C @chaseawinter

Our country's victory in Iran is secure, having been liberated from any requirement to resemble one

@CRUDEOIL231 5 mbd or so

NEW: While all eyes are on Hormuz, the most urgent powder keg in the region may actually be Iraq. The country was on the brink of a major conflagration 24 hrs ago. Danger of clash between Saudi Arabia and Iraqi Shia groups not over, but Iran is seemingly pushing to defuse.

There's nothing particularly dramatic nor surprising about Iran's demands unless you know little and haven't been paying attention.

Washington Is Running Out of Good Options on Iran The United States is increasingly confronting an uncomfortable reality: there may be no good options left in its confrontation with Iran. This report suggests that U.S. defense officials are confronting an increasingly uncomfortable reality, meaning that another round of military action could inflict severe damage on Iran. But destruction alone is unlikely to make Tehran more willing to capitulate at the negotiating table. At the same time, another major campaign would further deplete critical U.S. munitions stockpiles, strain military resources, and potentially weaken American deterrence in other theaters. The critical question is how much this strategic constraint will shape President Trump’s calculations. His desire to emerge from the confrontation with a clear and marketable “win” could ultimately push Washington Back toward a war with Iran or accepting an agreement negotiated through Oman and then claiming a "win" that actually leaves Iran with significant influence over the Strait of Hormuz. Whether that outcome materializes remains uncertain, but the pressure created by America’s increasingly limited military options cannot be ignored. More broadly, Iran’s current position exposes the central failure of the campaign against Tehran. The damage Iran has suffered has been enormous. Yet paradoxically, Iran may now pose a greater strategic challenge than it did on February 28. Tehran appears more prepared for a prolonged confrontation with the United States, not less. Most importantly, there is little indication that Iranian leaders believe they are approaching a point of surrender. Instead, Tehran increasingly appears to view the current crisis as an opportunity to reshape the regional order: consolidating Iranian leverage over the Strait of Hormuz while forcing a dramatic reassessment, and potentially a significant reduction, of the American military presence in the Middle East. That is the strategic paradox Washington now faces. The United States may still possess overwhelming capacity to inflict damage on Iran. But the ability to destroy targets is not the same as the ability to compel a political outcome. And if each additional round of fighting leaves Iran more determined, while consuming American resources and weakening U.S. deterrence elsewhere, military superiority alone may not translate into strategic victory. #IranWar‌

Zachary Cohen @ZcohenCNN

a day ago

New: In recent weeks, Gen. Dan Caine has privately discussed the prospect of finding "an off-ramp" from the war with Iran w/ other key Trump officials — acknowledging military options on the table to escalate carry various potential risks & airpower alone is unlikely to achieve

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File in category of things we knew in March, if not BEFORE the war. The U.S. Is Burning Through Weapons in Iran. Russia and China Are Taking Note. nytimes.com/2026/08/08/us/…

From @ZcohenCNN: Caine is looking for an off-ramp and has discussed the need to wind down the Iran war with other members of Trump's national security team. cnn.com/2026/08/07/pol…

Iran Issues List of Demands, Complicating Efforts to Reopen Strait nytimes.com/2026/08/08/wor…

energyintel.com/0000019f-d747-…

Yep, wrote an article on this last week

Gregory Brew @gbrew24

16 hours ago

A crucial point. At a minimum, Iran will require the US to end its blockade before it implements whatever process is agreed to with Oman. Again: an Iran-Oman deal alone does not open the strait. There needs to be mutual de-escalation, and Iran will expect concessions from the

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@BrettErickson28 The extremists are mostly in US gov, neocons, fanatical Zionists, evangelicals, and similar

Every person on earth should be entirely reassessing their assumptions of Iran. While Washington has long trumpeted that Iran is running by ideological extremists hellbent on martyrdom and Armageddon… their actions just have not shown that whatsoever. If this were the case, Iran would have destroyed the entire Gulf energy and water desalination infrastructure the day the United States killed the Ayatollah. They didn’t. Clearly, as we have seen throughout this war, they have the CAPABILITY to, but they didn’t. Or maybe it was after the United States killed 168 schoolchildren and teachers in Minab on the first day of the war. Maybe that vile war crime that the United States conveniently swept under the rug was enough for these “radical Muslims” to bring about their Armageddon. Oops. They didn’t. Perhaps the INSANE “regime” was just feeding their citizens propaganda about the United States being the “Great Satan”… but then Trump literally threatened to wipe out their entire civilization. Then we imposed a blockade that intended to cause wheat and medical supply shortages, and make civilians suffering. I don’t know, maybe that wasn’t “propaganda” after all. Instead one might point to the Memorandum of Understanding where Iran abided by the terms, and the United States decided to try to force vessels through the Omani Route, then ripped up the oil sanction waivers, then added new sanctions on Iran, and then returned back to the bombing campaign. In an existential war for the future of Iran, when the United States has conducted a multitude of war crimes and threatened to wipe out the entire Iranian civilization… Iran has been consistently levelheaded. Pragmatic. Strategic. Maybe Americans, and much of the Western world, have been fed complete propaganda.

