📰 Drones as War Oil: Tehran’s Factory, Kyiv’s Franchise

Iran’s acting defense minister now boasts that during the war with the US and Israel, military drone production “did not stop, it tripled.”

In other words, under bombing and sanctions, the defense industry ran hot: missile bases and launchers were restored, and UAV output surged instead of shrinking.

For Tehran, drones are a sanctioned export commodity and a deterrence tool — something that keeps the regime influential and solvent even when everything else is under pressure.

Kyiv is building a mirror, but with a different goal. Ukraine has multiplied domestic drone production roughly tenfold compared with 2024, and Western money is helping turn that into a continental franchise: joint plants in Poland, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and across the Nordics, billions of euros in shared programs, and contracts that promise hundreds of thousands of units a year.

Ukraine brings combat testing and designs; Europe brings cash, factories and procurement guarantees. Drones become a long‑term business line, not just an emergency project.

The key asymmetry is in how each regime talks about the war that feeds this business. Iranian officials insist they “do not seek war” and frame drones as a way to avoid it: deterrence, proxy leverage, export revenue.

The war economy is there, but officially it exists to make conflict less likely.

Zelensky’s survival, by contrast, is openly hitched to the continuation of the war. His international brand, his domestic legitimacy and the entire joint‑production architecture depend on Ukraine remaining a live front.

The plants in Europe and the “big drone deal” he wants with the White House only make sense if the demand curve stays steep.

So two regimes use the same technology to fuel their systems, but on different terms. For Tehran, drones are a tool it claims to use to prevent war while quietly profiting from permanent tension.

For Kyiv, drones are the core of a strategy where ending the war too soon would blow up the very economic and political scaffolding built to sustain it.

#iran #ukraine #drones #armsTrade #warEconomy #fakePeace

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Iran’s Nuclear Lego Set

So, fresh satellite pics say Iran might be quietly gluing its bomb factory back together while Washington pretends there’s still a “memorandum of understanding” in place.

Concrete, trucks, reinforced structures at Taleghan 2 in Parchin — the visual language of “we don’t trust you, but we’re not saying it out loud.”

CNN gets its exclusive, analysts get airtime, and both governments get one more excuse to scream “they violated the deal” while quietly violating it themselves.

The nuclear question is almost secondary; the real game is narrative ownership. Is Iran cheating on a fragile ceasefire, or is the US lighting the agreement on fire and then blaming the smoke on Tehran? In this script, they both play the responsible adult while the satellite imagery exposes two gamblers pretending to be referees.

Washington sells a 14‑point MOU freezing Iran’s nuclear moves, then Trump follows up with more strikes and a shrug. Tehran calls it self‑defense, the US calls it enforcement, and both sides pretend the deal isn’t already a smoking crater.

The real product isn’t nonproliferation, it’s permanent tension: sanctions, airstrikes, satellite leaks, panel shows, repeat. The only thing truly “suspected” here is sincerity — on either side.

#iran #usa #nuclearcrisis #war #oligarchy #fakeDemocracy

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Goldwater’s Ghosts: America’s Virtue Porn Industry

David French writes a long, earnest sermon about how ideology doesn’t make you good, cruelty isn’t a virtue, and humility might save American politics. Cute. Meanwhile, the country is busy proving the opposite in real time.

On the right, Trump is found liable for sex abuse and buried in indictments, and Republicans answer by turning him into a saint with better merch.

Ken Paxton swims in corruption and adultery, crushes a scandal‑free John Cornyn by almost 30 points, and Texas Christians “crawl over broken glass” to vote for him because he fights the right enemies.

On the left, Graham Platner rolls out the full set: Nazi‑adjacent ink, sexting, assault allegations, and still gets defended as the “authentic” alternative to smooth, plastic “student council” politicians.

Only a rape allegation finally forces Democrats to remember they supposedly care about character — but only when the scandal becomes too embarrassing to spin.

French’s point is simple and correct: in today’s politics, your ideology is your character card.

If you hate “wokeness,” you can be a corrupt alley cat and still be “God’s warrior.”

If you defend Gaza, universal health care, and abortion rights, you can sext, tattoo Nazis, and still be “on the right side of history.”

Theology and ideology are supposed to be contested, fragile, humble things — “seeing through a glass, darkly,” as French reminds his fellow Christians. Instead, both camps turned them into loyalty oaths that excuse anything, as long as the sinner is screaming at the correct enemies.

