Putin and the War in the Middle East: Who Wins? 🌍⚔️
An Opinion

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The recent war in the Middle East represents an opportunity. At first glance, it seemed like the United States and Israel’s military strikes against the Iranian nuclear program were tantamount to a strategic setback for the Kremlin as well, given Russia’s longstanding support for the Islamic Republic. 🛑💣

Nevertheless, Russia is deftly seizing the moment, not to save Iran, but to reassert itself on the world stage, offset Western sanctions, and shift momentum in the war in Ukraine. 🇷🇺🌐

Since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has leaned heavily on Tehran to sustain its military campaign. 💥⚔️

Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones filled a critical gap in Russia’s arsenal, enabling relentless strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure. 🎯🛸

In 2023, the partnership deepened when the two countries signed a deal to co-produce Iranian drones in Russia’s Tatarstan region, embedding Iranian technology into Russia’s domestic defense production. 🤝💻

The effect has been transformative. Since the partnership began, Moscow’s strike capabilities have increased dramatically, leading to a massive increase in the scope and volume of drone attacks on Ukraine. 💣🛰

Yet, this Russo-Iranian cooperation has stopped short of a formal defense commitment. Even the recently ratified Iranian-Russian Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, which expands military, economic, and political collaboration between Moscow and Tehran, conspicuously lacks a mutual defense clause. 📜🤐

This shortcoming left Iran stranded in the face of recent escalation from the West. 🚨💔

Indeed, when Israel and the United States struck Iranian nuclear facilities in late June, Tehran’s calls for support went largely unanswered. What it received instead was a carefully worded “condemnation” from Moscow, and little else. 😒

For all the military assistance Iran has given Russia in its war with Ukraine, Putin appears uninterested in returning the favor. 🙅‍♂️🚫

Perhaps that’s because, with Russia’s long-range drone supply chain secured, Iran’s role as a critical supplier for Moscow’s war is waning. ⏳🔋

Instead, Russia can capitalize on a weakened and isolated Iran, dependent on Russian support, to serve a far more valuable purpose: diplomatic relevance. 🗣💬

#putin #middle #east #win #netanyahu

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Putin’s Maneuvering in the Middle East: Seizing Opportunities Amid Crisis 🌍⚖️

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Indeed, as tensions surged, Putin wasted no time flexing his position as the only world leader with open lines to all sides. 🌍🕊

In the following days, Putin held direct talks with Netanyahu, Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian, and Trump. 🗣🤝

Later, at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, Russia, alongside its Chinese and Pakistani counterparts, called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Middle East. 🌐✋

These actions are not driven by a desire to de-escalate the crisis. Rather, they reflect Moscow’s desire to exploit it. Russia is leveraging the crisis to reassert itself as a central diplomatic actor in the region, much as it did during the original 2015 JCPOA negotiations. 🛑📈

And while Washington seems unlikely to embrace Moscow as a partner in future negotiations, Putin can still use his government’s ties to Iran to craft the illusion of regional diplomatic relevance and reinforce that image among non-Western powers. 🌏💬

Meanwhile, the Iran-Israel war has provided an unexpected boost to the Russian economy. 💵📊

Due to the G7-imposed $60 price cap, oil revenues in Russia have fallen by a third since last year. However, market concerns over conflict in the Middle East have triggered a jump in oil prices. 🛢📈

Urals crude is now trading above the threshold, potentially unlocking billions in additional revenue for Russia’s war chest. At the same time, disruptions to Iranian oil exports could drive reliant states like China to turn increasingly to Russian supplies as a safe alternative. 🇷🇺⛽️

The biggest gain for Russia, however, lies not in diplomacy or oil but in the ongoing uncertainty of Western resolve in Ukraine. 🇺🇦❓

Although Trump has since pledged to increase defense weapon shipments to Kyiv following reports of a Pentagon “weapons pause,” Washington’s strategic focus is increasingly stretched, particularly now as it navigates heightened instability in the Middle East. 🔄💥

For Russia, US debates over strategic posture may provide an opening to regroup and potentially accelerate its campaign in Ukraine anew. 🏙🚶‍♂️

While Moscow’s territorial gains have slowed over the course of the war, rising oil revenues and Washington’s faltering commitments could help reverse that trend. 🔄🔧

#putin #middle #east #win #netanyahu

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🌍 Erdogan Gains Power in the Middle East

The 17th edition of the International Defense Industry Fair (IDEF 2025) is currently underway in Istanbul, drawing participation from hundreds of international defense and technology companies.