קונצנזוס בהנהגה האיראנית דבריו של דו אלקאדר דומים במידה רבה לדברים שאמר שר החוץ עראקצ'י ביחס להסכם עם עומאן, ובעיקר לקביעה שלפיה מצרי הורמוז ייפתחו רק אם ארה"ב תשנה את דרכה, וזאת ללא קשר להסכם עם עומאן. הדמיון בין ההתבטאויות מעיד על קיומו של קונצנזוס רחב בהנהגה האיראנית באשר למדיניות שיש לנקוט מול ארה"ב. אין פירוש הדבר שאין בתוך ההנהגה קולות, דוגמת הנשיא פזשכיאן, המעוניינים יותר בקידום הסכם, בין היתר לנוכח מצבה הכלכלי של איראן. עם זאת, הניסיון להסביר את אי-ההגעה להסכם בעיקר באמצעות מאבקי כוח פנימיים באיראן חוטא למציאות ומחמיץ נקודה מרכזית: לצד חילוקי הדעות הפנימיים בהנהגה האיראנית, קיימת הסכמה רחבה באשר לקו המדיני שיש לנקוט מול ארה"ב, ובפרט בכל הנוגע לסוגיית מצרי הורמוז.

Guy Elster גיא אלסטר @guyelster

17 hours ago

מזכיר המועצה לביטחון לאומי של איראן: מצר הורמוז לא ייפתח מחדש אם ארה״ב לא תתקן את דרכה

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Needless to say, Trump can’t even do 1 with threats and bluster (which backfires) so other ones difficult if not impossible in Washington

Wladimir van Wilgenburg @vvanwilgenburg

17 hours ago

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council steps up demands, and underlines that Strait of Hormuz won't be opened, unless US: 1.⁠ ⁠Never threaten Iran with any language nor insult the sanctities of this nation. 2.⁠ ⁠End the war and aggression against Iran and its allies in

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Washington needs to get its head around the reality of the new "#tripolar" Middle East. Most regional powers (ex-UAE) Cdo not want to get pulled into wars to prop up Israel's "freedom of action" vis a vis Iran, and want group which balances both. #IranWar wsj.com/opinion/saudis…

"Gen. Dan Caine has privately made clear to other top Trump advisers that the US needs to find an off-ramp from the war with Iran—because the military options on the table to escalate the conflict could backfire and airpower alone" won't meet Trump's objectives," per @ZcohenCNN

Escalating confrontation between the Houthis and Yemen govt on a key front line signals the war inside Yemen could be resuming after a 4-year pause. Most observers are focused on Houthi attacks in the Red Sea & on Saudi, but this is arguably more consequential 🧵

Ali Al-Sakani | علي السكني @Alsakaniali

2 days ago

Yemeni National Army artillery is pounding Houthi crowds along the front lines in #Marib and Al-Jawf. #Yemen

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The extraordinary gap between the depth of expertise on Iran that exists in Washington and at CENTCOM in Tampa, and the way the administration itself appears to understand Iran, demonstrates why independent expertise matters so much in the policymaking process. I do not know whether the experts reached President Trump and he chose not to listen, or whether he was primarily exposed to the analysis that those around him wanted him to hear. But the result is the same: the administration’s, and particularly the president’s limited understanding of Iran has been one of the central factors behind the failure of this campaign. This is also what happens when policymakers rely too heavily on interested parties whose preferred answer is escalation and whose policy prescription is war at almost any cost. Expertise exists. The question is whether decision-makers are willing to hear it, especially when it challenges what they want to believe. #iran

Sina Toossi @SinaToossi

2 days ago

All of the above. And much of it was the product of a narrative carefully cultivated and sold to Trump by Israel, as documented by prominent Israeli journalists, The New York Times, and borne out by the course of Trump's Iran policy since 2018.

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This week, a quote attributed to IRGC head Ahmad Vahidi, in which he claimed Iran was developing a nuclear weapon, spread across Israeli and US media. The quote appears to have been fabricated. ynet.co.il/news/article/b…

The United States sold euros to buy yen without telling the ECB until after the trade was done. Senior ECB officials called it “an unprecedented breach of longstanding conventions.” One said: “This has never happened before.” Selling dollars to defend the yen would have contradicted Bessent’s strong-dollar policy. Selling euros avoided that problem. But selling a European asset to defend an Asian currency to protect an American bond market, without consulting the institution whose asset was sold, is not a currency intervention. It is the reserve architecture consuming the alliance architecture. The reason Washington intervened at all is the part nobody wants to say plainly. Japan is the largest foreign holder of US Treasuries. The yen was at its weakest since 1986. If the yen falls far enough, Japanese institutions sell their most liquid foreign asset to raise cash. That asset is Treasuries. The selling pushes American yields higher at the exact moment the thirty-year just touched 5.28 percent. Washington did not intervene to help Japan. Washington intervened to prevent the Treasury market from absorbing a forced seller at a nineteen-year high in yields. The convention that was broken to execute this trade is the same kind of convention the reserve confiscation broke in 2022. That one taught central banks their dollar reserves were not safe from seizure. This one taught the ECB that dollar-system cooperation is not safe from unilateral action by its architect. Both lessons point the same direction: build the alternatives faster. The fix is eating the architecture it was built to preserve.

Financial Times @FT

2 days ago

US euro sale to prop up yen blindsided European Central Bank ft.trib.al/AtBb3lr

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