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Iran sets up ‘tollbooth’ system in Strait of Hormuz

The Cradle | April 2, 2026

Iran has formally started enforcing a controlled transit system in the Strait of Hormuz, requiring ships to undergo vetting and pay fees for safe passage, according to a report by Bloomberg on 1 April.

The report describes a system managed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), where vessels must submit their detailed information, including ownership, cargo, and crew, to an intermediary for review.

Ships are then screened for links to the US, Israel, or other states Tehran considers hostile, with only those cleared permitted to proceed under escort through a coastal corridor dubbed the “Iranian tollbooth.”

Once terms of passage are agreed, ships receive a permit code and designated route, which they must broadcast to Iranian patrol boats upon approach.

Iran’s parliament has already approved a draft law introducing transit fees and restrictions on vessels linked to the US, Israel, and sanctioning states, pending final ratification.

Negotiations over transit fees reportedly follow approval, with oil tankers typically charged from around $1 per barrel, and payments made in Chinese yuan or stablecoins – cryptocurrencies pegged to hard currency values.

With some tankers carrying up to or above two million barrels of crude, total costs can scale significantly, with at least one tanker having paid around $2 million to secure passage so far.

Iranian economist Hossein Raghfar projects Tehran could earn up to $60 billion annually by formalizing transit tariffs across the strait, describing control of the waterway as a “very powerful tool” that has shifted economic leverage in Iran’s favor.

Meanwhile, Iran’s oil sector is benefiting from the US-Israeli war, with revenues rising as global prices surge and exports continue largely uninterrupted.

Revenues from Iranian Light crude rose to about $139 million per day in March, while exports held near 1.6 million barrels per day (bpd), even as other Gulf producers face disruption.

Several governments, including India, Pakistan, Iraq, Malaysia, and China, are in direct talks with Tehran to coordinate vessel transits through the system

April 2, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on Iran sets up ‘tollbooth’ system in Strait of Hormuz

Defeated and delusional: Netanyahu’s remarks reveal $80bn war failure, says analyst

Press TV – April 1, 2026

Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent statements on Iran, claiming that it no longer poses an existential threat to the regime is a complete strategic failure that suggests he is leaving office “defeated,” says an analyst.

Patricia Marins, a Brazilian military analyst, in a post on X on Thursday, characterized Netanyahu’s remarks not as a sign of strength, but as the ultimate admission of failure.

“There is nothing more defeatist than this. It is 100% defeatist rhetoric,” Marins said.

Her critique centers on the unfulfilled war objectives that Netanyahu himself had laid out.

According to Marins, he had consistently articulated three primary goals regarding Iran: regime change, limiting Iran’s missile capabilities, and dismantling its nuclear program.

“He has achieved none of these objectives,” Marins stated.

Instead, she maintained, the war has saddled Israel with staggering economic damage.

Marins cited operational costs and broader economic losses to paint a picture of a war that has yielded no strategic gains at a prohibitive financial price.

“He has saddled Israel with $60-80 billion in losses from this war,” she said, breaking down the daily expenditures. “Each day of operations, including interceptors and material damage, costs between $1.5-2 billion, based on the spending during the 12-day war.”

She noted that the full scope of the damage is still being calculated, with thousands of compensation claims already filed for direct damage caused by Iranian missile attacks.

The analyst said the Israeli ministry of finance estimates the broader economic loss at $3 billion per week.

Marins framed the outcome as a direct consequence of what she called Netanyahu’s “megalomania,” noting that his approach has created more problems than solutions.

The analyst suggested that Israel’s aggressive posture may have backfired strategically regarding Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

“If the Iranians hadn’t built a nuclear weapon before, now they have every reason to do so,” Marins said.

April 1, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , | Comments Off on Defeated and delusional: Netanyahu’s remarks reveal $80bn war failure, says analyst

The Larak Corridor: Iran’s Rial Gate With No US, No Israel, and No Way Around

By Freddie Ponton | 21st Century Wire | April 1, 2026

While MOW Secretary Pete Hegseth was telling other nations to “step up” in the Strait of Hormuz, Donald Trump was already backing away, insisting its security was “not for us.” In between those contradictions, Washington dumped a fog of conflicting slogans on the public—slogans that never looked like strategy so much as panicked improvisation. That confusion is not a sideshow to the war, but the political static masking a brutal reality. While the White House and its zionist neocon war camp lurch between bluff and retreat, Iran has been moving with cold discipline, quietly building what Iranian reporting calls the Larak Corridor and what maritime trackers have identified as a tightly managed lane through the Qeshm-Larak gap inside Iranian waters.

Around Larak, Tehran is no longer just reacting to an illegal war launched against it. It is turning battlefield pressure into procedure, selective access, and proposed law, using a controlled corridor and a wider Hormuz management plan to show that the old fantasy of automatic Western command over this chokepoint is breaking down in real time. The truth of the war is not found in the bombast coming out of Washington; instead you will find it in the places where power is actually shifting, and right now, one of those places is a narrow strip of water off Larak, where Iran looks calmer, more deliberate, and more in command of events than the people who thought they could bomb it into submission.

The Day Hormuz Moved on Iran’s Terms

The Strait of Hormuz has not been shut, and that is exactly why what Iran has done matters more. What has emerged around Larak is not a crude blockade but a controlled passage system, a wartime checkpoint laid across one of the most important arteries of the world economy. Iranian reporting most often calls it the Larak Corridor. At the same time, the broader phrase Larak-Qeshm Corridor is best understood as a geographic description of the lane running through the narrow gap between those two islands inside Iranian waters.

Names are not cosmetic here. Western and trade coverage tend to speak of a route between Qeshm and Larak. Iranian coverage roots it in Larak itself, in Iranian-managed waters, under Iranian rules. That is the quiet shift the war has produced. For decades, the story of Hormuz was told from the deck of a U.S. carrier. Today, one of its key arteries is being renamed and reorganised from a small island most Western audiences have never been asked to think about.