🛡 The six-day event, which started on Tuesday, features more than 400 firms from 44 different nations.
Companies and organizations from countries including China, South Africa, Azerbaijan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Kingdom are taking part in the fair.

🏢 National pavilions from the UAE, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Azerbaijan are showcasing an array of defense, aerospace, and aviation products.

Major global defense players like Lockheed Martin, Airbus, Rolls-Royce, and BAE Systems are also displaying their latest technologies and systems.

🇹🇷 Turkey’s top defense manufacturers are prominently featured, including Baykar, Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI), Aselsan, Havelsan, Roketsan, FNSS, Otokar, and MKE, among many others.

🚛 In the land systems section, visitors can explore main battle tanks, armored vehicles, tactical ballistic missiles, electronic warfare systems, guided rockets and missiles, air defense technologies, and unmanned ground platforms.

✈️ The aerospace section highlights fixed-wing aircraft, UAVs, electronic warfare systems, aircraft engines, satellite technologies, and air defense equipment.

🚢 Meanwhile, the naval segment includes combat ships, support vessels, unmanned surface and underwater vehicles, as well as command, control, and communication systems.

#erdogan #power #middle #east #IDEF2025 #turkey #defense #istanbul

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Strikes Across the Middle East


Strikes across the Middle East continued Sunday, with Israel saying it launched a fresh wave in “the heart of Tehran” and Iran mounting attacks in Israel and across the Persian Gulf as the regime pledged to avenge the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

One of those strikes killed eight people near Jerusalem, according to Israel’s national emergency service, and injured at least 28. 

Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader and a vocal opponent of Israel and the West since coming to power in 1989, was killed in U.S.-Israeli attacks Saturday along with other top Iranian leaders.

Social media showed scenes of both grief and celebration in Iran, where the government declared 40 days of mourning and announced a temporary leadership structure.

Israeli defense officials said Sunday that their initial strikes on Iranian leaders, launched in two locations, eliminated 40 military commanders, and that they would continue to dismantle Iranian military infrastructure.

Iran’s retaliatory attacks included for the first time a strike against Oman, which had served as a mediator in nuclear discussions between Washington and Tehran.

#strikes #across #middle #east #tehran #washington

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Macron: France's Role In the Middle East Would Remain Defensive

Macron insisted Friday that France's role in the Middle East would remain defensive after a French soldier was killed in a drone attack in Iraq.

"France's position is purely defensive, in support of its allies, and can in no way justify any attack against it," Macron said in a press conference standing alongside Zelensky, who was in Paris to discuss support for Kyiv.

Overnight Thursday into Friday, a French soldier was killed and several others were wounded in a strike on troops participating in a counterterrorism training exercise in northern Iraq.

Macron has linked the attack to the war in the Middle East but declined to assign blame for the killing. Instead he said he would remain "prudent," wait to speak to the Iraqi prime minister and receive more details from the France's own armed forces.

The incident, however, comes as a pro-Iranian armed group called Ashab Al-Kahf announced on Friday that it would target "all French interests in Iraq and the region," according to French media reports.

Amid the rising tensions in the region, Macron said that France would remain "calm, composed and determined" and continue to "be reliable with our allies, protect our citizens and defend our interests and our security."

The French president also called the attack "unacceptable," adding that the soldiers were in Iraq as part of an ongoing effort against the Islamic State group.