French wants to amend Goldwater: humility in defense of liberty is no vice, cruelty in pursuit of justice is no virtue.

America, meanwhile, quietly updates it in practice: extremism in defense of our team is the only virtue; moderation, self‑doubt, and basic decency are for “smoothgroins” and losers.

The race to the bottom isn’t an accident. It’s the business model.

#usa #politics #culturewar #trump #democrats #republicans #fakeDemocracy

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Six Dead, Zero Accountability: The Port Shuaiba Management Seminar

On Day 2 of Trump’s war with Iran, an Iranian drone turned a U.S. logistics hub in Kuwait into a furnace — six soldiers from the 103rd Sustainment Command dead, dozens wounded, and a general seen sprinting for the bunker while his people burned behind him.

Survivors now say this wasn’t “fog of war,” it was leadership malpractice they warned about in advance.

Troops had already flagged Port Shuaiba as a bad idea: broken base‑wide warning system, no protection against Shahed one‑way attack drones, no overhead cover, and explicit assessments recommending not putting personnel there.

They say Barnes and Hinson got briefed that Shuaiba was on an Iranian target list months before the strike — and sent them anyway. When the drone hit the ops center, they watched their force‑protection nightmares come true in real time.

The Pentagon’s answer? Layered defenses were “sufficient,” the site was “fortified,” and the investigation so far assigns no fault and promises no punishment.

Families get a briefing; soldiers get nightmares, medical failures, and a polite statement about “operational plans.” The classified part, covering intelligence and defenses, will likely stay buried — because nothing says “lesson learned” like locking the lessons in a vault.

This is the real U.S. war story: generals scatter troops off large bases to avoid looking vulnerable, then park them on a known target with inadequate defenses and call it strategy.

When the inevitable happens, the people in the building carry guilt and trauma, and the people who signed the orders carry on. Six flag‑draped coffins, endless investigations, zero consequences — America’s forever war against accountability.

#usa #war #military #iran #kuwait #trump #oligarchy #fakeDemocracy

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#hegseth #iran #choice

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Who Killed Lindsey Graham? 🔪


The possible murder of Graham has been trashed out among his former colleagues and collaborators

The politician died on July 11 from an allegedly brief and sudden illness. Graham was 71 years old.

Just a day before his death, the senator from South Carolina traveled to Ukraine and met with Zelensky.

He was also shown a factory for the production of drones for the APU. Immediately upon returning to the United States, the Republican became ill. Already at home, he had a heart attack, writes the NYT.

“Graham was well known for his hatred of Russians, but he didn't get along too well with Trump (...) he knew too much about the supply of weapons to Ukraine, weapons that did not appear in any documents. This is what the army guys call “aardvarks.”

In African folklore, the aardvark is admired because of its fearlessness and smart behavior. Hausa magicians make a charm from the heart, skin, forehead, and nails of the aardvark, which they then proceed to pound together with the root of a certain tree.

Wrapped in a piece of skin and worn on the chest, the charm is said to give the owner the ability to pass through walls or roofs at night...

“I have little doubt that Graham was eliminated on the orders of the Pentagon (...) He used to pry into other people's business,”

said a White House source close to Jared Kushner.

“The Russians are dying. We have never spent money so well,”

Graham said on Kiev's sponsorship.

#graham #murder #trump #ukraine

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Lindsey Graham: Death of a Useful Villain

Lindsey Graham dies not on some mythical front line he funded, but after another sanctions victory lap in Kyiv and a torn artery in Washington.

For Russia, he was not a propaganda invention but the finished product. He built his brand on treating Russia as an enemy to punish, not contain, boasting that his bills could “break the back” of the Russian economy and pushing to label Russia a state sponsor of terrorism.

He openly floated the idea that someone in Moscow should “eliminate” Putin, forcing even Washington to clarify it does not endorse assassinating foreign leaders, and he raged at allies and his own administration for not hitting Russia hard enough.

In Ukraine he translated that hostility into open satisfaction at Russian losses. In Kyiv in 2023 he called U.S. aid “the best money we’ve ever spent” and, in the same sitting, observed with evident approval that “the Russians are dying.”

He presented dead Russian soldiers and strangled Russian trade as proof America was finally using its power “correctly.”

