Beggared and Battered The Islamic Republic Believes It is In Charge

"[The United States must agree to a list of demands for reopening the strait, including an end to the] war and aggression against Iran and its allies in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, and Iraq]."

Iranian Security Chief Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr 

 

"[Hormuz’s reopening had] nothing to do with the negotiations between Iran and Oman."

"[The] enemy is forced to accept Iran’s conditions for the opening of the strait."

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps 

 

"[We condemn the] hostile Iranian attack that targeted a tanker belonging to ADNOC (Abu Dhabi National Oil Company) with a missile while it was transiting the Strait of Hormuz, [despite that the attack occurred] without causing casualties."

United Arab Emirates’ foreign ministry

 

"[We condemn] repeated attacks on vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz."

"Ongoing negotiations regarding navigation arrangements in the Strait of Hormuz are proceeding in a positive and constructive atmosphere. [We urge against any actions that might jeopardize the progress]."

Omani Foreign Ministry

 

"We are low-keying it."

"We are only semi-negotiating with them. We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money."

"It will work out. It's like a chess game."

U.S. President Donald J. Trump  

"

A man walks in front of a wall mural in Tehran, Iran, on August 6, 2026. Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images

 

"We currently have no negotiations with the United States. Intermediaries are still making efforts to find ways to resume negotiations. From our perspective, there can be no resumption of talks until the United States ends its violations of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and makes amends for the breaches it has committed."

"Until the violations of the memorandum of understanding by the United States are ended and the United States does not make amends for what it has violated, in our opinion, there is no possibility of resuming negotiations." 

"Of course, this [agreement with Oman] does not mean the opening of the Strait of Hormuz. This agreement may be reached, but the opening of the Strait of Hormuz is subject to a series of conditions." 

"The opening of the Strait is subject to other conditions, including the compensation for the US's violations of the Islamabad Agreement." 

Iranian Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araghchi  

"I try to remind people that we're really in the middle of the game here."

"[The question is whether Iran will be able] to give the things that are necessary for us to be happy, for us to feel like we've gotten what we need out of this particular engagement."

"What we're really working through now is how you can actually set up a traffic scheme so that the ships that pass can pass through safely."

U.S. Vice-President, J.D. Vance  

Battered and bruised, many of its key government figures, including the Grand Ayatollah, high-placed members of the Iranian military, nuclear scientists, IRGC officials were targeted and eliminated in the February aerial attacks coordinated between the U.S. and Israel. Iranian shipping and military fleets were bombed, its aircraft destroyed, nuclear facilities bombed as well as government offices, communications were hit and the country's munitions stockpiles destroyed. What wasn't destroyed is the arrogant assumptions by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that despite these massive losses, they remain 'in charge'. 

 

They engineered a response, though considered by analysts prior to its implementation as a possibility, that was a stroke of Byzantine economic/military genius; blocking the Strait of Hormuz to international shipping as a critical gateway from the Middle East to the rest of the world dependent for their energy supplies and agricultural fertilizers. Holding the Strait hostage to the world's dependency on this energy lifeline represented a clever move to squeeze the political fortunes of a foreign government that 'won' a war and lost the rewards of its aftermath through sheer economic gangsterism.

 

That 'conquered' nation whose economy is in tatters, whose military infrastructure is in huge upheaval, whose population prays for its downfall still managed to terrorize its neighbours in destructive bombardments of their territories housing U.S. military assets, in targeting their oil depots, in threatening that for every U.S. military move on Iranian assets in reaction to Iran's intransigence for refusing to be defeated, has demonstrated its cunning manoeuvres counteracting the 'victory' of a much more powerful military. 

 

A small boat sails past cargo ships and other commercial vessels anchored in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2026. (Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP) | AP

 

Iran, the defeated, yet actively defiant assailant of its own people, of its neighbours, has delivered an ultimatum to the world's most powerful nation: do as we demand or your victory will turn to the dust of history's recounting of a debacle of unforeseen consequences. Just as the Islamic Republic demands reparations from the very neighbours it has pounded time and again with missiles and drones in retaliation for their having acceded to hosting U.S. military emplacements, to prod its nemesis, the United States, to rethink its flawed efforts to bring down the regime, it now demands the same from the U.S.

 

Iran's Supreme National Security Council secretary Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, a commander in the Revolutionary Guard Corps, has issued a list of new demands, emphasizing that the Strait of Hormuz will not be reopened to international marine traffic until such time as the United States "corrects its behaviour" by adhering to the following:

• The United States must never again threaten Iran;
• The United States must permanently end its war with Iran and its regional armed proxies;
• The U.S. must lift the naval blockade of Iranian ports;
• The U.S. must withdraw its military from the area;
• The U.S. must completely compensate Iran for war damages;
• The U.S. must life sanctions and unconditionally release Iran's frozen assets.

