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Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff has been spurned by leaders in Tehran who are standing firm on needing guarantees of no more future attacks Iran has spurned two messages from Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, seeking a ceasefire as its leaders sense it is not losing the war and the US president is at the minimum feeling the political pressure. The foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has further said a unilateral declaration from Trump that the US had won the war would not bring an end to the conflict. The implication is that even if the US announced a willingness to end its attacks, Iran might be willing to continue the conflict in some form, or keep its chokehold on shipping seeking to navigate the strait of Hormuz. Continue reading...

Iran begins mining Strait of Hormuz as Washington's tanker escort claim collapses  Türkiye Today

President Donald Trump has pledge the 'free flow' of energy through the strait, a goal that has yet to be accomplished.

US energy secretary deletes post about Navy escorting vessel through Strait of Hormuz US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright on Tuesday deleted a post on X which had said the US Navy successfully escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz amid Iranian threats to attack vessels passing through the narrow waterway. "President Trump is maintaining stability of global energy during the military operations against Iran," Wright wrote on X. “The U.S. Navy successfully escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz to ensure oil remains flowing to global markets.” Within minutes, the post was deleted. It remains unclear why Wright deleted the post.

The standstill in the Strait of Hormuz caused by the Middle East war could hammer some of the world's most vulnerable people, the United Nations warned Tuesday. The strait is the only sea passage from the Gulf towards the Indian Ocean, through which nearly a quarter of the world's seaborne oil supplies pass, as well as a significant amount of cargo. Iran has all but blocked the waterway following the launch of the February 28 US-Israeli airstrikes on the country that triggered the war.

Trade at the Middle East's biggest port has been hit hard since Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz began.

Advocacy group Dawn criticise censorship in Bahrain, Qatar during war The advocacy group Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn) called on Qatar and Bahrain to "immediately release" those arrested for peaceful expressions related to the ongoing war in the region.  In a statement issued on Tuesday, Dawn's Advocacy Director Raed Jarrar urged the release and dropping of all charges on dissenting voices.  "Sharing information or challenging their government's policies, including their ties to the US or Israel as they wage an unlawful war of aggression, should never be grounds for arrest," he added.  Omar Shakir, the group's Executive Director, said that "freedom of expression does not disappear when the bombs start falling." "Wartime is precisely when people most need to speak freely to share information, question decision-making, express dissent, and hold authorities to account." The latest remarks from Dawn come amid reports by human rights defenders of at least 100 people being arrested in Bahrain due to protesting or expressing views on the war. This includes the detainment of individuals and even seeking the death penalty against some activists. In Qatar, the Ministry of Interior has said that it has arrested over 300 people on charges of spreading "misleading information," including at least one person arrested for "direct insults to the State of Qatar and its institutions".

Larijani: Hormuz Strait either 'Strait of peace or suffering' Iranian security chief Ali Larijani said in a post on X that the Strait of Hormuz will "either be a Strait of peace and prosperity for all or will be a Strait of defeat and suffering for warmongers". The post, published in several languages, comes amid Tehran's disruption of the vital oil transit route.

Qatar seeks to strengthen defence pact with US, foreign ministry spokesman says Qatar wants to strengthen its defence partnership with the US in the wake of Iranian attacks on the country, the foreign ministry spokesperson said on Tuesday. The spokesperson, Majed al-Ansari, told a media briefing that the security partnership with Washington was not in question, but added that deals with Europe and the US need to be strengthened. "The partnerships are the main stop-gap and deterrent against any attack on our country," he said. "When things go out of control and spiral, the result is deterrents do not work... But that doesn't mean you shouldn't have deterrents. You should strengthen these deterrents and that is exactly what are we trying to do right."

TEHRAN, Mar. 10 (MNA) – Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held a telephone conversation with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi to discuss the latest regional developments.

Kharg island holds 94 per cent of Iran’s oil exports and could choke off the country’s economy for years

Oil prices spiked after shipments through the Strait of Hormuz were disrupted amid the Iran war.

