Iran conflict cost global businesses $25bn – Reuters

May 18, 2026

Companies throughout the world have faced supply shocks linked to the Hormuz blockade, the outlet has said

Trump’s Iran warning sends oil prices soaring and markets tumbling

May 18, 2026
Global markets experienced a turbulent start to the week, with Asian stocks largely retreating and oil prices surging, following a stark warning from Donald Trump to Tehran that "the clock is ticking" amid stalled negotiations over a permanent end to the conflict.

LIVE BLOG: Iran Rejects US Conditions as Hezbollah Escalates Attacks – Day 78

May 17, 2026
Israeli attacks killed and wounded Palestinians in Gaza as Hezbollah escalated strikes and Israeli military losses mounted.

An Israeli bombardment in southern Lebanon. (Photo: video grab, via social media)

Araghchi: BRICS look at Iran with Different Eyes after “American Failure”

May 16, 2026
Juan Cole
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The BRICS (a broad geopolitical group including Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and United Arab Emirates) held a summit for foreign ministers in New Delhi on May 14-15 that was overshadowed by the relatively fruitless Trump meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping in Beijing. Iran, which attended as an observer, was naturally a big subject of conversation.

Iran turns to Pakistan land corridor as US naval pressure disrupts Gulf trade

May 15, 2026

New trade corridors with Pakistan are opening alternative trade access with Central Asia and helping the Islamic Republic bypass the US naval blockade

Iranian cargo trucks cross into the Pakistan-Iran border at Taftan, Balochistan province on 18 June 2025 (Banaras Khan/AFP)

Iranian FM blasts UAE at BRICS summit over 'direct involvement' in US-Israeli war

May 14, 2026

Araghchi warned the UAE to ‘reconsider’ its policy on Iran, days after western media reports said Abu Dhabi carried out strikes against the Islamic Republic during the war

Oppose the War and Its Machinery

May 13, 2026
Ron Jacobs
The war resides mostly in the background here in the aggressor nation. Most of those who think about it at all tend to oppose it and seem to think it’s a task forced on the US by the zealots running Israel. Some take it even further, presenting an argument that blames the relationship between the mad rulers of Israel and the United States for the entire catastrophe. The argument varies, but its essence is that Bibi Netanyahu is the individual responsible for convincing the sundowning Donald Trump to bomb Iran for the sake of Israel. There are those who argue that the reason for this is because Israel’s Mossad has compromising materials on Trump and his escapades with Jeffrey Epstein, while others place Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in the role of instigator. Of course, no one has produced a smoking gun for either possibility, even though both have a potential element of truth. It is likely that Epstein had some working relationship with Mossad and it’s an established fact that Kushner’s family have a long-term relationship with Netanyahu. Furthermore, Kushner is financially connected to Saudi Arabia and UAE’s monarchies. It’s an established fact that Israel, the Arab monarchies and the United States all oppose the Iranian government—its support of national liberation and anti-imperialist movements and its existence in general. Furthermore, all of these governments are more interested in maintaining the political situation in West Asia as it is and has been for decades. They are not interested in bringing popular democracy to the region, with some more than willing to maintain a constant state of war and occupation to maintain the current hierarchy of power.

مادر

 دست‌هایم را به هم می‌سایم و قطرهٔ مایع را بین دو دست خود پخش می‌کنم، شاید محو شود. ولی‌ قطره باز میشود و پخش میشود و کف هر دو دستم را نمدار می‌کند. قطرهٔ دیگری از چشم پائین میاید. با پشت دست آنرا پاک می‌کنم و با کف دست دیگر می‌سایم. هر دو دست مرطوب میشوند. دنبال دستمال می‌گردم و هر چه به اطراف نگاه می‌کنم چیزی نمی‌یابم، جز تصویری که همواره جلوی چشمانم است.ا

‘Ways of war’ are in metamorphosis: Lessons from the Iran war

May 12, 2026
Alastair Crooke

A U.S. carrier no longer induces fear as once it might have; It now radiates vulnerability.

The Breaking Point

 

Iran Has Nuclear Energy, Not Nuclear Weapons

May 11, 2026
Chris Ernesto
Last week, on May 5, 2026, President Trump told a group of young children in the Oval Office that “we have to make a journey down to Iran to take the nuclear weapon. They would have had a nuclear weapon within two weeks.”

On Mother’s Day, I Will Mourn Alongside the Grieving Parents of Minab

May 10, 2026
Negin Owliaei

The first Mother’s Day proclamation was a call to disarm. It’s more crucial than ever to honor the day’s antiwar roots.

Symbolic belongings sit on the ground at Valiasr Square in Tehran on April 24, 2026, in tribute to the schoolgirls in Minab killed in an airstrike.

‘On level of atomic bomb’: Iran highlights Hormuz importance amid US talks

May 9, 2026
Maziar Motamedi

The strategic strait represents ‘a capability that can affect the entire global economy with a single decision’, politician says.

Engels's Dialectics of Nature and Marxist Ecology

May 9, 2026
Chen Yiwen

Trump claiming Iran war ‘win’ – here’s the reality

May 8, 2026
Christian Emery

Trump’s shifting aims and desperate scramble for an exit show that the entire enterprise has been a colossal strategic failure

An Iranian walks next to a mural painted on a wall in Tehran, Iran, on May 4. Photo: Abedin Taherkenareh / EPA via The Conversation

‘An Almost Unthinkable Threat’: Trump Warning That Iran Will ‘Glow’ Sparks Latest Fears of Nuclear Attack

May 8, 2026
Stephen Prager

“It again raises urgent questions: Is this president fit to lead and make consequential decisions that impact countless lives?” said the National Iranian-American Council.

When Trump Compares Iran to Vietnam or Iraq

May 8, 2026
Mitchell Zimmerman

Neither of the two previous quagmires was revealed in its calamitous stupidity as swiftly as Trump’s war on Iran, writes Mitchell Zimmerman.

Satellite imagery of black smoke rising from the Port of Salalah on March 13, during Iranian strikes on Oman. (CC BY 4.0 /Wikimedia Commons)

Iran war marks the end of American primacy as we know it

May 8, 2026
Trita Parsi

For states that had opted to depend on US protection, this should be a wake-up call

Trump knows he lost the Iran war, and is now desperate to find a way out

May 8, 2026
Mitchell Plitnick 

Recent U.S. moves indicate that Donald Trump has finally recognized the disastrous mistake he made by listening to Benjamin Netanyahu and launching the war on Iran. Now he is looking to cut a deal, but Israel won't make it easy.

Kurds in the Crossfire

5/7/2026
Matt Broomfield

The Kurds are on the frontlines of the U.S.-Israel-Iran war. After their betrayal in Syria, can they survive another fight?

The aftermath of an Iranian airstrike on the headquarters of an Iranian Kurdish opposition party in Sulaymaniyah. Photo by Matt Broomfield