Separately, Iran has been negotiating a stand-alone agreement with Oman to manage the Strait running between the two countries' borders. The waterway's reopening rests on other conditions, including the stalemate resulting from the U.S. violation of the interim deal signed in June to end sanctions and plan on compensation as part of a final agreement, according to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.  

 

Iran's UN envoy demanded full reparations from Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and Jordan, accusing them of facilitating unlawful armed attacks and breaching international obligations that led to significant material and moral damage to the Islamic Republic of Iran.  Tasnim News Agency

More recently, an Abu Dhabi state-owned ADNOC oil and gas company vessel while transiting the Strait was attacked, according to Emirati authorities. A reflection of Iran's tendency to fire missiles on commercial shipping as it seeks to 'privatize' the formerly international waterway by imposing stiff tariffs for passage through the Strait, paid directly to the Islamic Republic. The tentative agreement with Oman would see that country too exacting tariffs for safe passage through its side of the waterway. 

 

According to ADNOC, over a dozen of its vessels have been hit by missiles and drones while  transiting the Strait, since the war on Iran was launched in February. In that time, one crew member was killed and twenty others wounded. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Center confirmed that a vessel east of Khasah, Oman, was struck by a projectile causing a fire which the  crew put out. 

 

Iran demands US reparations and Hormuz control in latest peace proposal. (Photo: FILE) / Reuters

 

 

A Victory of American Might And Capitulation

"Having failed to achieve his goals in the joint U.S.-Israel war on Iran, Trump is now attempting to disguise the setback as a victory."-Israeli military aggression."

"Enemy forces failed to attain any of their stated objectives and did not approach Iranian territorial waters."

Tehran Times 

 

"[The] immediate and permanent [end to military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon, paving the way to a] final deal [in the next 60 days] extendable with mutual consent."

"[The U.S. Treasury to waive sanctions on Iranian oil exports and the two countries to] refrain from interfering in each other's internal affairs."

Memorandum of Understanding 

A mural in Tehran depicting negotiators, Anadolu via Getty

 

The Iranian regime is ecstatic; their not-without-reason interpretation of the Memorandum of Understanding is a surrender by the United States to the greater bargaining power and wisdom of the Islamic Republic whose tactical brilliance in closing the Strait of Hormuz sent U.S. President Donald Trump's triumphant self-congratulatory messages to the world in a tail-spin of second-think. "Oil-down" this master negotiator acknowledged as he became complicit with the Iranian regime's inexorable hold on power.

 

Sinking the Iranian navy, bombing its air defences and nuclear and missile sites was a clear military victory advantaging the United States over an obdurate, resilient enemy. The death of the totalitarian mastermind Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was a triumph of decapitation, or it would have been in any ordinary theocracy that was not backed by an Islamist-obsessed Republican Guard Corps, having at its service men schooled in a death cult subservient to a hidden Mahdi soon to arrive and demolish undeserving humanity.

 

Then came the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz, the attacks on Gulf oligarchies and the West reeling under an economic shock and rising energy prices, and the game suddenly turned sideways. Hesitating to invade and destroy the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the remnants of the regime's senior figures the American President held out the white flag of surrender while declaring its military victory, and its reconsideration over replacing the regime to release the Iranian people from its totalitarian bondage.

 

Donald Trump addresses the media at the G7 summit in Evian, France, 17 June 2026. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

 

The vaunted Memorandum of Understanding which excluded Israel from the partnership between the United States and the Jewish state in reality unleashed Israel from the unbreakable bond of mutual trust, friendship and comradely military functionality. Israel lacks the appeal of wealthy Gulf states whose gilded pomp and oil production figure so large in world prosperity. All the more so when one such as Qatar can bedazzle the U.S. President with its generous shower of lucre and impressive gift-giving.

 

The MOU's "the Islamic Republic of Iran reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons", and "the disposition of stockpiled enriched material" will be resolved by the International Atomic Energy supervising the process need not be questioned for the surface relief it promises, with the Islamic Republic whose word of honour has become a metaphor for conniving, threatening psychopathy. 

 

"The Islamic Republic of Iran will maintain the current status quo of its nuclear program, and the United States of America will not impose any new sanctions and will not deploy additional forces in the region", according to the Memorandum of Understanding. Why would anyone dare question the reliability of such grandiloquent promises, unless they have had the misfortune of being on the receiving end of Tehran's ballistic missiles?

