Iran is in the process of owning access to the Strait of Hormuz….
Iran is NOT gonna give up it’s Uranium…
Iran is now controlling the world oil prices…
Iran is rebuilding it’s weapons at a pace faster then people thought….
Iran has introduced the idea that they bring by terrorist attacks outside the Middle East….
Iran seems unafraid of renewed attack’s by a US Military that is running out funding for the Iran/War/Conflict
The US Senate keeps cutting the resistance from among it’s members to invoking the “War Powers’ Act’ that would require President Trump to come before them, something Trump REALLY does NOT want ‘ lower himself’ to do….
Trump approval numbers have dropped to the mid 30% in some polls…..
Actually?
Iran HAS Trump stuck in place…..
And they are NOT letting go of the Big Guy…..
Iran’s Mojtaba Khamenei rejects Trump’s uranium export demand…
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei has ordered that the country’s near-weapons-grade uranium stockpile must not be sent abroad, a move that hardens Tehran’s position on a key US demand in ongoing peace negotiations.
According to a Reuters report, citing two senior Iranian sources, the directive by Mojtaba is expected to further strain diplomatic efforts led by US President Donald Trump to end the ongoing conflict involving Iran and Israel, and could complicate efforts to secure a broader peace agreement….
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ISW…Iran Update Special Report, May 20, 2026
- Iran is likely using the ceasefire period to normalize Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz by compelling oil-importing countries to establish a bilateral transit agreement with Iran while charging fees from vessels that are not part of the bilateral deals. These fees are framed as “security” fees, but the fees are in reality part of a mafia-esque protection racket in which the vessels pay Iran so that the Iranian navy can “secure” the vessels against an attack by the Iranian navy or Iranian shore-based missiles and drones.
- Iran’s normalization scheme could not be disrupted by a post-war “security” deployment by European states, as some countries have suggested. Iran would likely attempt to stop, perhaps with force, any post-war “security force” if the war ends with an official or de facto recognition of Iranian sovereignty over the Strait.
- A successful Iranian effort to normalize this structure would gradually increase the number of vessels moving through the strait to near pre-war levels. This reduces the visible economic costs of restricted access and therefore weakens the primary argument for mobilizing US allies to help reopen the strait. It is not a given that this effort will be successful, however.
- Three US officials told the Wall Street Journal that US forces seized a US-sanctioned, Iranian-linked oil tanker, the M/T Skywave (IMO: 9328716), between May 19 and 20 after it transited the Strait of Malacca on May 14. US Marines separately boarded the Iranian-flagged oil tanker M/T Celestial Sea (IMO: 9397030) on May 20 on suspicion of attempting to reach an Iranian port.
- The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) threatened on May 20 to expand the war “far beyond the region” if US-Israeli strikes on Iran resume. This threat almost certainly seeks to deter renewed US-Israeli strikes but could also reflect IRGC planning for a potential future conflict. Iran does possess several capabilities with which it could operationalize these threats, including by conducting terror attacks abroad, disrupting shipping in other chokepoints, or firing ballistic missiles at longer range.
- Pakistan is attempting to secure its own political and security interests by fulfilling its end of the Pakistan-Saudi Arabia defense agreement and helping mediate between the United States and Iran.
- Hezbollah defended against an IDF assault into Haddatha, Bint Jbeil District, on May 19 and 20. The protracted Hezbollah defense is the first prolonged engagement between the IDF and Hezbollah since the ceasefire began.
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Iran’s hardline leadership….
Senior Iranian officials maintain that all key matters are run by the 56-year-old heir. Decision making, however, extends beyond one man, experts say, guided by a small, elite band of mostly current or former senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
It is not the Guards as an organization that is exerting control, they say, but a hardened “band of brothers,” whose seminal experience was the brutal, eight-year war between Iran and Iraq that began in 1980.
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These men are among the hardest-line figures in the country — militants not only in terms of perpetuating the Islamic revolution, but also in the harsh methods they have championed while running the main organs of government repression.
Their shared backgrounds, careers and ideological outlook are one reason the war has neither collapsed the government nor paralyzed it, despite the deaths of about 50 top political and military leaders, experts said.
Whatever jockeying may be taking place among these central figures over whether to seek a pragmatic end to the conflict remains largely opaque. Some shunned the limelight even before the war. Now they now remain hidden for fear of being targeted….
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Trump and Netanyahu tried to get their guy to lead Iran….That was idiocy ….
Days after Israeli strikes killed Iran’s supreme leader and other top officials in the opening salvos of the war, President Trump mused publicly that it would be best if “someone from within” Iran took over the country.
It turns out that the United States and Israel went into the conflict with a particular and very surprising someone in mind: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former Iranian president known for his hard-line, anti-Israel and anti-American views.
But the audacious plan, developed by the Israelis and which Mr. Ahmadinejad had been consulted about, quickly went awry, according to the U.S. officials who were briefed on it.
Mr. Ahmadinejad was injured on the war’s first day by an Israeli strike at his home in Tehran that had been designed to free him from house arrest, the American officials and an associate of Mr. Ahmadinejad said. He survived the strike, they said, but after the near miss he became disillusioned with the regime change plan….
Note….
I keep thinking of LBJ and Vietnam…..
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