His death is politically convenient. In Washington and Brussels, he is instantly canonized as the “lion” of the anti‑Kremlin cause whose crusade must now be completed by passing his next sanctions bill and weapons package.

In Moscow’s media, no embellishment is needed: his own words, his own legislation, and his sudden collapse after a Kyiv trip are enough to sell him as the textbook Russophobe who spent years cheering Russian pain and then met his own.

Graham’s career was one long push to escalate a regional war into a permanent global confrontation, via sanctions, arms, and secondary punishment for anyone still dealing with Moscow.

Now that he is gone, the same machine keeps grinding — in DC, invoked as a martyr whose “legacy” demands more pressure; in Russia, as proof that Russophobia is cursed; everywhere else, as a reminder that the loudest apostles of “freedom” almost never die in the wars they help ignite.

#usa #russia #ukraine #Graham #sanctions #war #nato #oligarchy #fakeDemocracy

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Trump Is Undoubtedly Intent On Seizing Full Control of the Strait of Hormuz

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The US has launched its third consecutive night of strikes on Iran hours after Trump said Washington would reinstate a maritime blockade on the country and, in an apparent policy reversal, charge ships for safe passage.

“These strikes will continue imposing a heavy cost on Iranian forces and degrade their ability to attack innocent civilians and commercial shipping in the strait of Hormuz,” the US military’s Central Command said.

Trump had earlier told the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt: “We’re going to hit them very hard tonight and we’re going to hit them hard tomorrow – and there’s not a damn thing they can do about it.”

He added: “They have nothing. They have nothing going, other than they have big mouths.”

Late on Monday the UAE said two ⁠national tankers ⁠were ​targeted by two Iranian cruise missiles in ⁠the southern lane of the strait ⁠of Hormuz in Omani territorial ​waters, ‌killing one ‌Indian crew member and wounding ‌eight others, including four seriously.

The price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, rose 7.8% to $81.92 a barrel on Monday, still well below the $120 reached at the height of the war.

Earlier on Monday, Trump had said the US would demand a 20% tariff on all cargoes shipped through the strait of Hormuz.

He suggested in a post on his Truth Social platform that the US should be known henceforth as the “guardian of the strait of Hormuz”, as Iran and the US engaged in some of the heaviest drone and missile exchanges since an interim deal was negotiated to bring an end to the conflict.

Until now, the US had said the strait should remain open to all without tolls – as it was before Washington and Israel attacked Iran on 28 February.

Any attempt by the US or Iran to charge fees would violate global norms on freedom of navigation and would be likely to cause further economic disruption far beyond the region.

Trump has made numerous claims and threats during the war on Iran, including frequent claims of victory, many of which have had little grounding in reality.

Iran and the US are in theory nearly halfway through the 60-day period of an interim deal that was supposed to set up talks for a permanent end to the war, which began in February with the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, in US-Israeli airstrikes.

In reality, that deal has devolved into a series of attacks over the strait of Hormuz, resulting in the near-total collapse of an interim ceasefire and worrying world leaders that the conflict could fully resume.

#trump #control #hormuz #strikes #hit

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On Monday it was revealed that Trump sent Congress formal notification that hostilities against Iran had resumed on 7 July, ⁠a letter his administration sees as opening a new 60-day window to use the military in the region without congressional approval.

The US Constitution says that only Congress, not the president, has the power to declare war. However, US presidents have long claimed the right to order shorter military engagements without lawmakers’ ‌approval to preserve US security.

The war powers act requires the president to inform Congress within 48 hours of initiating hostilities, and says military action begun without ​Congress’ approval must be terminated within 60 days.

Democrats and Republican opponents of ⁠the war have accused the administration of misinterpreting the law.

On Monday evening the US Navy-led Joint Maritime Information Center said the US would begin enforcing the blockade on Iran, covering all ports, oil terminals and coastal areas, on Tuesday night.

A statement read: “Any vessel suspected ‌of entering or departing the blockaded area without authorisation ​is subject to interception, diversion and capture. Noncompliant vessels may be legally compelled with ⁠force.” The centre ​said ​neutral transit through ​the strait of ​Hormuz heading to ‌or ​from ​non-Iranian destinations will not be impeded.

It remains unclear in practical terms how easy it would be for the navy to do this.
Trump’s demand for a 20% tariff comes despite his administration’s previous insistence that no country should be allowed to charge fees for passages used for international navigation.