Iran appears to be building a differentiated transit regime, not a universal shutdown. That means the market consequence is not simply “less supply,” but a more political energy map in which some buyers and shippers face privileged access while others face delay, denial, or sharply higher costs.

That is the part of the story that cuts through the propaganda. A total closure would have been easy to denounce and easy to rally against. A selective corridor is harder to attack because it allows Tehran to say that passage has not ended, only the assumption that ships can move through Iranian waters during an illegal war on Iran without submitting to Iranian conditions.

This is why Larak matters. It is where Iran stopped merely threatening the map and started administering it.

The lane at Larak

The outlines of the new lane are now visible. The Larak Corridor is not a return to normal traffic. It is a filtered, low-volume, politically segmented route for approved movement. Trade and maritime analysis has traced authorised vessels through the five-mile gap between Qeshm and Larak, close to the Iranian coast and under a web of Iranian surveillance and intervention capacity. Iranian and Arabic reporting has described a safe corridor around or between Larak and Qeshm, never a full reopening of the strait, even though yesterday the Wall Street Journal reported that the Bahman pier on the eastern side of Qeshm Island was attacked, according to a statement from Hormozgan governor’s office relayed by Iranian state-affiliated media ISNA. Qeshm overlooks the Clarence Strait in the Strait of Hormuz and is referred to by the locals as “Kuran”,  Iran’s main launchpad for its asymmetric naval warfare. In early March, the Israeli/US war machine had targeted a desalination plant on Qeshm Island, leaving 30 villages without water.

That low-volume point changes everything. The lane exists in deliberate contrast to prewar patterns. UN-linked reporting put pre-crisis traffic through Hormuz at roughly 130 ships a day. Against that baseline, the authorised trickle through Larak is not evidence of restored normality but a clear indication that normality has been replaced by a rationed flow that Iran alone can modulate.

The lane also stratifies states. Some governments have secured negotiated passage, some ships have moved after prior coordination and documentation, and others have been turned back or discouraged from approaching in the first place. The result is not an open sea but a tiered system in which diplomatic posture, sanctions alignment, and wartime behaviour shape access to one of the world’s central energy routes.

Calling this a blockade is comfortable for Western officials, but it is wrong. A blockade denies passage to provoke a fight. The Larak Corridor functions more like a wartime border crossing, granting passage conditionally, keeping discretionary power in Iranian hands, and making political hierarchy visible on the water.

Force became law

The story becomes more serious once you see that Tehran is not leaving this system in the realm of ad hoc force, but instead the Islamic Republic of Iran is building a legal scaffold around it.

Parliamentary reporting confirms that Iran’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee has approved an eight-point Strait of Hormuz Management Plan. The plan is built around eight clear pillars: securing the strait, ensuring ship safety, addressing environmental risks, establishing financial arrangements with a rial-based toll system, banning American and Israeli vessels from passage, asserting Iran’s sovereign authority and that of its armed forces, cooperating with Oman on the legal framework, and prohibiting entry to any state that participates in unilateral sanctions against Iran.


Iran’s Strait of Hormuz Eight Pillars Management Plan

A parallel description from Xinhuanet states that the measure gathered more than 250 signatures and outlines four immediate objectives: ensuring shipping security, charging environmental polluters, collecting fees for guidance services, and establishing a regional development fund funded by the toll regime. Those details matter as they show that Tehran is not marketing this as a simple wartime levy, but as sovereign administration over safety, environmental protection, navigational management, revenue, and regional development.

It is crucial to be precise. The plan is not yet fully enacted into law. Committee approval is significant because it codifies the logic of the corridor and signals an intention to turn military practice into statute, but Iranian reporting makes clear that key elements are still in the phase of initial measures and continued drafting. That does not weaken the argument. It actually strengthens it. The turning point is not when the last procedural stamp is applied, but when a state under attack openly decides to legislate the war’s new realities into its domestic legal order.

The Oman clause is one of the plan’s sharpest edges. Iranian reporting says Oman must be present in the legal regime and coordination structure because the southern side of the strait is Omani. At the same time, a parliamentary voice emphasised that in matters of toll collection “the essence of the matter is in Iran’s hands,” and that Iran is the party positioned to collect fees, while Oman’s place is in cooperation and coordination, not revenue capture.

In other words, Tehran is regionalising the legal façade without diluting operational control. Omani decrees from 2025 ratifying broader cooperation and legal-judicial accords with Iran give this move a pre-existing legal context, making the Hormuz framework look less like a unilateral edict and more like a hard extension of bilateral agreements into wartime management.

This is what it means for force to become law. Iran is not simply blocking ships. It is regulating them, invoicing them, and giving itself the legal language to defend that behaviour once the guns fall quiet.

Islands’ sovereignty and the human layer

Strip Larak from its geography and you miss half the story. Hormuz cannot be seen as just another free-floating blue line on an analyst’s map. It is a dense, lived space of islands, coastlines, fishing ports, naval outposts, and communities that have grown up under the shadow of foreign fleets and sanctions.

For half a century, the world has been taught to treat the islands of Abu Musa and the Tunbs as footnotes, little “disputed” specks on the map. In reality, they, along with Qeshm and Larak, sit inside a network of surveillance and reach that allows Iran to watch, shape, and, when necessary, squeeze movement at the mouth of the Gulf. The Larak Corridor is not a freakish one-off. It grows out of a sovereignty geography that has been quietly undermining the fiction of an “American lake” in Hormuz for decades.

There is a human layer that rarely makes it into Western press. Iran’s maritime posture is not only the work of admirals in Tehran, but it also rests on coastal communities, port workers, pilots, and the broader ecosystem that includes the Naval Basij, the volunteer maritime defence network you researched earlier. That network, with its small craft, its local knowledge, and its political symbolism, has always been part of how Iran thinks about defending the strait, not simply by hardware but by socialised resistance.