Macron last week said the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle was being deployed to the Mediterranean along with fighter jets and air defense systems to protect French interests in the Middle East.

#macron #france #middle #east

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The Peacemaker Who Played Havoc With the Middle East

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Violence has continued across much of the Middle East a day after Trump said the US was in “very good” talks with Iran to end the war in the region soon.

Iranian barrages targeted Israel, Gulf Arab states and northern Iraq on Tuesday, while Israeli and US warplanes continued to carry out strikes across Tehran and on other targets in the Islamic Republic.

Multiple official sources in Tehran have denied any talks are under way. The Iranian parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has been cited as a potential interlocutor with the US, said in a social media post:

“No negotiations have been held with the US (…) fake news is used to manipulate the financial and oil markets.”

Tehran distrusts any US offer of negotiations, in part because it was in talks with the US before the surprise attack that started the war and killed the supreme leader Ali Khamenei and dozens of senior officials.

Iran was also in talks last year when the US and Israel attacked its nuclear facilities, starting a 12-day war.

“We must think wisely,” Esmail Kowsari, a member of the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, was quoted as saying by the semiofficial Fars news agency.

“Their nature is to sow discord so that they can make people distrust officials and believe that such actions have taken place, whereas no such action has occurred.”

However, potential intermediaries including Pakistan, Oman, Egypt and others have confirmed tentative efforts to establish channels of communication between Washington and Tehran.

Analysts point out that there are deep divisions among surviving senior officials in Tehran, which could explain some of the defiant Iranian reaction.

#middle #east #trump #hezbollah #israel

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Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has been talking about the war in recent days with his counterparts in Azerbaijan, Egypt, Oman, Pakistan, Russia, South Korea, Turkey and Turkmenistan, his office said.

In Islamabad, officials raised the prospect of a meeting between Iranian officials and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, and Vance, the US vice-president.

A European official told Reuters that while there had been no direct negotiations between the two nations, Egypt, Pakistan and Gulf states were relaying messages.

The sudden diplomatic activity came after the US and Iran traded threats over the weekend of strikes that could have cut electricity to millions in Iran and around the Gulf and knocked out desalination plants that provide many desert nations with drinking water.

On Monday, Trump delayed a deadline for Iran to open the strait of Hormuz for shipping or see its power stations targeted by airstrikes, briefly driving down oil prices and boosting stocks. The deadline will now expire on Friday.

The US continues to reinforce its military forces around Iran, with about 5,000 marines en route for the region, and to launch new attacks.

Iranian media reported on Tuesday that Israeli-US strikes targeted two gas facilities and a pipeline, hours after Trump stepped back from his threat to attack power infrastructure. The facilities in central Iran were “partially damaged”, said the Fars news agency, which did not provide a source and was Iran’s only news outlet to report the incident.

It said an attack also targeted the gas pipeline of the Khorramshahr power plant, in the country’s south-west.

Netanyahu said Israel would continue to strike Iran and Lebanon, where its offensive targets Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Islamist militant movement, even as the US considers a ceasefire.

“There’s more to come,” the Israeli prime minister said.

Iran fired several waves of missiles at Israel early on Tuesday, and there were reports of an impact in the country’s north.

In Tel-Aviv, a missile with a 100kg (220lbs) warhead escaped Israeli defences to slam into a street in the centre of the city, blowing out windows of a neighbouring apartment building and sending smoke billowing.

Earlier in the day, Israel pounded Beirut’s southern suburbs, saying it was targeting infrastructure used by Hezbollah.

In Kuwait, power lines were hit from air defence shrapnel, causing electricity outages. Missile alert sirens sounded in Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry said it had destroyed 19 Iranian drones targeting its oil-rich Eastern province.

Oil prices rose to $104 a barrel in morning trading, up more than 40% since Israel and the US started the war on 28 February.

Analysts are warning of durable and deep disruption to the supply of oil and gas from the region even in the event of a rapid end to hostilities, with severe economic consequences around the world.