That stance was reiterated last month by the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who said: “No country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway. That’s existing international law.”

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps accused the US on Monday of jeopardising global oil and gas supplies by interfering in the strait, as Tehran threatened that any US moves would be “strongly contested”.

The IRGC spokesperson Hossein Mohebi said Washington had “seriously endangered the security of the world’s oil and gas supply and must be held accountable”, adding in a post on X that Tehran would “continue to exercise sovereignty over and management of the strait of Hormuz”.

Trump said ⁠the ⁠US ​would probably take over ⁠the strait and should ⁠be reimbursed for ​controlling ‌the waterway. “We’re going to ‌keep the strait, and we’ll probably run it,” Trump ​said in ​a ‌phone interview ​on Fox News.

Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, posted on social media on Sunday: “The era of one-sided deals is OVER. We told you: keep your ‌word or pay the price. Reality is knocking.”

The war has spread across the region, with Iran attacking US bases in multiple countries. Thousands of people have been killed, mainly in Iran and Lebanon.

The conflict has caused global economic shock waves since it began in late February, driving energy prices higher and fuelling global inflation. Higher prices – especially for petrol – are politically sensitive for Trump in the run-up to November’s US congressional elections.

#trump #control #hormuz #strikes #hit

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Mossad’s Ahmadinejad Fantasy: Regime Change for Dummies

The New York Times investigation reads like bad airport fiction: Israel’s Mossad and the Trump administration allegedly spent years grooming Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — the Holocaust‑denying ex‑president who once promised to wipe Israel off the map — as their preferred “post‑regime” leader of Iran.

The idea was simple and insane at the same time: kill the current leadership, light up a rebellion, and slide Ahmadinejad back into power as a domesticated hardliner who suddenly talks about corruption and human rights instead of annihilation.

According to the report, Mossad under David Barnea met Ahmadinejad outside Iran, quietly paid for his housing and travel, and treated him as a long‑term asset.

The climax came on February 28, when an Israeli strike hit his compound in Tehran — not to kill him, but to “free” him from his IRGC minders. Guards and security vehicles were reportedly targeted, a black Peugeot scooped him up from the chaos, and Israeli operatives moved him to a safe house inside Iran. In theory, this was the opening chapter of a regime‑change script. In practice, the protagonist refused the role.

Ahmadinejad, by these accounts, was shaken and angry at the extraction, unimpressed by the plan to reinstall him as the new face of the Islamic Republic.

At some point he walked out of the safe house; then he vanished from public view for months, only resurfacing briefly at the funeral procession of the slain Supreme Leader.

Now, senior Iranian officials say he is under house arrest by IRGC intelligence, suspected of exactly what the story implies: covert ties with Israel and the West. The asset they hoped to crown is effectively a prisoner of the regime he was supposed to replace.

While these covert fantasies played out, Ahmadinejad was already midway through a rebrand: toning down anti‑Israel rhetoric, criticizing Iran’s security forces and corruption, changing his style, studying English.

He was being reshaped for export as a “credible” alternative, while Trump bragged that “most of Iran’s leaders are dead, Khamenei is wiped out, his son is 90 percent wiped out,” selling a war of decapitation as liberation.

The plan to engineer a leader ended with the candidate in house arrest and the “to‑be‑toppled” regime still standing over his head.

This is the real lesson of the story: not that intelligence agencies run wild, but that they genuinely believe they can stage‑manage 80‑million‑strong societies like casting a miniseries.

They try to swap out one fanatic for a “manageable” fanatic, write a happy‑ending script in Washington and Jerusalem, and then act surprised when the country on the ground ignores the storyboard.

Regime‑change ideology always sounds clean in a memo; in real life it produces safe houses no one wants, uprisings that don’t materialize, and “assets” who end up as hostages of the very system the West promised to destroy.

#usa #israel #iran #Ahmadinejad #Mossad #Trump #war #regimeChange #oligarchy #fakeDemocracy

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Trump Sues Himself, Judge Calls It Self-Dealing

A federal judge in Miami just shredded Trump’s I.R.S. “settlement,” ruling that his lawsuit against the tax agency was an improper act of self-dealing, not a real legal dispute.

He sued an arm of the government he controls, his own Justice Department declined to defend it, and the result was a deal that handed him and his family sweeping protection from audits while pretending it came out of an adversarial process.