 

As a reward for its "compliance", the U.S. is prepared to develop a $300-billion plan for "the reconstruction and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran" and it will "terminate all types of sanctions", unfreeze Iran's bank accounts, and allow Iranian oil to flow, relinquishing control of the Strait of Hormuz to Iran and Oman.  Truly a victory for the ages.

 

Shipping in the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, Anadolu via Getty

 

The Best Laid Plans of Iranian Succession : Confusion and Chaos

"The martyrdom of the Supreme Leader at the  hands of Israel and the criminal America was a great disaster for our country."

"With the power of God, we will continue the path of the Imam, the path of the dear leader, and the path of all those who seek justice in the world with power." 

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian

 

"Irrespective of what the guidelines say and what the politics may have been, it was always going to be improvisational."

"Under the circumstances of an existential conflict, the succession process is going to be very much dictated by the context of the moment."

Suzanne Maloney, vice-president, Brookings Institution

 

"The structure of the Islamic Revolution has been designed in such a way that after the martyrdom of any commander, at any rank or level, qualified and capable individuals immediately replace them."

Fars News Agency

 

"The succession process is not key in the short term because they're going to try and fight on."

"Firing off missiles does not require a supreme leader." 

Alex Vatanka, Iran analyst, Middle East Institute

Plumes of smoke from two simultaneous strikes rise over Tehran on Monday. (Mohsen Ganji/The Associated Press)

 

The first step in a process of succession in the aftermath of confirmation  of the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei resulting from an Israeli aerial attack on his compound containing the Ayatollah's offices, was announced. That a commission of three experts as called for in Iran's constitution, would meet to select the next supreme leader. Unfortunately, while the experts and others around them were in close consultation the building they were in was bombed to smithereens.

 

Evidently, before that happened, the decision was promulgated. Although Ayatollah Khamenei was said to have spurned the idea of  succession, even though rumour had it that he was grooming his oldest son to succeed him, the panel of experts had decided on elevating that son to the now-empty position of Grand Ayatollah. That, despite that the son did not have the required scholarship credentials to obtain that role. 

 

Iran International reports the Assembly of Experts has elected Ali Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, as his father’s successor.

 

According to President Pezeshkian, an interim leadership council was struck to begin the process of overseeing the country locked in war with the  attack of its government institutions by the combined military forces of the United States and Israel. Moreover, it was latterly reported that the building housing the deliberating council was bombed: "Following the decapitation of 88 Members of the Islamic Supreme Council, which was set to choose the Ayatollah regime's next "Supreme Leader"; Mossad announced: "It doesn't matter who is chosen today; his fate has been decreed. Only the Iranian nation will choose their future leader."

 

Following the U.S.-Israeli attack that began on Saturday, Iran retaliated by firing waves of missiles and drones at Israel and targeted U.S. allies in the region. Here, boys watch as a tall smoke plume billows following an explosion in the Fujairah industrial zone in the U.A.E. (Fadel Senna/AFP/Getty Images)

 

With the elimination of many contenders and in the current regime instability various rivals and factions are certain to emerge, each claiming their right to assume wartime power in the face of questionable support from the country'[s military establishment. The solution to which may be a decision to retain the temporary council, but then the fact is the temporary council is now rather unavailable, given that blast that destroyed the building they were meeting in. 

 

Even though Mojtaba Khamenei was widely expected to be favoured as his father's successor, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei resisted the transfer of the supreme position along hereditary lines. Such a move would smack too greatly of the ruling system of the Pahlavi dynasty, when the Shah was replaced by the Islamic Republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic. 

 

In Iran the supreme leader is a high-placed religious figure considered to be a representative of God, while also being the head of state. During the 37 years that Ali Khamenei served, he expanded his power and the scope of his rule over the civilian government which itself was elected under a quasi-democratic rule. As such the Grand Ayatollah had the power to wield final decision-making on all manner of regime initiatives, even as he also consulted.

 

What the Iranian Shiite regime -- or what is left of it -- has failed to take into account is its future presence in the Middle East where it has succeeded through its violently hostile actions toward its Sunni Arab neighbours by sending endless streams of missiles and deadly drones into their territory, attacking both oil extraction sites and civilian infrastructure and in so doing inciting deadly enmity from those same neighbours, is the future consequences. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and others will never now countenance a continuation of the Islamic Republic. 

 

The U.S. and Israel launched a new wave of attacks on Iran on Tuesday, as the conflict entered its fourth day. Here, plumes of smoke rise following reported explosions in Tehran early Tuesday. (Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images)