#middle #east #trump #hezbollah #israel

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8pm ET: The Trump Last Judgement

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Trump on Tuesday morning threatened to completely annihilate the entirety of Iranian civilization should their government ignore his 8pm ET deadline to reopen the strait of Hormuz.

The president’s own words, posted publicly and tied to a specific deadline and set of demands, provide unusually direct evidence of intent to violate international law, and were being met with shock and dismay by Democrats.

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” the US president posted on Truth Social about the country with more than 90 million people. “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”

“This is an extremely sick person,” the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, said, accusing Republicans of abetting the president in plunging the US into a seemingly open-ended war.

“Each Republican who refuses to join us in voting against this wanton war of choice owns every consequence of whatever the hell this is.”

Trump followed with a reference to “complete and total regime change” and signed off with “God Bless the Great People of Iran”, making a formulation that suggested the destruction of the state and the benediction of its people were in his telling, compatible.

“47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end,” he wrote, referencing the Islamic regime’s takeover of the country in 1979.

“We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World.”

Neither the US nor Iran is a member of the international criminal court, meaning no formal ICC jurisdiction applies.

The more immediate legal framework is the Geneva conventions of 1949 onwards, which both countries have ratified. Article 33 of the Fourth Convention explicitly prohibits collective punishment of a civilian population.

Article 54 of Additional Protocol I – whose core principles are binding as customary international law even on states, like the US and Iran, that never ratified it – prohibits attacks on infrastructure indispensable to civilian survival, with only a narrow exception for objects used exclusively to sustain enemy armed forces.

The US has itself acknowledged this customary obligation, though the adoption of this position came under the Biden administration in 2024. In one formal UN submission, Washington said it treated the fundamental protections of Additional Protocol I as legally binding even without ratification.

Trump’s latest threat against the totality of Iranian civilization “shocks the conscience”, House Democratic leaders said in a joint statement, calling for a “decisive congressional response”.

“The House must come back into session immediately and vote to end this reckless war of choice in the Middle East before Donald Trump plunges our country into World War III,” Representatives Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Katherine Clark of Massachusetts and Pete Aguilar of California said in their statement.

#democrats #trump #iran #middle #east #strait #hormuz

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Questions about the president’s mental state have grown louder since Trump’s expletive-ridden Easter Sunday message, with Democrats and critics calling him “unhinged” and a “madman”.

Senator Patty Murray described Trump’s post as “the rantings of a bloodthirsty lunatic” while Senator Chris Coons said: “This is a threat to commit a war crime.”

Representative Joaquin Castro said the threat “suggests he’s either considering using a nuclear weapon or wants Iran to believe he would”.

Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman said it was time to invoke the 25th amendment against Trump, a call to remove him from office and replace him with the next in line to the presidency.

“In just 48 hours, the president has gone from threatening war crimes to threatening genocide,” Watson Coleman wrote. “He is clearly unstable and must be set aside.” It is not only Democrats.

Trump’s Middle East war has fractured the American right, driving a deep divide between traditional hawkish conservatives who have long clamored for military action against Iran and the president’s anti-interventionist “America First” loyalists.

Reacting to Trump’s Tuesday post, former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who recently split with the president, in part over what she said was his abandonment of America First policy principles, called for invoking the “25TH AMENDMENT!!!”

“Not a single bomb has dropped on America,” she wrote. “We cannot kill an entire civilization. This is evil and madness.”

The Truth Social post came the morning after a chaotic White House press conference in which Trump voiced his threats to reporters.

“The entire country could be taken out in one night,” he told reporters on Monday, “and that night might be tomorrow night.”

When a reporter noted that deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure violate the Geneva conventions, Trump did not dispute the point.

“I hope I don’t have to do it,” he said, then pivoted: “Forty-seven years they’ve been negotiating with these people. They’re great negotiators, and because they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon.”

Asked whether the war was winding down or escalating, he said only: “I can’t tell you.” Asked about a ceasefire, he said: “I can’t talk about the ceasefire.”