Iran Security Chief Dismisses Trump Warning Over Strait of Hormuz Oil Flow  Kurdistan24

Iranian attacks affect global economy, says Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman The Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majid al-Ansari said that "repelling and dealing" with Iranian attacks are now a priority.  "Iranian attacks affect the Qatari economy and the global economy as a whole," he was quoted as saying by Al Jazeera, adding that while Doha believes in diplomacy, any attack with be dealt with.  "This is an attack on us, our citizens, and our facilities, and it cannot be accepted," Ansari said. "We were optimistic about the Iranian president's apology, but then we saw an attack on the UAE, Bahrain, and Qatar."

Iran’s Strategy in the Ramadan War: Control of the Strait of Hormuz and Global Impacts  WANA News Agency

Why Trump and Netanyahu are the most dangerous men on the planet David Hearst on Mon, 03/09/2026 - 23:22 As Iran stands firm, there is no clear exit strategy from a war driven by one man's ego and another's messianic vision A person wears a T-shirt with images of US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a protest in New York on 2 March 2026 (Adam Gray/Getty Images/AFP) Off It’s difficult to know who is deluding themselves more about the war on Iran: US President Donald Trump or Grok. Elon Musk's AI platform wrongly claimed that footage of a fire in Glasgow was related to an incident in Tel Aviv, and it also confused a video appearing to show oil fires in Iran with a 2017 blaze near Los Angeles.  Meanwhile, in a dizzying stream of social media posts since the US attacked Iran, Trump has variously called for a mass uprising, demanded the country’s unconditional surrender, claimed that he would be directly involved in choosing Iran’s next leader, suggested that Iran is being beaten to hell, and vowed to widen his target list. But his most significant post called the assassination of former Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their Country”. This was a chance the Iranian people did not take. They instead came out onto the streets by the thousands to mourn Khamenei while the bombing was taking place. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); In addition to that, the killing of the Iranian head of state, in itself an event unique in modern history, might have done the very opposite of what Trump and the “brains” of the operation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had intended. The assassination of Khamenei might have revitalised and given new direction to the Islamic Republic and the Iranian revolution. Iran's red lines When the Islamic Republic feels threatened, it is quite capable of suppressing national uprisings. But Khamenei was also a pragmatist. Under his rule, Iran did not reply to the serial killings of its top generals and nuclear scientists - and when it did, it was in a highly choreographed manner intended to close the affair.  Under Khamenei, Iran kept to its red lines, which were not to attack its Gulf neighbours nor to close the Strait of Hormuz. There were occasions when some of its proxy militias did - notably, drones from Iraq attacked the Abqaiq and Khurais oil facilities in eastern Saudi Arabia in 2019, temporarily halving Aramco’s daily output - but responsibility for that was blurred, and there was an element of plausible deniability. The Houthis claimed responsibility. Iran did not attack its Gulf neighbours when its top general, Qassem Soleimani, was killed by a US drone at Baghdad’s airport; nor when Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed at a guesthouse run by the Revolutionary Guards after the inauguration of President Masoud Pezeshkian; nor when several senior military commanders were killed by Israel in the 12-day war last year.  Trump, whose 'gut instinct' led him to attack Iran in the middle of negotiations, is flailing around wildly with a new policy soundbite for each new day Iran did not respond to the helicopter crash that killed former president Ebrahim Raisi in Azerbaijan, which takes on a different complexion now that the stated policy of Israel is to kill leaders past and present. Khamenei represented the second phase of the Islamic Republic, which weighed its response. Khamenei was unbending. His oft-quoted remark to US officials was: “Someone like me does not pledge allegiance to people like you.”  But he calculated risks and acted accordingly. In response to Soleimani’s assassination, Iran targeted two US bases in Iraq with missiles, but told the Iraqi government what bases it was about to attack. Both Hezbollah and Iran refused to join ranks with Hamas after its attack on Israel on 7 October 2023. And Iran tried twice to negotiate with Trump on its uranium enrichment programme. It was not so under the first supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. His Iran was revolutionary, and as such, much more unpredictable. At the height of the revolution, 52 American hostages were held for 444 days to protest against Washington allowing the deposed shah into the US for medical treatment.  When invaded by Saddam Hussein’s superior army, backed by the US and Europe and funded by the Gulf states, Khomenei could not rely on the regular army to defend Iran.  He turned to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), formed to protect the revolution and act as a counterweight to Iran’s existing forces. Iran had no real army when Saddam invaded. It did by the time the war ended eight years later: the Iran-Iraq War turned the IRGC into a formidable fighting force. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Revolutionary spirit  Khamenei’s Iran was neither revolutionary nor unpredictable. His death may well have changed that; far from killing the revolutionary spirit of the Islamic Republic, it may have revitalised it. In the space of 10 days, Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz, stopped oil and gas production along the Gulf, and created a global oil crisis several times the magnitude of the 1973 oil crisis. The loss of oil - 20 million barrels a day - equals all the oil stoppages from 1978 to 2022 combined.  