This is key: « Naval and air blockades that weaken Iran's economy and SoH flows that erode its leverage mean the initial MoU tradeoff of easing dueling blockades does not hold the same incentive it had in June for the U.S. (and be met with mixed reviews from U.S. allies). » The result: transit through the Strait remains severely impeded, at enormous cost to countries worldwide, but the cost to the US itself has at least for now been blunted, giving Trump room to wait and push for a tougher bargain. That leaves Iran with a difficult set of choices: hold firm, and endure open-ended economic pain; offer a concession on the nuclear file that it appears determined to avoid; or escalate against its neighbors’ energy infrastructure to try to deepen the economic crisis, risking massive counter-escalation and further antagonizing those neighbors…

RT @AliVaez: Over the past week at UNGA I've been speaking to Iranian, GCC and Western officials. The upside is that Tehran and Washington…

New Interview: I talked to the analyst Jaser AbuMousa about what life is like in Gaza today, and the devastation of his own family. newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/w…

We are hiring! jobs.crisisgroup.org/o/analy…

RT @HamidRezaAz: #Iran-US: Indicators of a Potential New Escalation 🔹Several developments over the past 24 hours are worth watching as pos…

Merci à Benjamin Barthe pour sa critique de Demain C’est Hier dans @lemondefr lemonde.fr/idees/article/202…

Trump’s new sanctions targeting Iran’s aviation sector threaten the country’s medical supply chains. Just over 60% of Iran’s medical imports arrive by air. Iranian patients will likely face significant harm. My colleague Josefine Petrick and I explain: bourseandbazaar-substack.org…

Demain c’est hier, un livre « d’une rare qualité, le courage en vérité » @DEVILLEPIN2027 , ancien Premier Ministre. @Rob_Malley @PascalBoniface @MaxMiloEditions

RT @AliVaez: An extraordinary panel with 3 generations of @CrisisGroup experts on Yemen crisisgroup.org/how-we-work/…

Congrats @Rob_Malley, soon in Arabic from @Darhashembooks

Hussein Agha's and my book, Tomorrow is Yesterday: Life, Death, and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine, is out in paperback today! us.macmillan.com/books/97812…

QED.

And that's exactly why principalists (hardliners) have been arguing that Tehran should go all the way with their nuclear program 🙃

A few thoughts on where the US/Iran confrontation now stands: 1. Trump had a long-term plan, which was to asphyxiate Iran economically while increasing non-Iranian oil traffic through the strait. The problem is that a long-term plan has to survive the short term, and the odds were zero that Iran was going to sit still and accept this new normal. Its escalation was predictable, designed to make the US pay a heavy price for its economic warfare. So too was the Houthis’, driven both by local ambitions in Yemen and a desire to help the Islamic Republic tighten the squeeze on the oil market. 2. Trump has, in this sense, run into his own version of a catastrophic success: the more the blockade & sanctions strangled Iran’s economy, the greater Tehran’s incentive to escalate and the less it had to lose. 3. Trump essentially has three options: - To try to manage the conflict through calibrated retaliation and hope to establish a sustainable equilibrium that both hurts and deters Iran and avoids an uncontrolled military escalation. But Iran is unlikely to cooperate, and in any event, it would do little to bring down the price of oil. - To escalate -- against nuclear sites, civilian infrastructure or leadership targets -- in hopes of forcing Iran to back down. But this would further strain US military resources, be more likely to trigger greater counter-escalation, and thus send oil prices higher still. - Or to seek a negotiated solution, by far the better option. But for Iran to agree, any deal would probably have to resemble the earlier MOU, only with greater clarity about its control over the Strait of Hormuz. That may be the price to pay to end this unlawful, misbegotten war. Yet there is no indication Trump is prepared to go down that road, at least prior to the midterms…

🇺🇸🇮🇷 Washington's bases in the Gulf existed to keep oil flowing, contain Iran and protect its partners, and this war has failed at all three Robert Malley negotiated the last nuclear deal with Iran, and his verdict on the current one is that there isn't one to be had, because nobody knows what winning looks like: "Neither side has a theory of victory" Trump's plan was a long game, choke Iran's economy until it collapsed or begged. The flaw was that a long game has to survive the short term, and Iran had a vote. It chose to make the status quo hurt, hitting neighbors, ships and oil, while the Houthis added a second chokepoint. The deal itself could be sketched in fifteen minutes. Relief for Iran, the strait reopened, nuclear talks later. What blocks it is that Tehran wants its money up front this time, having watched the last agreement bent out of shape. His last point: The war has left America knowing less about Iran's program while Iran wants a bomb more than ever. @Rob_Malley

🇺🇲 🇮🇷 Trump was asked why Iran is still launching missiles if the U.S. has decimated its supply. “They can always get off missiles. They had plenty, and they have some. They've been largely wiped out. It's hard for them to manufacture. Most of that's been knocked out, but they have missiles. They'll always have some missiles, and we knocked them down.” Good news: Iran’s missiles have been wiped out. Bad news: Iran keeps launching missiles. Writer: Marie

Another important piece by @yarbatman that explains why economic pressure will inflict enormous pain on Iran without forcing the Islamic Republic to surrender. As he writes, "Trump’s approach ... can certainly immiserate most of the country’s people. But it cannot successfully strangle the Islamic Republic itself... To prevail in its economic war, the Trump administration will ... need to asphyxiate 25 million households and more than one million firms. But as breathing slows in parts of Iran’s economy, ample oxygen will remain for the country’s elite."

Have immersed myself in Iranian official media as well as X, TikTok, Instagram, etc. Broad observations: 1) The religious feel they've lost control of the veil issue. And yes, in upscale urban cores, you see clothes so tight and revealing, you can't believe this is Islamic Iran.

RT @HamidRezaAz: Interestingly, some circles in Tehran interpret all these developments as just another show by Trump aimed at preventing o…