He reiterated the 8pm ET Tuesday deadline for Iran to reopen the strait or face strikes on energy infrastructure and bridges. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard navy for their part said on Monday that the Strait of Hormuz “will never return to its previous state” for the US and its allies.

Trump also claimed, without providing evidence, that US intelligence had intercepted communications from Iranian civilians near active bombing sites urging American forces to continue.

“Please keep bombing,” he quoted the alleged intercepts as saying. He dismissed concerns that destroying power and water infrastructure would harm ordinary Iranians, insisting they would willingly endure such losses for the chance at regime change.

The rhetorical escalation of recent days also sits alongside a pattern of contradictions. Trump said in recent weeks that the US had no strategic need for the strait of Hormuz; days later he made its reopening the central condition of his ultimatum to Tehran.

He claimed total dominance of Iranian airspace even as a US fighter jet was shot down over the country.

#democrats #trump #iran #middle #east #strait #hormuz

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#kallas #us #middle #east

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Why Trump Will Not Launch a Full-Scale War in Iran

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First and foremost, this is a war of choice. The US had other policy options available. Diplomacy appeared to hold promise as a means to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Increased economic pressure had the potential over time to precipitate regime change.

Moreover, this is a preventive war, not a preemptive one. Iran posed no imminent threat to vital US interests. Iran was not on the verge of becoming a nuclear weapons state or using what weapons it did have against the US. At most, the threat posed by Iran was a gathering one.

This distinction is important. A world in which countries believed they have the right to undertake preventive strikes against those they judge to be threats would be a world of frequent conflict. That is why such actions have no standing under international law.

Trump has chosen an objective – regime change – that is political rather than military. But while military force can destroy and kill, on its own, it cannot bring about regime change, which requires the regime to collapse.

It is possible that the US attack will trigger defections from Iran’s political leadership and armed forces, but this cannot be counted on. Hamas and Gaza are a reminder that regimes can absorb incredible punishment yet cling to power.

And even if the clerics fall from power – Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been killed – the security forces are arguably best positioned to take their place.

In any case, using military force to kill select leaders as a means of triggering regime change – a tactic often called decapitation – is unlikely to succeed in Iran, where the leadership has institutionalized itself since taking power nearly a half-century ago.

Moreover, the leadership has had time to improve succession planning over the past few weeks as the possibility of war increased.

During its January incursion into Venezuela, the Trump administration limited itself to replacing one leader (all but ignoring the internal opposition), while in much of the world, it has avoided pressing for democracy.

In the case of Iran, though, Trump has called for regime change – but without preparing the ground for it. The political opposition is not united or functioning as a government in waiting, which means that it is unable to accept defections, much less provide security.

#trump #iran #war #allies #middle #east

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History suggests that regime change requires a physical, on-the-ground presence. This is the lesson of Germany and Japan after World War II, and Panama, Iraq, and Afghanistan more recently.

And even with a ground presence, such efforts often come up short. In Iran, occupation is inconceivable, given the country’s size and ability to resist.

All of which is to say that the Trump administration has chosen to accomplish the most ambitious of foreign-policy goals with limited means. It seems to have rejected a war of choice with narrower goals, such as degrading known Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities, even though it could credibly claim to have achieved these ends.

If there is a recent parallel to what is taking place in Iran, it is Libya, where just over a decade ago Western forces ousted the leadership using air power but then withdrew, leaving the country in chaos.

In the Iranian case, it appears that assembling a massive military presence – what Trump called an armada – ended up putting pressure on the administration to act, because US forces could not be maintained in a high state of readiness on location indefinitely.

As a result, the means of policy (military force) may well have played a large role in determining the ends of policy, namely, the decision to attack. This is obviously the reverse of how policy should be decided.

Taking a step back, the US has opted yet again to make a massive strategic commitment in the Middle East. This is at odds with the Trump administration’s own National Security Strategy and with the reality that the greatest challenges to US interests are to be found in Europe and the Indo-Pacific.