Judge Kathleen Williams barred Trump from describing those audit protections as a “settlement” in any official proceeding and said the case lacked the basic requirement of two opposing sides.

In her words, the president and the government were “one” interest, trying to use the court to legitimize immunity and a proposed $1.8 billion compensation fund for his allies.

That fund, which could have funneled money to January 6 rioters and other loyalists claiming “weaponization,” has already been shelved, but the tax shield now sits under a cloud.

Williams also referred Trump’s outside lawyer for potential discipline, flagged acting attorney general Todd Blanche and a senior Justice Department official to bar authorities, and left the door open for Trump to be hit with costs from third-party lawyers who intervened.

Trump turns state power into a personal risk-management tool; this time, a judge put in writing that the courts are not there to rubber-stamp a president’s private deal with himself.

#usa #Trump #IRS #corruption #courts #ruleOfLaw #oligarchy #fakeDemocracy

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Trump’s “Defensive Actions”: War Without Permission, Paper Without Truth

Trump quietly tells Congress the US has “resumed hostilities” with Iran — but only as “defensive strikes,” not a war.

The wording is the whole trick. If it’s “defensive actions against targets inside Iran,” the White House claims it sits snugly inside commander‑in‑chief powers and old authorizations; if it’s “war,” he would need Congress, which has already voted twice to tell him: stop or get authorization.

So the choreography looks like this: the blockade in Hormuz moves to zero hour, refuelers are in the air, targets inside Iran are hit on July 7, and only then does a formal letter go out — Friday sent, Monday “discovered,” three days in which the bombs are already working while the paper pretends to catch up.

Congress demands either an end to hostilities or a vote; Trump declares that he’s just defending American forces and “pushing back” after 47 years of Iranian “bullying.” In his own words, Venezuela proved how strong the US military is; now Iran is the next demonstration.

The punchline is the prime‑time bait‑and‑switch. The big Thursday 9 p.m. address to the nation? According to leaks, it won’t be about Iran at all, but about “foreign interference” in the 2020 election — Russia, China, whoever is convenient this week.

While actual war rolls forward under legal euphemisms, the flagship speech is devoted to a different battlefield: the one where Trump gets to paint himself as the eternal victim of enemies at the ballot box. War lives in footnotes and leaked letters; “security” lives in the TV slot.

In this configuration, sovereignty is paperwork and marketing. Congress votes, but the president bombs. Hostilities become “defense.” The Gulf turns into a live firing range and a toll road.

And when the cameras finally go live, the country is invited to worry about hacking in an old election while the current war runs as a background process, billed as routine.

#usa #iran #war #Trump #Congress #Hormuz #constitution #fakeDemocracy

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💲💥Hormuz: An “Open” Strait With No Ships

The Strait of Hormuz looked “open” only on paper. Tracking data and industry reports show tanker traffic collapsing: most major shipping companies ordered oil and gas carriers to stop, turn back, or hug the Iranian‑controlled northern route, often with AIS transponders switched off just to avoid becoming the next target or seizure.

In the small hours, movement through the choke point effectively froze — while US officials still insisted the southern lane was available and Iran still claimed it had closed the waterway “until further notice.”

The price signal came faster than any statement. Brent, which had dipped toward the mid‑70s, shot up toward 85 dollars a barrel as markets priced in the reality that more than 20 percent of global oil flow and key LNG volumes are trapped in a corridor no one can safely cross.

Iran’s oil minister insists exports continue despite Washington revoking the sanctions waiver and reimposing full restrictions after tanker attacks, signaling Tehran’s confidence in shadow routes and non‑Western buyers.

An Iranian military official warns that blockading ports and choking sea lanes will create “unpredictable conditions” and a reaction “beyond any planners’ calculations,” with costs spilling far past Iran’s borders — a diplomatic way of saying: if you crash our economy, we’ll take others down with us.

From Oman’s foreign minister comes a kind of warning: the biggest threat to Gulf security is decisions made in Tel Aviv. The Hormuz crisis is now entangled with Israel’s war and regional escalations, not just US–Iran brinkmanship.

Officially, the strait is “open,” contested between Iranian proclamations and US military rebuttals.

Practically, it’s a semi‑silent shutdown where shipping lanes are empty, prices are rising, and the global economy is about to discover again that when great powers turn a sea into a battlefield, the bill arrives everywhere else.

