to Iran’s demands, while there is no way to achieve what Washington and Tel Aviv couldn’t through their war efforts.

In the future, the US has two major military options: Ground incursions into Iranian territory and a massive campaign of strikes against Iran’s civilian infrastructure, as was threatened prior to the temporary ceasefire. Neither will achieve regime change, but will inflict blows. The only thing standing in the way of a deal is Israel; until Israel is faced with strategic defeat, the war cannot fully end.

Even if there was some kind of diplomatic off-ramp that could hypothetically be found here, then the Israelis would simply go back to the drawing board and seek to escalate once again in the future. This is also why the Iranians had been so adamant on ending the war on all fronts, because the Israelis have to be subdued in order for Tehran to ensure that such an attack against it cannot happen again. The US may be seeking to kick the can down the road after failing to achieve its goals, but Iran seeks to prevent this.


Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine.

May 10, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on How The US Blockaded Itself In The Strait Of Hormuz

Iran’s ‘threat’ to Western hegemony is not nuclear weapons

By Samuel Geddes | Al Mayadeen | May 9, 2026

US Secretary of State Rubio on Wednesday declared “Operation Epic Fury” concluded, the clearest indication so far that the US is writhing in the economic trap it sprung on itself. Being in a state of institutional paralysis, unable to accept the costs of ending the war while unable to tolerate its continuation, the Trump administration is attempting to find an equilibrium that allows hostilities to cease, while keeping as much as possible of its “maximum pressure” on Iran’s economy.

In precisely this vein, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in recent days has been unable to conceal his glee at the economic privation imposed on the Iranian people by his policies, attributing both the Riyal’s late 2025 collapse and the impending effects of the naval blockade on its oil production to “[Operation] Economic Fury.”

Since the inception of the Islamic Republic 47 years ago, the United States has weaponized its dominance in the global economy to impose one of the most comprehensive sanctions regimes ever implemented.

With each successive layer of economic siege deployed against the Iranians, US administrations and their surrogate regimes across the collective west, along with their propagandists in the media, painted this undeclared war as solely targeting “the regime.” The Iranian people themselves, they would have us believe, were never the intended targets.

This was, of course, only ever a rhetorical sleight of hand. The sanctions were “targeted” at the “regime” only in the sense that they were intended to make everyday life so unbearable that the Iranian public would blame their own leadership and overthrow it. The exact reason why they would primarily blame their own government, rather than Washington, London, Berlin and so-on, has never been rationalized. It is simply the economic strangulation of Gaza and Cuba that has been scaled up to the macro-level. Collective punishment of the entire population is the point, either to induce domestic rebellion, or to discipline them for not carrying out Western policy goals.

With the restarting of active war from February 28, Washington has reverted to implementing this strategy by its most direct means. Instead of choking off medicines to the health system, it simply bombed the health system itself, from critical national hospitals to the Pasteur Institute that produced domestic vaccines against the Covid pandemic. Instead of blacklisting Iranian students from foreign institutions, it bombs the Iranian universities that have been the engines of the nation’s indigenous industries, civilian, industrial and military since the siege began in 1980. Beyond merely sanctioning Iran’s industrial output, it is now robbing it of its revenues by attacking the steel plants of Isfahan and Ahvaz and the Asalouyeh petrochemical complexes.

The logical framing of these targets is that they are aimed at degrading Iran’s capacity to manufacture missiles, drones and its still non-existent nuclear weapons. By this reasoning, literally every economic sector, every potential source of revenue for the Iranian state is a target. It lays bare the true motivation not only behind the current war, but also behind the entire campaign of economic, political, and diplomatic coercion that the West has thrown at the country since its Revolution. It is not simply that Iranian nuclear program is unacceptable to Washington, London, Berlin, Paris and Tel Aviv, it is mainly the existence of an Iranian steel industry, pharmaceutical sector, ship-building capacity and space program. The very existence of an entrenched, self-sufficient and technologically progressing economy outside of the Western-dominated world system constitutes, by its nature, a systemic threat that cannot be tolerated. It must either be economically absorbed and dismantled from within or militarily destroyed.