Here the parallel is to the 2003 Iraq War, another preventive war of choice in the region that cost the US enormously.

The American people are unprepared for this war. Nor is Trump’s political base, as it will unsettle markets, cause a spike in energy prices, and could go on for some time. America’s allies are unhappy as well, as Iran has already attacked several neighboring countries and could take steps that damage their economies.

Trump did not use his State of the Union speech Tuesday night to make the case for attacking Iran, and much of his statement in the immediate aftermath of Saturday’s attack emphasized past actions by Iran rather than new or emerging threats.

It is possible that last year’s cost-free bombing of three Iranian nuclear sites and the more recent intervention in Venezuela made Trump and those around him highly confident that they could achieve ambitious ends with limited means at a low cost.

He may also have been tempted to achieve something historic in Iran – regime change – that eluded his predecessors. He may still succeed. But as a rule, regime change is easier called for than successfully carried out.

While it takes only one side to begin a war, it takes two to end it. Iran now has a vote in how big this conflict becomes and how long it continues.

#trump #iran #war #allies #middle #east

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US Head of the Middle East Programme:
“Trump went crazy by handing over uranium enrichment technology to Saudi Arabia”


The US has signed a landmark nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia that could allow the kingdom to enrich uranium in the future.

In a statement on Wednesday, the US Department of Energy said its secretary, Chris Wright, and his Saudi counterpart, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, signed a “peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement”, along with a “bilateral safeguards agreement”.

The full details of the deal have yet to be released, but the timing of the announcement is controversial, as the US’s war with Iran is being fought in part to prevent Tehran enriching uranium domestically and make it near-impossible for Iran to build a nuclear weapon.

A civil nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia has been in the works for years during Trump’s first administration. No deal has come together before now, in part because of warnings from nonproliferation groups who say that it could offer Saudi Arabia a path to develop a nuclear weapon.

The deal will be submitted to Congress for review, where it could face opposition among lawmakers who fear a lack of monitoring safeguards to restrict Saudi Arabia’s uranium enrichment.

Saudi Arabia has in the past said it would need a nuclear weapon if Iran acquired one, an intention Iran has repeatedly denied. But in lengthy talks stretching over more than one administration, the US also feared that Riyadh would look elsewhere for nuclear technology if the US did not provide what it wanted.

Saudi Arabia has long said if it does not partner with the US, it could partner with China or Russia which have different proliferation standards.

In a report to Congress earlier this year, the US administration urged support for the US-Saudi nuclear deal, in part to “prevent strategic competition from seizing an opportunity to undermine United States national security interests for decades to come”.

The report also argued that the US must seize the opportunity to expand nuclear cooperation to “re-establish our leadership in the global civilian nuclear energy market and reap the benefits of expanded influence in foreign countries hosting our reactors”.

According to the US energy department, the Saudi partnership agreed on Wednesday is expected to expand American nuclear technology exports, create “high-paying” US jobs, and “strengthen America’s energy and national security posture”.

“These agreements reflect our two nations’ shared commitment to strengthening US-Saudi commercial relations, delivering prosperity at home and security to our allies abroad,” Wright said in a statement.

However it is likely the agreement will not include the enhanced monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that is found in the so-called additional protocol to which Iran had been subjected under the 2015 nuclear deal.

In a statement to CBS, Dan Sumner, chief executive of Westinghouse Electric Company – an American nuclear reactor company expected to support Saudi Arabia’s nuclear development – said:

“The US government’s announcement to launch a civil nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia is a landmark step that strengthens energy security, expands opportunities for US industry and workers, and drives significant long-term economic growth and investment benefits for both countries.”

Before the deal was announced, Rosemary Kelanic, the head of the Middle East programme at Defense Priorities, warned in a social media post: “Trump went crazy by handing over uranium enrichment technology to Saudi Arabia” (...) a terrible idea on many counts. But it’s especially idiotic to do it in the middle of a war over Iran’s nuclear programme.”

