Amidst the funeral for Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei, the Saga of Hormuz has continued taking some interesting turns.
Iran has refused to make any concessions to the US because it knows the treacherous Trump administration has no principles whatsoever when it comes to honoring deals. All the while, the US has resorted to outright begging and making every possible concession to avert the humiliation of accepting a Hormuz with tolls:
WSJ writes:
The U.S. and Oman are looking for ways to break Iran’s insistence on charging tolls for ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Their chief lever in indirect talks was a promise to unfreeze some of the $100 billion in Iranian funds held overseas.
The U.S. diplomats offered a trade-off to Iran, the people said: Relinquish its claim to control the strait and renounce toll payments in exchange for billions of dollars of unfrozen funds.
Europe, on the other hand, is now convinced that bowing to Iranian regional hegemony is the only remaining rational choice as the rest of the world simply lacks cards to play in prying Hormuz away from its rightful proprietors.
As the most striking example of this came Vice President JD Vance’s eye-opening admission two days ago that Trump merely used the MOU as a brief pause to give the world some time to refill its oil stocks and stave off economic collapse, before—it is strongly implied—continuing the unprovoked aggression against Iran as needed.
It’s clear that the US is now biding its time to resupply its stations in the Mideast before potentially embarking—at the least—on more strikes. In light of this, there are some unverified reports from “anonymous sources in Iran” that Iran is even considering preemptive attacks on Israel for such a contingency, because Iranian leaders are tired of playing the militarily passive-reactive role.
Roth Note: FAFO.
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