It is a fear of the vastly enhanced economic and technological weight of an Iran unburdened by secondary sanctions, reaping tens of billions of dollars in taxes on traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, and fundamentally restructuring the security and economic architecture of the Gulf, that explains the Trump administration’s unwillingness to end the state of war, even as it pushes the global economy deeper into existential crisis every day.

Tehran’s incentive, and its ability to demand, maximal concessions to accept an end to war however will not decline over time, it will increase inversely to the US tolerance for economic pain. Thus, Washington is at some point going to make at least one existentially humiliating concession to extricate itself from the crisis it created. It might agree to suspend all secondary sanctions against the Islamic Republic, or accept Tehran’s demonstrated capacity to tax traffic through Hormuz or permanently evacuate its bases in the region. It might even do all of these.

The blockade might plausibly remain as a face-saving fiction- the US navy clearly dares not intercept Iranian shipments heading to China. Over time, alternate land and sea corridors will compensate for the disruption to Iranian shipping.

When Washington eventually does cave it will have achieved the exact opposite of its intentions in launching its aggression: a vastly more economically empowered Islamic Republic with the throat of the world economy in its hand.

Trump’s choices are limited to accepting a far more economically powerful Iran now or accepting it later after a catastrophic resumption of hostilities. Maybe then, he will have learned precisely why none of his predecessors acted as he has.

May 9, 2026 Posted by | Economics | , , , | Comments Off on Iran’s ‘threat’ to Western hegemony is not nuclear weapons

Iran warns UAE, Bahrain over alignment with US, Israeli interests

Al Mayadeen | May 9, 2026

Senior Iranian lawmakers issued sharp warnings to Gulf states on Friday, cautioning against supporting the US-backed resolution against Tehran and threatening consequences for countries aligning themselves with Washington and “Israel” amid escalating regional tensions.

Ebrahim Azizi, head of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, warned that governments supporting the resolution will face perpetual closure of the Strait.

In a post on X, Azizi stated, “We warn governments, including microstates like Bahrain, that siding with the US-backed resolution will bring severe consequences.”

“The Strait of Hormuz is a vital lifeline; do not risk closing it on yourselves forever,” he warned.

UAE insignificant in the broader war: Ruhollah Azad

Separately, Iranian parliament presidium member Rouhollah Motefakker Azad said the United States and “Israel” were facing inevitable defeat in their war with the Iranian people and resistance fighters.

“The defeat of the Americans and Zionists in the battle against the Iranian people and their fighters is inevitable, and signs of this defeat have begun to emerge on all fronts,” he said.

Motefakker Azad also warned the United Arab Emirates against becoming involved in the conflict, arguing that Abu Dhabi should avoid acting in support of Israeli and American interests. “If the UAE possesses strategic rationality, it will never place itself in a predicament greater than its size and capabilities for the sake of the interests of the Zionists and America, who have failed in this arena,” he said.

He added that Iran had demonstrated its ability to contain the actions of both the United States and Israel, dismissing the UAE as insignificant in the war.

“The Emiratis are advised to understand the rules of this war and refrain from entering an arena beyond their capacity and scale,” he said.

Military, public, diplomacy; main pillars of Iran’s strategy

Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref said on Friday that Tehran will continue its diplomatic efforts “based on logic and ethics,” while stressing that the country remains “very firm in defending its rights,” according to remarks made during a meeting with managers of the Mobarakeh Steel Company.

Aref said Iran’s strategy is built on three main pillars: the “military arena, the street, and diplomacy,” calling for national planning that reflects Iran’s status as a “major global power.”

He also urged faster progress on reconstruction, renewal, and upgrading of damaged industries, emphasizing the need to accelerate recovery efforts.

May 9, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on Iran warns UAE, Bahrain over alignment with US, Israeli interests