In today’s newsletter, tensions escalate in the Middle East. Qatar says negotiations between Washington and Tehran are continuing, while Britain expands military assistance to Saudi Arabia. In France, violent unrest continues with thousands arrested and President Emmanuel Macron facing criticism over his handling of the crisis. President Trump announced the release of American detainee Stephen Hubbard from Russia, and much more.
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Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pute in heart: for they shall see God.
Matthew 5:7-8
In ** the latest developments in the Middle East**, Iran is turning up the violence, likely in hopes of achieving their openly stated goal of getting American voters to put the Democrats back in power. Iran has taken to placing sea mines in the Strait of Hormuz and claims that two oil tanker fires were caused by striking them. A senior official declared that “not a single gram” of Iran’s nuclear material will leave the country. And the IRGC threatened to cut undersea fiber optic cables in the Strait that connect other Gulf States to data networks. We assume they’ll do that with their navy that’s now on the bottom of the sea.
On the bright side, a new coalition of opposition groups has formed in southeastern Iran and has launched a series of armed attacks against the mullahs’ regime in Tehran. More of this, please, and can we get some more guns to them?
Qatar officials said that peace talks are ongoing between the US and Iran, although neither side confirmed that. President Trump said one holdup is that the current leaders want him to guarantee that he won’t kill them as he did with the previous leaders. Trump said, “And you know why? Because they’ve killed a lot of Americans with their roadside bombs over the years.” He added, “Somebody said, I wonder why they (the Iranian people) don’t protest...Well, it’s a little hard when you got machine guns at the end of the street shooting you down. They hang them by cranes. They hang up by cranes for all to see. A very, sad thing. Rough group.”
The UK announced Tuesday that it is expanding its military support for Saudi Arabia against the Iran-based Houthi rebels in Yemen who have been launching missile and drone attacks against Saudi Arabia.
French President-ish Macron tried to blame the riots and looting in France on Trump, citing higher gas prices due to the Iran war. Trump dismissed that, saying, “I said the first time I met Macron, I said, you got to close up your borders. You’re going to ruin your country. And they’ve ruined their country. It’s going to be hard to get it back. But hopefully France will come back.”
Iran expert Lisa Daftari also brushed off Macron’s claim, saying that fuel prices are high because Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and held the world’s oil supply hostage. She said that widespread looting and arson of infrastructure and historic buildings are “not a protest over the price of diesel. It’s organized lawlessness and Macron’s own government admits it, blaming ultra-left groups and criminals. France has a domestic crisis, and current geopolitics are not the alibi for it.”
Iran’s foreign minister met with his Russian counterpart and declared that “Never in our history have Iran and Russia worked as closely as now.” The Russian foreign minister issued a statement blaming the conflict on “unprovoked U.S.-Israeli aggression,” and cited “Russia’s readiness to help find acceptable negotiated solutions to this man-made crisis.”
Nice try, but we seriously doubt that Putin really wants to stick his neck out for Iran right now and get involved in this war and tick off Trump when he has his own war and other things to worry about (for instance, as we noted yesterday, Texas’ economy is now bigger than Russia’s.) It strikes us that Iran is trying to turn Russia’s endorsement of peace talks into proof of a powerful international coalition against the US. We assume that to Russia, it was just a press release.