For people living on those coasts, the corridor is not a theoretical legal innovation. It is one of the few visible signs, in the middle of bombardment and assassination, that their state can still impose some order at the place where global power once promised them none. Seen from there, the Larak Corridor looks less like opportunism and more like a resilient country insisting that sovereignty is not an abstract word but something that can be exercised in a specific channel of water under fire.

The Gulf pays for the war

The political brilliance of the Larak move is in who gets billed for it: not Washington first, not Tel Aviv first, but the Gulf order that enabled this war and is now trapped in its consequences.

Gulf governments were not properly warned, their objections were ignored, and Europe was largely marginalised from the decision-making that triggered the regional blowback they are now paying for.

That one sentence punctures the comforting story that the old security architecture still works. Some Gulf capitals had urged Washington not to attack Iran. Some tried to keep a distance from the opening salvo. Europe itself was treated less like a partner than a spectator told to brace for impact.

The cost has not been theoretical. Freight risk exploded. Insurance premiums climbed. Cargo timetables turned into contingency plans. The “guarantee” on offer from Washington turns out to be a package in which Gulf states host bases, bankroll weapons, and then absorb the retaliation and economic shock once the trigger is pulled.

The evidence of fatigue is patchy but real. Saudi Arabia has intensified direct contacts with Iran. Regional diplomacy has tried to put some sort of brake on escalation. At the same time, influential Gulf voices still speak of the need to degrade Iranian capabilities, not simply to stop the war. That tension is important as it shows a region caught between fear of Iran and a growing recognition that the American-led order is no longer a stable shelter.

Larak turns that contradiction from an argument into a daily experience. Every tanker that has to negotiate with Tehran, every nervous call from an insurer, or every investor wondering whether to avoid Gulf exposure. All of it drives home the same lesson. A war on Iranian sovereignty will not remain confined to Iranian soil or to the screens of Western news shows. It will leak into ports, pipelines, desalination plants, stock exchanges, and households across the Gulf.

From a pro-peace, pro-sovereignty perspective, that is the real indictment. The architecture that claimed to keep the region safe has delivered a crisis that no one can turn off without Iran’s involvement.

Beyond the dollar and toward the Global South

Although it may sound like a speculative slogan about some future yuan world, it is a description of an experiment already underway. Iran’s proposed Hormuz management plan speaks in the language of rial-based tolls and financial arrangements. Broader analysis around the corridor connects that direction of travel to non-Western settlement channels and to the wider de-dollarisation agenda now running through BRICS and the Global South.

The point is not that the petrodollar disappears tomorrow. It is that under bombardment, and with its conventional military apparatus under fire, Iran is still moving a slice of energy trade onto monetary rails where Washington’s sanctions power is weaker.

Hormuz is doubling as a testbed for de-dollarized energy payments.

China’s experiment with yuan-settled LNG from Qatar in 2023 showed that Gulf energy can clear outside dollar channels when states choose to build the infrastructure. Iran’s 2023 agreement with the UAE to use the dirham in bilateral trade, while imperfect because of the dirham’s peg, still represents a deliberate shift into regional banking circuits that cost Washington more to police. Meanwhile, BRICS has been advancing alternative payment mechanisms and settlement systems designed precisely to chip away at dollar centrality.

The Larak Corridor slots into this picture with unnerving ease. It rewards states willing to engage with Tehran rather than join the sanctions chorus. It opens space for deals denominated in rial, dirham, or yuan. It demonstrates that a Global South state under open attack can still exert leverage over the physical and financial pathways through which the world’s energy moves.

Tehran is not claiming a clean victory over the dollar. What it is doing is more subversive. It is using the war to erase the assumption that Washington can both close and reopen Hormuz at will, militarily and financially. Every transaction that clears outside Western rails, every ship that goes through a lane managed on Iranian terms, is another chip knocked out of a system that has long treated Gulf energy as an American instrument first and a regional lifeline second.

That is why the story of Larak is not simply a regional shipping story, but rather a frontline in the contest over who writes the rules of the global economy.

The old order is cracking

What has happened at Larak is not the final victory of a new world, but it is one of the clearest signs that the old one is cracking in real time.

For decades, the script ran on autopilot. The United States secured the sea lanes. The Gulf monarchies supplied the fuel. The dollar priced it. Everyone else adjusted. The war on Iran was supposed to be another scene in that familiar play. Instead, it exposed how much of it had become theatre.

Iran’s answer didn’t need to be polite, and it was never meant to be. It was disciplined, coercive, and grounded in the one thing Washington cannot replace with rhetoric, the geographic reality of where Hormuz actually lies. Tehran avoided the trap of a universal shutdown and built a mechanism that punishes enemies, rewards accommodation, and keeps the region inside a rolling uncertainty that no press conference in Washington can dispel.

That is why the phrase differentiated transit regime carries so much weight in this war. It captures the fact that what is happening off Larak is not chaos. It is governance under attack. It is a sovereign state, bombed and sanctioned, insisting that it still has the right to decide who crosses its doorstep and on what terms.

For people in the Gulf, it is about whether their ports can stay open, whether their desalination plants keep running, and whether their economies can withstand another cycle of manufactured crisis. For people in Iran, it is about whether anything in their immediate environment still belongs to them after decades of war, sanctions, and threats of regime change.

Seen from that angle, the Larak Corridor is not a provocation. It is a verdict. Peace will not come from pretending the old arrangement can simply be restored. It will come, if it comes at all, when the region and the wider world accept the reality written into the water off Larak. A Gulf built on assaults against Iranian sovereignty cannot remain prosperous, stable, or truly sovereign itself. Not now, and not in the long term.

Iran’s navy has been battered. Its cities have been hit. Its leaders have been hunted. Yet at the most critical chokepoint on earth, the war machine that promised to reopen the map still cannot make Hormuz move on its own terms.