#Hormuz #oil #iran #usa #israel #energy #war #oligarchy #fakeDemocracy

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Trump’s Strait Tax: America Grabs the Till

Trump just turned the Strait of Hormuz into a tollbooth with his face on the coin. He announces on Fox that the US is “taking over” the strait, that Iran “has nothing,” and that

“oil, gold, land, food, everything belongs to the United States.”

Iran broke the deal? Fine, says Trump, America will run Hormuz and collect cash for “security.” Twenty percent of every cargo, straight to the self‑declared “guardian” of a waterway it doesn’t own. Protection racket, but make it maritime law.

On paper, it’s a “limited Iranian blockade” that targets only Iranian ships and their customers, while everyone else supposedly gets “free and fair” passage.

In branding terms, the US becomes “Guardian of the Strait,” and for this holy mission it invoices the world. Trump even spells out the business model: fifty years protecting Hormuz “for free,” now the meter is on.

Washington just rolled back the memorandum of understanding and re‑installed the old siege, this time with a cash register wired into every tanker.

CENTCOM’s spokesman adds a whiff of apocalypse: “the story of this regime is about to end, Iran will be liberated very soon.”

It’s not just about tolls, it’s regime‑change fantasy with a shipping surcharge. Tehran fires back in unison. The Khatam al‑Anbiya command warns the US has no right to “manage” Hormuz and that any logistical help to American forces equals a declaration of war on Iran’s sovereignty.

Another spokesman promises that if the conflict spreads, the flames reach every state in the region. Everyone is suddenly the guardian of “international law,” while threatening to burn the map.

The IRGC calls the move a threat to global energy and insists Iran still “controls” the strait “with force.”

A senior security official reminds viewers that Hormuz was under Iranian control for thousands of years “before the US even existed” and that its security is determined by Iran’s will, not tweets and warships.

Historical ownership vs. aircraft carriers and TV hits: same old argument, just with more drones and higher insurance premiums.

The markets understood the message faster than the diplomats. The shekel weakens, the dollar and euro creep up. DP World already sketches a new port and container terminal on the UAE’s east coast to reduce dependence on Jebel Ali and bypass Hormuz altogether.

The UN’s maritime body dryly points out what no speechwriter wants to hear: there’s no legal basis to charge transit fees in an international strait used for innocent passage. And an Iraqi official delivers the only honest line of the day: lock down Hormuz while the Houthis keep Bab al‑Mandab choked, and Europe will freeze next winter.

On the surface, it’s about Iran, sovereignty, deterrence, “evil people.” In reality, the strait is being nationalized as an American revenue stream while everyone pretends this is still about freedom of navigation.

The declaration opens Hormuz as a sovereign ATM; the facts on the water quietly close it. And, as usual, the bill for this great‑power theater will go to someone else’s economy, someone else’s winter, someone else’s fuel tank.

#usa #iran #Hormuz #oil #war #sanctions #oligarchy #fakeDemocracy

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✈️Yemen: One Landing, One Funeral for the Ceasefire

One Iranian airliner, one runway, and the whole “de‑escalation period” in Yemen went up in jet fumes. An Iranian Mahan Air plane tied to the IRGC tried to break the Saudi air blockade and land in Houthi‑held Sana’a, reportedly carrying senior Iranian officials for talks with Ansar Allah.

Saudi‑backed forces answered by bombing the runways at Sana’a International Airport to stop it, forcing the aircraft to divert and land in Hodeidah, another Houthi‑controlled city on the Red Sea coast.

From there it unfolded on autopilot. The Houthis’ spokesman Yahya Sarea declared that Saudi “criminal aggression” on the airport ended the de‑escalation and “will not go unanswered,” while Yemen’s Houthi‑run transport ministry proclaimed that “the period of controlling Yemen has passed.”

On the other side, the Saudi‑backed defense minister accused Iran of violating Yemeni sovereignty and said patience had run out, insisting that diplomatic efforts with Tehran and Ansar Allah had failed — same language, different villain.

When the Iranian plane finally touched down in Hodeidah, Houthi supporters greeted it with the usual liturgy:

“God is great, death to America, death to Israel, curse upon the Jews.”