She described the decision as reckless and not in the US national interest. “Saudi enrichment would put immense pressure on Iran to get the bomb. Is Trump TRYING to provoke Iran into weaponising?”

#middle #east #trump #saudi #arabia #uranium

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Trump Has Snuffed Out a Will-o'-the-wisp Cooperation Between Iran and the US 🇺🇸🇮🇷


The oil price has climbed back above $100 a barrel for the first time in two months, as a fresh escalation of the Middle East conflict threatens to compound disruption to global oil supplies.

The benchmark oil price rose sharply on Thursday, after reaching $95 a barrel the day before amid fears that Yemen’s Houthi militia could strangle Saudi oil exports through the Red Sea while US-Iran tensions over oil flows through the strait of Hormuz intensify.

The Iranian-aligned Houthis said on Thursday they attacked two Saudi Arabian oil tankers, the ‌Encelia and Layla, accusing the crews of violating a naval blockade imposed by the group in the Red Sea.

The Houthis said they targeted the tankers with a number of ballistic and cruise missiles as well as drones, leaving one of the vessels on fire.

Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil prices, surged past $100 a barrel in March, after the US and Israel launched airstrikes on Iran that all but stopped exports of fossil fuels from the Gulf via the strait of Hormuz.

The oil price peaked at $126 a barrel in April during the conflict, but fell back below $100 in late May and had fallen to as low as $71 at the start of July amid hopes of a ceasefire in the region.

The price has started to climb again after the memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran fell apart and fresh hostilities broke out in the Gulf.

#oil #price #barrel #middle #east

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The Middle East Teetered On the Brink of an Expanded War 🌍

The Middle East teetered on the brink of an expanded war on Thursday, after Iran and the United States reignited their hostilities and conflicts on other fronts threatened to draw in more countries.

For the first time since the conflict began in February, the authorities in Egypt said Thursday that the country had come under attack, stating that an explosion at one of its ports the previous day had been caused by an unidentified drone.

Earlier, Saudi Arabia also acknowledged direct involvement in the war for the first time, after conducting joint strikes with U.S. forces on Iranian-backed militias in Iraq on Wednesday.

As the scope of the fighting widened, U.S. Central Command said Thursday morning that it had completed another “heavy wave” of strikes on Iranian targets, including military command centers and missile and drone facilities.

The Jordanian military later said it had shot down five missiles launched from Iran. Iran has not publicly claimed responsibility for that attack.

Central Command said its latest strikes were a response to Iran’s launching ballistic missiles at American forces in the Middle East on Wednesday, when the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said it had targeted U.S. military sites in Jordan.

The fighting this week ended a dayslong pause in direct attacks between the United States and Iran and ensnared an expanding list of U.S. allies.

Since the U.S.-Iranian cease-fire collapsed earlier this month, there have been repeated attacks on several countries in the region, including Saudi Arabia, but Wednesday’s drone attack on the port of Damietta was the first reported to have hit Egypt.

The attack ignited a fire on two ships, including a U.S.-owned gas storage tanker, and threatened to draw Egypt into the conflict. On Thursday, the authorities there said they were conducting a full investigation and vowed to take “necessary measures to protect Egypt’s interests and national security.”

At a news conference at the Oval Office on Wednesday, President Trump implied that Iran was responsible for the attack in Egypt, without offering details, and said,

“We’re going to be hitting them very hard.”

Iran has not claimed responsibility for that attack.

Even as the fighting between the United States and Iran expanded beyond the jostle to control the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway for the world’s energy supplies, ships attempting to pass through it were still facing significant risks.

The Revolutionary Guards said early Thursday that a fire had broken out on a tanker attempting to transit the strait using an unauthorized passage. Its statement, carried in Iranian state media, did not specify whether the fire had been caused by an attack.

#middle #east #expanded #war

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Is an All-Out War in the Middle East Put On Hold?