Sovereignty, once attacked, does not always retreat. Sometimes it answers by redrawing the map and forcing those who lit the fire to live with the new lines.

April 1, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , , | Comments Off on The Larak Corridor: Iran’s Rial Gate With No US, No Israel, and No Way Around

‘Economic terrorism’: Steel facilities hit again in US-Israeli strike

Press TV – April 1, 2026

Isfahan’s Mobarakeh Steel Company says it has been attacked for a second time by the US-Israeli aggression.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the company said warplanes targeted a number of vital sections of its infrastructure at 23:00 p.m. local time Tuesday.

Initial assessments indicate the attack has caused significant damage to several parts of the company, the report said.

The enemy also targeted a subsidiary of Mobarakeh Steel Company called Sefid Dasht Steel Company in the southwestern Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province.

Due to policies put in place after the previous attack on Thursday, only a small number of employees were present and just a few of them suffered minor injuries, according to the statement.

The Mobarakeh Steel Company is Iran’s largest steel producer and one of the biggest industrial complexes in West Asia and North Africa, playing a central role in the country’s steel industry.

In another attack on one of Iran’s most important industrial units, the Khuzestan Steel Company was also targeted on Friday, which caused damage to parts of its facilities.

Iran’s Human Rights Organization issued a statement on Wednesday, condemning the US-Israeli aggression’s “systematic strikes” against civilian infrastructure.

“These attacks are a blatant violation of international law and a form of economic terrorism and their goal is to put maximum pressure on Iran’s civilian population,” it said.

Factories, including steel plants, are the main livelihood of millions of Iranians and the aggression’s goal of destroying them is a clear violation of Geneva Conventions and a war crime.

The organization called on the international community to break its silence on the US-Israeli aggression war crimes against Iran’s populace and hold the enemy accountable for its violation of human rights.

The US and Israeli armed forces launched their military aggression against Iran in late February by attacking 30 targets across Tehran, assassinating Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and several senior Iranian officials.

Since then, Iranian armed forces have retaliated swiftly by launching barrages of missiles and drones at Israeli‑occupied territories as well as US bases across the region.

Iranian officials say targeting US military bases in the region constitutes “legitimate self‑defense.”

Referring to Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, they say Iran has the legal right to defend itself against “acts of aggression” by the US or the Israeli regime.

April 1, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on ‘Economic terrorism’: Steel facilities hit again in US-Israeli strike

Rethinking America’s greatest threat: Iran vs. Israel-Firsters

By Jamal Kanj | MEMO | March 31, 2026

I filled my car tank this week and paid 40% more than I did just a month ago. That isn’t just an economic abstraction, but another indirect Israeli “surcharge” on American consumers. Meanwhile, Donald Trump spends another getaway weekend at his Mar-a-Lago golf course, a trip subsidized by the same taxpayers who are forced to choose between feeding their families or fueling their cars.

Trump’s campaign rhetoric against foreign wars had resonated with American voters who wanted their government to prioritize domestic economy over foreign intervention. He built his movement by criticizing past administrations, Republican and Democrat, for squandering American blood and money abroad. Nevertheless, here we are again: record-high gas prices at home, and thousands of miles away, American soldiers are once again in harm’s way, drawn into another made-for-Israel war.

“Drill, baby, drill,” Trump promised to lower oil prices. Reality, however, tells a different story. The U.S. is producing more oil than ever, and consumers are paying as never before. Why? Because “drill, baby, drill” was never about lowering prices, it was about maximizing profits.

During the 1973 oil crisis, the American Israeli-managed media blamed the higher prices on Arab “greed,” often resorting to racist and derogatory stereotypes. Today, U.S. companies produce enough oil to meet or exceed domestic consumptions, yet tax-subsidized oil corporations keep prices at record highs. Suddenly, it isn’t “greed” anymore, or “towelheads,” it’s just “market” prices. This is while Trump continues to claim that the U.S. is not impacted by oil moving through the Strait of Hormuz.

If so, what exactly is driving prices? If it’s neither production costs nor a supply-and-demand imbalance, then what is it? Profiteering from international crises 7,000 miles away. What’s the value of “drill, baby, drill” and boasting about “oil independence’” if American consumers pay international crisis prices for oil extracted from America’s backyard? The reality is a bitter irony: U.S. taxpayers subsidize the production of oil, but still pay a war premium “market” price.

None of this should come as a surprise. It is part of being dragged into a war planned in Tel Aviv, promoted by “Israel-first” loyalists in Washington, and disconnected from America’s national interest. It is the geopolitical equivalent of a reckless spender charging a credit card with no intention of footing the bill. The proxy dictates the strategy, while the American public is left to pay for the fallout.

It is a lopsided relationship, because in Washington, access is about money not representation. Israel-first policies are not discussed in town halls, but planned behind closed doors in donor circles. Take for instance, the late Sheldon Adelson who bought Trump’s policies: moving the U.S. embassy to occupied Jerusalem, and the illegal recognition of Israeli theft of the Syrian Golan Heights. Today, his widow, the Israeli/American, Miriam Adelson is pushing for wars on behalf of the country she “loves more” than America.

Trump promised to put “America First,” in actuality, it is Israel-first donor’s agenda: billionaires like Larry Ellison, Bill Ackman, Alex Karp, Miriam Adelson, Haim Saban, Michael Dell ,,, etc. Their Israel-first wish list, supersedes America First.

The contradiction becomes even sharper when rhetoric is measured against action. As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump repeatedly attacked Joe Biden for funding military support to help Ukraine fight its own war. Yet as president, he is now asking Congress to add $200 billion to an already swelling deficit and conscripting American soldiers to fight on behalf of another country. And to pay for it, Republican leadership is considering billing the American patient through cuts to domestic healthcare.

It’s beyond comprehension. Republicans suddenly discover their “fiscal conscience” willing to defund the health of their own citizens, when they can pay for it, at least in part, by trimming the massive annual aid to Israel and its military industrial complex.