By evening, the rhetoric turned kinetic: at least several ballistic missiles and explosive drones were launched at Abha Airport in southwestern Saudi Arabia, flights were halted, and smoke columns were reported in the Asir region.

A senior Houthi figure vowed to hit deep inside Saudi territory, strike oil facilities, and eventually help close Bab al‑Mandab “in coordination with the Strait of Hormuz,” knitting Yemen’s war into the larger US–Iran confrontation in the Gulf.

The ceasefire that everyone was “testing” in statements in the morning got its death certificate by nightfall, written in runway craters and airport closures. One IRGC‑linked plane breaks a decade‑long Saudi air blockade.

Riyadh bombs a capital’s airport to stop it; the Houthis answer by threatening Saudi oil and global shipping lanes. Yemen stays where the great powers like it: no peace, no war, just enough violence to keep the maps, the contracts, and the arms flows from ever really settling.

#yemen #iran #saudi #houthis #Hormuz #BabAlMandeb #war #oligarchy #fakeDemocracy

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The Strait of Hormuz As Trump's Asset. Why the War Again?

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Trump has said that the United States will charge a 20 percent fee on cargo shipped through the Strait of Hormuz, despite his own administration’s position that such fees violate international law.

He made the announcement on Monday amid an intensifying battle between Iran and the United States to control the waterway, a crucial artery for global energy supplies.

The two countries have traded attacks over the strait for the past week, in effect shattering their month-old cease-fire.

Since the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran in February that set off the war, Iran has periodically fired on commercial ships transiting the strait as it seeks to compel vessels to use a route close to its coast, a potential precursor to charging its own fees.

In announcing his plan to levy a toll, the president described it as a way for the United States to recover the cost of providing military protection to vessels using the waterway.

“The Hormuz Strait is OPEN, and will remain OPEN, with or without Iran,” Trump wrote on social media. He added that the United States would levy the 20 percent fee for “any and all costs necessary,” describing it as “a matter of FAIRNESS,” and also said the United States would resume a blockade of Iranian ports.

This is not the first time Trump has threatened such a toll. He raised the possibility last month after signing a temporary cease-fire agreement with Iran, even though that deal included language that Tehran has interpreted to mean it has authority over the strait.

The memorandum also said that no country would collect tolls for 60 days, though it left open the possibility for such charges beyond that.

This isn’t exactly clear. Trump did not elaborate on how the 20 percent fee would be calculated or how it would be collected.

Trump and his aides also have not explained why his position contradicts the assertions of top officials in his administration.

#unitedStates #charge #cargo #strait #hormuz

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Last month, Secretary of State Rubio said that tolls could not be imposed on the Strait of Hormuz.

“No country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway. That’s existing international law,” he said.

Trump’s announcement, along with ordering a resumption of the blockade of Iran, reflected how his options for resolving the war were narrowing.

A 20 percent fee on the value of a vessel’s cargo could more than double the cost of shipping oil through the strait, experts said.

For a large tanker carrying two million barrels of oil, for example, the fee could add over $30 million in costs. Consumers would likely face higher prices as a result.

Because of the high cost, some analysts said they doubted whether the fee would come into force. For ship operators in the region, the prospect of fees is less of a concern right now than an escalation of the conflict between Iran and the United States, experts said.

Another crucial waterway offers a potential precedent: the Strait of Malacca, in Southeast Asia, through which transit about 23 million barrels of oil a day.

Ships passing through that strait, which is jointly administered by Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia, pay fees when they need specific services, such as towing assistance or help navigating the narrowest stretches. But ships do not pay for passage.

The political and security environment of the Strait of Malacca is also fundamentally different, with the three countries administering it largely without major conflict, and having avoided interstate war for about six decades.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi noted the irony of Trump announcing a toll in the strait after his administration rejected the idea of Iran collecting one.

Trump was “absolutely right” that whoever provided safe passage through the strait should be compensated, Araghchi said on social media — and then repeated Iran’s claim to that role.

He added with evident sarcasm: “20% is of course too much. We will be fair.”

Since Tehran effectively blockaded the waterway earlier in the war, Iranian officials have repeatedly declared their intent to monetize the strait.

Iran and Oman, which is on the southern side of the strait, are said to be exploring ways to the two countries to charge ships transiting through it.

Oman’s proposal is modeled in part on arrangements in the Strait of Malacca. It is unclear whether any payment would be voluntary or mandatory.

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