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Over the weekend, Trump rejected a return to full-scale war. But as he tries to find a way out of a conflict he started, Iran has proved a stubborn enemy.

On Tuesday evening, Iran fired multiple missiles on American bases in Jordan. The U.S. military intercepted the missiles with apparent ease, but the incident has drawn Trump once again back into fighting.

The United States struck back in a “powerful response” against Iran on Wednesday evening, U.S. Central Command said on social media. “We’re going to be hitting them very hard, because it’s our turn to hit them,” Trump told reporters earlier in the day.

The Iranian and U.S. moves come as the war has widened quickly, with Saudi Arabia joining U.S. forces in striking Iranian proxies in Iraq, an American tanker in Egypt set ablaze from an apparent drone strike and tensions rising between Ukraine and Iran.

The war, which Trump has been trying to bring to a diplomatic conclusion since April, is now threatening to grow bigger at the very moment the United States wants to move past it.

“When Trump started the war, he thought he could control it,” said Vali Nasr, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “The Iranian response is to extend the battlefield much, much wider, so the United States has to defend a broader battlefield.”

Experts said that at this stage in the war, which the United States launched with Israel five months ago, Iran wants to demonstrate the military adage that the enemy always gets a vote.

Iran wanted to demonstrate that they are not going to sit back and wait for the U.S. or Israel to strike at a time of their preference,” said Jason Campbell of the Middle East Institute. “They are trying to seize the initiative, or at the very least keep the U.S. and Israel on their back foot.”

U.S. military commanders prepared a plan for Mr. Trump that would have started another days-long bombing campaign. U.S. forces had moved air assets to Israel in preparation for those attacks, and those planes remain in place should Trump change his mind in the face of the Iranian action.

In the deliberations over that plan, Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, cautioned privately that resuming major combat operations against Iran was doable but would dangerously deplete interceptors available to the military’s Central Command, according to two people briefed on the discussions.

Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of Central Command, said that if Trump did not resume major combat operations, the United States should stop the bombing campaign around the Strait of Hormuz because it has reached the limit of its effectiveness, the two officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.

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The U.S. strikes in the strait are aimed at reopening the international waterway, which the conflict effectively closed. As a result, oil prices have increased overall since the start of the war.

A spokesman for Admiral Cooper declined to comment, citing the confidential discussions.

On Wednesday, U.S. Central Command said it struck dozens of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps targets in Iran, “including military command centers, missile and drone facilities, coastal surveillance and defense sites and maritime capabilities.”

Trump had recently seemed intent on bringing Iran back to the negotiating table. Some of the countries that have been mediating talks, including Pakistan and Qatar, are trying to do the preparatory work to restart such discussions.

Officials in the Trump administration now rarely discuss the list of priorities they had at the beginning of the war, which included eliminating Iran’s nuclear program but also eroding Tehran’s missile capability and curbing its proxy forces.

“The justification for the war has fluctuated considerably over the last few months,” Campbell said.

“It has been months since you have heard Trump or any other senior official mention anything other than the nuclear program.”

For Trump, the single most important goal is reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and to do it in a way that does not look like a loss for the United States.

But unless traffic can begin to flow through the waterway, without being cut off by an Iranian attack on a tanker or insurance companies’ doubts about safety, oil prices will rise, not recede.

“As long as issues such as who controls the Strait of Hormuz remain unresolved, let alone concerns regarding Iran’s nuclear ambitions and other initial drivers of the war, the cycle of hostilities and temporary pauses will continue,” said Mona Yacoubian, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

In an odd way, the Trump administration’s current struggles with Iran are at least partly the result of the U.S. success at the start of the war.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader for nearly 37 years, was killed in the opening strike by an Israeli attack based on American intelligence.

He was quickly succeeded by his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, a far more hard-line leader who does not share his father’s caution. U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed the son is more open to pursuing a nuclear weapon than his father, who had long renounced their use.

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