Trump’s hypocrisy, falsehoods, and relentless projection are no longer just personal or political quirks, they have become normalized in Washington. For him, projection functions as a survival mechanism: attacking others to mask his own inadequacies. The ironies are as consistent as they are galling: Trump once mocked Barack Obama for playing too much golf, when he spends his weekends—even in a time of war—on his own greens. He branded Joe Biden as ‘Sleepy Joe,’ when it is Trump who now drifts off during high-stakes briefings and meetings. He does not merely criticize his opponents; he projects his own deficiencies onto them, displacing his reality to escape accountability.

Recent hyperbolic statements underscore those concerns. In five consecutive days, Donald Trump fired off at five shifting positions regarding the Strait of Hormuz. A frantic confusion that signals a policy sinking deeper into a foreign quagmire. This is the definition of a failed command: objectives that mutate by the hour, missions that expand without clarity, under a stewardship that reacts instead of leading.

Amid this uncertainty, Americans are justified in asking fundamental questions. Why is Trump hell-bent on attacking Iran, a country under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) oversight, its program has been repeatedly certified as civilian, while Israel is permitted to maintain a secret nuclear arsenal, no IAEA supervision, and with zero accountability? Why would Washington demand absolute transparency from Tehran while enabling the total opacity of Tel Aviv.

Even more critical, how is a nuclear-armed Iran, equipped with a delivery mechanism, a credible threat to the U.S.? By what logic would it pose more of a risk than the nuclear arsenals of North Korea, China, or Russia? How does Iran rise above these in the hierarchy of existential risks? It does not, because this is less about the U.S. than it is about Israel.

America’s greatest threat is not Iran’s nuclear technology, it is rather the undue influence of Israeli firsters embedded in the U.S. media, Congress and the White House steering an Israel-first agenda that leverages American credibility, and channels U.S. resources to serve Israeli endless wars.

March 31, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on Rethinking America’s greatest threat: Iran vs. Israel-Firsters

Tehran approves new Hormuz plan with major restrictions

Al Mayadeen | March 31, 2026

An Iranian lawmaker confirmed the approval of a draft bill to manage the Strait of Hormuz, signaling a major shift in Tehran’s approach to one of the world’s most critical maritime chokepoints.

Mojtaba Zarei, a member of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee in parliament, said lawmakers had endorsed a “project to manage the Strait of Hormuz,” according to Fars and Tasnim news agencies.

Zarei outlined that the bill includes comprehensive measures covering security arrangements, maritime navigation safety, and environmental considerations. It also introduces financial frameworks, including fee systems, to be conducted in Iranian currency.

The legislation further seeks to prevent American and Israeli-linked vessels from transiting the strait, alongside restricting passage for countries participating in unilateral sanctions against Iran.

Expanded sovereign and military role

The bill reinforces Iran’s sovereign authority over the strait, granting a central role to the country’s armed forces in its implementation.

It also emphasizes coordination with the Sultanate of Oman in shaping the legal framework governing the waterway.

Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref earlier stated that the management system of the Strait of Hormuz “has changed and will not return to what it was”, as Tehran works to convert recent gains into concrete economic and security guarantees that affirm its sovereign interests.

Iran could emerge stronger from the war, more dangerous to US: FT

Financial Times columnist Gideon Rachman argues that Iran is emerging from the US-Israeli war on it in a position of strategic strength, having demonstrated the capacity to close the Strait of Hormuz and impose a reported transit toll on commercial shipping, in a development that has exposed the limits of US military and diplomatic power in the region.

There is no question that the Islamic Republic has absorbed significant blows since the war began. Senior leadership, including the country’s leader, was martyred in the opening hours of the aggression, and missile launchers, ships, and command centres have been reportedly attacked.

Yet Iran has not merely held its ground. By effectively closing the strait and charging vessels a reported $2 million each for passage, Tehran has converted military pressure into economic leverage, and potentially into a permanent revenue stream.

With approximately 140 ships transiting the strait daily under normal conditions, the toll mechanism could generate billions of dollars per month for the Islamic Republic.

March 31, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on Tehran approves new Hormuz plan with major restrictions

No Threat Can Force Iran’s Surrender /Trita Parsi & Lt Cl Daniel Davis

Daniel Davis / Deep Dive – March 30, 2026

March 31, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Video, Wars for Israel | , , | Comments Off on No Threat Can Force Iran’s Surrender /Trita Parsi & Lt Cl Daniel Davis

America Racing to Strategic Defeat in Iran: Lt Col Daniel Davis

Daniel Davis / Deep Dive

March 30, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Video, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on America Racing to Strategic Defeat in Iran: Lt Col Daniel Davis

Pakistan to Host US-Iran Talks

Sputnik – March 29, 2026

US-Iran talks may take place in Islamabad in the coming days, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said.

All parties have expressed confidence in Pakistan’s mediating role, he added, noting that China “fully supports” the initiative.

Earlier on Sunday, foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, and Egypt arrived in Pakistan to discuss potential ways to permanently resolve the current conflict in the Persian Gulf.

The ministers also discussed various proposals for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint for global oil and liquefied natural gas trade.

The proposals include establishing a management consortium and charging fees, sources say.

Pakistan, which shares a border with Iran, has leveraged its strong ties with both Tehran and Washington to position itself as a key diplomatic channel in the conflict.

March 29, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Comments Off on Pakistan to Host US-Iran Talks

How Indonesia’s tilt toward the US left it stranded in the Strait of Hormuz

People line up for gasoline at a Pertamina’s gas station in Sukoharjo, Central Java, Indonesia, on March 26, 2026. [Agoes Rudianto – Anadolu Agency]
By Bhima Yudhistira and Dr. Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat | MEMO | March 29, 2026

In today’s fractured geopolitical landscape, energy flows are no longer governed by markets alone. They are shaped—often decisively—by politics. Nowhere is this clearer than in the unfolding crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, where Indonesia finds itself on the wrong side of a strategic divide.