It has made a mockery of the US promise to protect Gulf shipping lanes. Gulf states are seeking private foreign military specialists to support their operations, including radar operators, ground maintenance crews, ground security teams, and electronic warfare specialists to provide protection during active operations. They are also seeking pilots. Israel's war of regional supremacy will not end with Iran Read More » Iran severely damaged the $1.1bn early warning radar system in Qatar, which is needed to operate every Thaad launcher and Patriot battery in the region. The US is now having to replace its damaged Patriot systems by plundering those installed in South Korea. It has peppered Manama, Kuwait City, Dubai, Doha and Riyadh with drones. It has all but halted air traffic through and to the Gulf.  Fourteen countries in the region have been dragged into the war, including Cyprus, alongside three other European powers: Norway, the UK and France, who have had their airbases or embassies attacked. Iran is fulfilling the promise its wartime leader, Ali Larijani, made in interviews reacting to Khamenei’s death: “We will burn their hearts. We will make the Zionist criminals and the shameless Americans regret their actions.” Indeed, the US bombardment appears to have galvanised Iran. Crowds came out onto the streets and stayed there until well after midnight to cheer the appointment of Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba, as his successor. Look at the footage of these mass demonstrations, and by no means is everyone on the streets a religious conservative. Mojtaba is the man Trump explicitly told Iranians not to choose as their leader, a warning reinforced by Israel’s daily revised kill list. But in choosing Mojtaba, the regime is telling Trump that he cannot bully Iran, as he has tried to do to the rest of the world. Iran has swapped a leader who was 86 years old and reportedly had cancer, for his 56-year-old son, a principlist with long-established connections to the IRGC.  Global crisis As part of his service in the Habib Ibn Mazahir Battalion, a volunteer-linked faction in the IRGC, Mojtaba made contacts with figures who would rise to senior positions in Iran’s security and intelligence apparatus, such as Hossein Taeb, the future head of the IRGC’s Intelligence Organisation. Unlike Trump’s sons, Mojtaba is well dug into his country’s security state.  Until today, Mojtaba wielded his political influence behind the scenes. A supporter of the former populist president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mojtaba was accused of helping to mastermind both the claimed rigging of the 2009 election and the crackdown on protesters that followed. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Ten days after being attacked, Iran is keeping its promise to make this war not just a regional crisis, but a global energy crisis, too - and all this before the Houthis have formally entered the war. They have the power to stop international shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the mouth of the Red Sea. They have been preparing for war. Most importantly, the US-Israeli attack has galvanised support for the Iranian regime out of patriotism and sheer national outrage at what Trump and Netanyahu are trying to engineer in their country. Listen to this voice: Abdolkarim Soroush is a prominent Iranian philosopher and intellectual, an early supporter of the 1979 Islamic revolution who became one of its sharpest critics, and a leading advocate for religious reform. He has argued that Islamic law is not immutable but subject to interpretation, a stance that led to his exile from Iran. This is what he says today: “Our military forces fight with faith and courage, and the people too must rush to the aid of these self-sacrificing souls however they can. “This black cloud will pass from over the country, but its shame will remain on the foreheads of those who stood alongside the traitors to the homeland. Today, neutrality is nothing but folly and lack of conscience; contrary to the clamour of a tiny minority, the majority of the Iranian people demand the severing of the hand of the aggressors.” Trump, whose “gut instinct” led him to attack Iran in the middle of negotiations, is flailing around wildly with a new policy soundbite for each new day. Having previously dismissed sending ground troops, he is now reported to be seriously interested in the notion. For a time, Trump mused about using Iranian Kurdish groups as a spearhead. Apart from the fact that there are five different Iranian Kurdish groups, the Iranian Kurds have good reason not to heed Trump’s call. Both Baghdad and Ankara are implacably opposed, sources tell me. Bubble burst As each day passes, the magnitude of this crisis is growing. France is sending frigates. Britain is readying an aircraft carrier. There has been no planning for either; it is just a last-minute scramble.  Iran is suffering severe blows with the daily bombardments by US and Israeli bombers, but it has not been crippled. On the contrary: it has shown it can resist and reply in kind. It has burst the bubble of security and wealth that surrounded the Gulf states, and exposed their vulnerability to full-scale war, which so often in the past did not seem to affect them or change their lifestyle.  To prevail, Trump needs Iran to crumble - and soon. It shows no sign of doing so; rather, its survival strategy appears to be working How does this end? Bit by bit, the pressure of the turmoil gripping oil and financial markets will build, pushing Trump to call a halt to the worst intervention the US has made in a long history of failed wars.  Market turmoil does not augur well for Trump. This is not a president who ignores what Wall Street tells him, especially when only 20 percent of US adults are behind him.  To pursue this war to the end, the US would have to occupy one or possibly two key straits to protect international shipping channels - and they could only do so with troops on the ground. None of this can be done quickly. If he backs down, Trump will leave his own legacy in tatters, and stop Netanyahu’s messianic vision of a region dominated by Israel in its tracks. No future US president will be led down the same garden path by the same alliance. To prevail, Trump needs Iran to crumble - and soon. It shows no sign of doing so; rather, its survival strategy appears to be working. But in the meantime, this war can go a lot further in wrecking nations, destroying oil fields, burning Gulf wealth and killing thousands of innocent civilians. This is the price the region is paying for one man’s ego, another man’s messianic vision, and the impotence of a Europe that just stands by and watches. Thwarted and frustrated, Trump and Netanyahu are currently the two most dangerous men on this planet. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye. War on Iran Opinion Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:29 Update Date Override 0