As tensions escalate in the Middle East, Iran has adopted a selective approach to maritime access through the strait, one of the world’s most vital energy chokepoints. Rather than a blanket closure, Tehran has opted for a calibrated policy: friendly nations may pass; others must wait.

The consequences for Indonesia are immediate and stark. While countries like Malaysia, Thailand, China, India and Russia have secured safe passage for their tankers, two Indonesian vessels remain stranded. This is not a logistical hiccup. It is a geopolitical signal.

Iran’s own officials have made the logic explicit. Access is granted based on diplomatic alignment and strategic trust. Nations perceived as cooperative—or at least non-hostile—are accommodated. Others are left navigating uncertainty.

Indonesia, it appears, has misread the moment.

For decades, Jakarta prided itself on a doctrine of “free and active” foreign policy—non-aligned, pragmatic and flexible. That posture allowed Indonesia to engage multiple power centers without becoming entangled in their rivalries. But recent policy choices suggest a drift away from that equilibrium.

By signing the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) with the United States and joining the Board of Peace (BoP), Indonesia has moved beyond nominal non-alignment into visible proximity to the US orbit.

The ART is not merely a trade deal; it reshapes tariffs, supply chains and regulatory frameworks in ways that bind Indonesia more closely to U.S.-led economic and security systems.  Meanwhile, the decision to join the BoP—widely criticized at home as a strategic misstep—signals alignment with Washington’s Middle East posture, particularly in the context of Gaza.

In Tehran’s eyes, these moves blur the line between cooperation and alignment. In a conflict environment defined by binary loyalties, even economic agreements and diplomatic platforms are read as strategic signals. In that context, perception is policy.

The cost of that perception is now measurable.

First, energy security. The Strait of Hormuz handles a significant share of global oil shipments, and disruptions there ripple across supply chains worldwide. If Indonesian tankers cannot pass freely, the country must source crude and liquefied petroleum gas from alternative routes—longer, riskier and far more expensive.

Shipping costs rise. Insurance premiums spike. Subsidy burdens swell. In a country where energy prices are politically sensitive, the fiscal implications are profound. What begins as a diplomatic miscalculation quickly becomes a budgetary strain.

Second, competitiveness. Malaysia and Thailand, having secured passage, are better positioned to maintain stable energy inputs and export flows. Their manufacturing sectors—already integrated into global supply chains—gain an advantage over Indonesia’s.

This is not just about oil. It is about the broader architecture of trade. Delays in energy supply affect production timelines. Disruptions in shipping lanes threaten exports of automotive components, industrial goods and commodities. In a tightly coupled global economy, reliability is currency—and Indonesia risks devaluation.

Third, macroeconomic stability. Higher import costs feed directly into inflation. A widening subsidy bill pressures public finances. And as external balances deteriorate, the rupiah faces renewed volatility. These are not abstract risks; they are the building blocks of economic stress.

All of this stems from a single, uncomfortable reality: geopolitics has overtaken economics.

Iran’s policy in the Strait of Hormuz underscores a broader shift in global order. Strategic chokepoints are no longer neutral spaces. They are instruments of leverage. Access is conditional. Neutrality, if not actively maintained, is easily questioned.

Indonesia’s response so far—continued negotiation and diplomatic outreach—may yet yield results. But negotiation from a position of ambiguity is inherently difficult. Other countries have secured passage not merely through dialogue, but through clear, consistent alignment in the eyes of Tehran.

Jakarta must therefore confront a difficult question: can it afford its current trajectory?

Recalibrating foreign policy does not mean abandoning partnerships or retreating into isolation. It means restoring balance. Indonesia’s strength has always been its ability to engage across divides—to be trusted by competing blocs precisely because it was not seen as belonging to any of them.

That credibility now needs rebuilding.

The immediate priority is practical: secure the release and passage of Indonesian vessels, stabilize energy supply and prevent further economic fallout. But the longer-term task is strategic. Indonesia must reassess its positioning in a world where neutrality is no longer assumed, but demonstrated.

The Strait of Hormuz crisis is a warning. It reveals how quickly global alignments can translate into tangible costs—and how vulnerable even large economies can be when geopolitical signals are misread.

For Indonesia, the lesson is clear. In an era of weaponized interdependence, foreign policy is no longer a distant abstraction. It is an economic imperative.

And getting it wrong is no longer affordable.

March 29, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Comments Off on How Indonesia’s tilt toward the US left it stranded in the Strait of Hormuz

Israel’s Iran Strategy Uses US Military & Gulf States as Its Pawns

By Robert Inlakesh | Palestine Chronicle | March 29, 2026

While most honest analysts will conclude that the decision made by the White House came as a result of pressure from the Israelis or that this is a war that is being fought for Tel Aviv’s interests, many fail to see any clear strategy at play.

In order to understand the strategy behind the US-Israeli assault on the Islamic Republic, you must first remove the notion that the United States is in the driving seat to any significant extent.

Almost immediately after the 12-Day War in June of 2025, the Israeli leadership was already preparing for the next round. On July 7, Axios News even reported that officials in Tel Aviv believed that US President Trump would give them another green light to attack.

Meanwhile, the most influential Zionist think tanks in Washington DC, the likes of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), were openly discussing the necessity of a new round of confrontations.

These think tanks facilitated discussions and published pieces in which they made it clear that while the next round was inevitable, it had to be the last round, and that the US’s involvement would be important in deciding outcomes.

Understanding the Israeli Strategy

It is no coincidence that senior Israeli officials, all the way from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to opposition leader Yair Lapid, have all recently publicly endorsed the “Greater Israel Project”.

This is not simply posturing, this is their goal. But how does this fit into the Iran war? Well, it will begin to make sense when the context is all provided.