Iran vowed on Tuesday that not one litre of oil would be exported from the Gulf while its war with the United States and Israel continues, in a stark rebuke to President Donald Trump's boast that the conflict was all but over. Trump's argument that the war would be "ended soon" helped reverse the previous day's spike in oil prices, which have surged since Iranian attacks on shipping closed the strategic Strait of Hormuz in response to the US-Israeli strikes that killed its supreme leader.

TEHRAN, Mar. 10 (MNA) – The secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) has reacted to French President Emmanuel Macron's comments on sending warships to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran launches drones at Saudi Arabia and Kuwait as U.S. President Donald Trump sends mixed messages about the war, fueling market uncertainty

Trump: Death, fire, and fury will reign upon Iran if Strait of Hormuz blocked US President Donald Trump on Tuesday warned Iran it would face massive retaliation and that "Death, Fire, and Fury will reign upon them" if it continues attempts to block oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. Writing on his Truth Social platform, Trump said Iran would be struck “twenty times harder” if it disrupted the flow of oil through the critical maritime choke point. “Additionally, we will take out easily destroyable targets that will make it virtually impossible for Iran to ever be built back, as a Nation, again — Death, Fire, and Fury will reign upon them — But I hope, and pray, that it does not happen!” he said. Trump framed his stance as a broader effort to safeguard international energy markets, describing it as a “gift from the United States of America to China, and all of those Nations that heavily use the Hormuz Strait”. “Hopefully, it is a gesture that will be greatly appreciated,” he added.