Firstly, the Greater Israel Project’s strategy is grounded in an academic article published by a former Israeli intelligence officer and journalist, Oded Yinon. The plan did not advocate for the physical expansion of the Israeli State’s borders over every nation between the Euphrates River and the River Nile, but instead opted for an approach that would transform Israel into a regional empire.

In order to achieve this goal of a “Greater Israel”, it would first necessitate the collapse of all the region’s sovereign States, which would instead be broken up into warring sectarian and ethno-regimes.

The purpose of achieving the disintegration of the surrounding nations is a simple concept to understand. If they are all divided, economically weak, and lack the military capabilities to stand up to Israel, it makes it easy for the Israelis to control them.

Take, for example, the Kurdish Regional Government in northern Iraq, or the semi-autonomous zone in southern Syria’s Sweida Province, now carved out by Israeli-backed separatists.

Syria and Iraq are perfect examples of what happens when a nation is torn apart and sectarianism, or ethno-supremacist ideologies, are spread through deliberate propaganda campaigns.

Although Secular Arab Nationalism failed in the region, the chief proponent of it, former Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser, was indeed correct in his analysis as to why it was a net positive for the region.

A united Arab World would undoubtedly be far stronger than the simple modern nation-states of the region, whose borders were drawn up by European colonial powers.

For the Israelis, they had always sought to impose this long-term solution upon West Asia, of a “Greater Israel”, but were previously seeking to do it in a slow and methodical way, opposed to a ruthlessly violent one.

Part of this way of thinking was centered around the idea that Israel maintained a “deterrence capacity”, meaning that their military power was capable of deterring any significant strategic threat from rising against it.

On October 7, 2023, the Qassam Brigades of Hamas crippled this strategy and debunked the notion of their “deterrence capacity”. A few thousand Palestinian fighters managed to overcome the most militarily advanced army in the region, bursting through the gates of their concentration camp, despite the world’s most advanced surveillance systems being present in the area.

The Palestinian groups themselves appear to have been genuinely surprised by how easily they were capable of achieving their goals. Not only did they inflict a blow on the Israeli military and seize captives, but they also managed to collapse the entire Israeli southern command, all with light weapons.

To Israel, the message was clear: The Arab populations of Jordan and Egypt had taken to the streets, some even pouring across the Jordanian border. The weakest link in the Iranian-led Axis of Resistance had dealt the Israeli military its most embarrassing defeat. Deterrence was dead, and former Secretary General of Hezbollah, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, was proven correct: “Israel is weaker than a spider’s web”.

The decision to commit genocide was therefore ordered. Israel believed it had to show the Arab World what it was truly capable of, as a means of asserting its control. In the cases of the Arab populations in Jordan, Egypt, and even the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, the fear tactics appeared to have worked. Then they made an irreversible mistake.

In September 2024, they assassinated Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, a move that completely changed the thinking of Iran and its allies. Now, the message had been received loud and clear; preparations for the last war had to be made. Up until then, the Axis of Resistance had been attempting to close the chapter of the Gaza genocide; now, they understood that destroying Gaza wasn’t the end goal of Israel.

Israel had decided it would accelerate its national project of gradual expansion, meaning that the Islamic Republic of Iran had to be deposed. A failure to overthrow the Iranian government would represent an existential threat to this project.

Israel’s Iran War Strategy

As I have been writing in the Palestine Chronicle for the past eight months, the only viable strategy that the Israelis could hope to use, in order to see any gains, is one where Iran’s civilian infrastructure is the primary target.

That means: taking out power stations, desalination plants along with other key water facilities – less than 3% of Iran’s water needs come from desalination – while blowing up oil and gas facilities, bombing factories, destroying agricultural lands, inflicting costly environmental catastrophes, and attempting to cripple the Iranian State’s ability to function. In other words, a policy that replicates the Gaza model on a much wider scale, impacting a nation of 92 million people.

Tel Aviv’s goal here is a long-term regime change operation, one that will happen gradually following the war itself. Israel knows that destroying Iran’s military capabilities was never going to be possible. Yes, they may have some successes, but totally crippling their missile and drone programs through strikes alone won’t work.

Therefore, they seek to try and force Tehran to expend a large portion of its missile arsenal, making it more difficult for them to start a new war in the near future following the conflict’s conclusion.

If you look at Syria, for example, the government of Bashar al-Assad did not collapse during the war. Instead, the Syrian State slowly eroded from the inside, due to its isolation and the US-EU’s maximum pressure sanctions.

In the end, the Syrian State was largely bought out and was so corrupt that there was little left. When Ahmed al-Shara’a marched into Aleppo and then Damascus, he did so without any fight, although there were some exceptions where a few units resisted.

Now, Damascus is open for Israeli citizens, the leadership in Syria meets with Israeli officials face-to-face, and has even set up a joint normalizing mechanism between both sides. Therefore, using the long game strategy against Iran makes the most sense in Israel’s strategic thinking.

Then there comes the convenient side effect of the strategy, which begins to explain how the US leadership is not in the driver’s seat at all. That being the weakening of the Persian Gulf Arab nations.

Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are experiencing untold economic devastation as a result of this war. The reason for this, evidently, is that they all host US bases and have permitted a large presence of American military and intelligence personnel inside their countries.

Oman, and to a lesser extent Qatar, have been the only Gulf nations that appear to be pushing back against the true culprits in this war, the Israelis and US. Muscat in particular has blasted the “security arrangements” in the region and condemned normalising efforts with Tel Aviv, pointing their fingers in the right direction.

Bahrain and especially the UAE have gone in the opposite direction. They are only increasing their pro-Israeli and anti-Iran rhetoric, which comes as little surprise given that both have normalized relations with the Zionists. Riyadh, on the other hand, appears to be on a separate trajectory, with its rhetoric being diplomatic, while its actions suggest it is hostile towards Iran.

The Israelis, despite their efforts to normalize ties with the Gulf States, do not want strong nations to exist anywhere in West Asia under their accelerationist approach to achieving an Israel Empire. This appears to be something that the leadership in Abu Dhabi and Manama have not proven intelligent enough to figure out.

That is why the Israeli leadership had started to announce their next targets, following Iran, were the leaderships in Turkiye and even Pakistan. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not a threat in the way that Iran is, but he does command one of the most powerful military forces in the region and rules over a developing economy, working towards transforming itself into a key global trade hub.

Alone, the idea that Turkiye would begin to build an economic or defence alliance with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or Egypt, poses a direct threat to the Greater Israel Project. In Syria, we see a similar thing; although Ankara does not present a clear and present military challenge to the Israelis as a result of its influence in Damascus, it acts as a potential competitor, a nation that may seek to curtail Israeli expansionist plots.

The GCC countries, which are in alliance with one another, maintain immense economic power. As we see today, if the Strait of Hormuz is disrupted, the entire world is impacted. Back in 1973, these Persian Gulf Arab States exercised that power temporarily. One thing to keep in mind with the Israelis is that they never forget history and are infamous for holding grudges.

So, the dismantlement of the Gulf Arab nations’ economies, or at the very least, the weakening of these countries, is viewed as a positive development in Tel Aviv. As for the US, this war is similarly disastrous, but Israel fails to care less.

This war has destroyed US power projection, making it open to its top chosen adversaries – Russia and China – in a number of other arenas. Donald Trump personally has business ties in the Gulf, which don’t benefit from this conflict, so even on a personal level, it isn’t exactly a victory. The entire Western World, allying itself with the US and Israel, is suffering economically, and as a result, this will mean social unrest is possible, even if it takes time to come to fruition.

An embarrassment has already been dealt to the US military, which is being made to look like a paper tiger, as Mao Zedong once called it. Its future in the Gulf region may have just been ruined, along with those billions, or trillions as Trump believes, of investments – from Gulf States – may no longer materialize. The entire White House Security Doctrine, published last year, has been torn up and set on fire.

In terms of soldier casualties, the Trump administration is evidently hiding the true figure, but it goes without saying that this isn’t good news. NATO has been forced to flee Iraq. The US has even lifted sanctions on Moscow and a limited number of sanctions on Iranian oil. There is simply nothing that the US stands to gain from this war, even if it were to somehow pull off a victory; at this point, it would prove pyrrhic.

With all of this being said, what the Israelis are doing is making a massive gamble. A series of risks that appear so far to be backfiring, as Tehran appears to have pre-empted the conspiracies set against it. The final results of the war are not yet in, but the odds appear to be on the side of Iran.

– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.

March 29, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Israel’s Iran Strategy Uses US Military & Gulf States as Its Pawns

Iran: Trump wanted regime change, now just begging for Hormuz to open

Al Mayadeen | March 29, 2026

Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on Sunday, marking the 30th day of Iranian national defense against the US-Israeli aggression, that the US president’s objectives have dramatically shifted since the start of the war on Iran.

“The enemy who claimed to have destroyed our air, naval, and missile forces, and had a plan for the collapse of the Islamic Republic, has now set his goal on reopening the Strait of Hormuz,” Ghalibaf said.

“Reopening a strait that was open before the war has become Trump’s operational dream,” he said mockingly.

Ghalibaf stated that the war on Iran, which has come to be known as the Ramadan War, is now at its most critical moment. He noted that Trump is unable to secure the support of European countries, that energy markets are out of control, and that food inflation is approaching.

The war bites the belligerent

The Parliament Speaker detailed the damage inflicted on US military assets throughout the conflict. “The manifestations of American arrogance, from the F-35 to the aircraft carrier and US regional bases, have suffered major blows,” he said. “Strikes on the Israeli regime have been effective, precise, and foundation-shaking.”

Ghalibaf also highlighted the growing strength of the Resistance Axis across the region.

“Hezbollah in Lebanon, which was constantly threatened with disarmament, is today an important and effective part of the Resistance and has trapped the malignant Israeli regime,” he said.

“The Resistance in Iraq is fighting heroically and has astonished the enemy. Ansarallah in Yemen has breathed new life into the Resistance front and is ready to achieve spectacular surprises.”

“This is the honor and greatness of the Resistance front against the world’s arrogant powers,” Ghalibaf stated. “Trump has been accused worldwide of waging a pointless war and has no answer for his public opinion. The evil of initiating the war has returned to its initiator.”

Here is a background section summarizing the current situation with the Strait of Hormuz, based on the Al Mayadeen article:

The battle for the Strait of Hormuz

Since the US-Israeli war on Iran began on February 28, the Strait of Hormuz, through which approximately one-fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas shipments pass, has become a central front in the war on Iran. Iranian authorities have restricted the movement of vessels linked to the US and “Israel” or those supporting, requiring ships to obtain approval before transiting the strategic waterway.

Tehran has made clear that “nonhostile” ships may pass safely if authorized, while the strait remains “closed only to enemies carrying out cowardly aggression against Iran,” as Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi put it. The Islamic Revolution Guard Corps has turned back multiple container ships attempting to transit without authorization.

Iran’s Parliament is now advancing legislation to impose formal tolls on vessels passing through the strait, a move lawmakers say is designed to assert Tehran’s “sovereignty, control and oversight” over the passage, much like the model applied by Turkey in the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits. The toll system would build on temporary fees applied since late February.

US President Donald Trump has threatened an escalation in the aggression against Iran’s power infrastructure if the strait remains closed, while US attempts to organize international naval escorts to bypass Iran’s control over the strait have so far failed.

The new framework signals Tehran’s intent to use its control over its waterway to regulate access systematically, rather than relying on ad hoc measures, while simultaneously sending a message to the US and “Israel” about the country’s ability to control this key energy corridor.

March 29, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Iran: Trump wanted regime change, now just begging for Hormuz to open

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