ASEAN winners and losers in the era of the Hormuz crisis

August 1, 2026
Chris Taylor

Don’t cry for me Indonesia – and landlocked Laos surprises

A Thai‑flagged cargo ship burns after being hit by Iranian missiles in the Strait of Hormuz on March 11. Photo: Royal Thai Navy

Turkey urges Iran to halt attacks on Kurdish groups

July 31, 2026
Ragip Soylu

Ankara fears further Iranian strikes could push Kurdish opposition groups closer to Israel and undermine Turkey’s peace process with the PKK

Members of Komala, an Iranian Kurdish opposition party, attend the funeral of Peshmerga fighter Ghazal Moulai at Sheikh Ahmed Hindi cemetery in Sulaymaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan, on 16 April 2026 (Shwan Mohammed/AFP)

Ukraine strike on Iran, a cynical Zelensky sales pitch

 July 31, 2026

Zelensky’s attack on Iran is aimed at boosting that illusion of Ukraine acting as a benefactor for Western security when, in reality, it is recklessly inciting more war – all to satisfy the corrupt money racket.

Complicity In Plain Sight: The West’s Scarlet Letter of Indifference

July 30, 2026

M. Reza Behnam
The architecture of international justice was built upon a single uncompromising promise: never again.  It was forged in the ashes of 20th century atrocities, with the solemn vow that regardless of station in life, wealth or power, no one is above the law. Today, that pledge is on the verge of collapse.

جنگ جهانی‌ سوم

به منظور ایجاد اسرائیل بزرگ، دولت نتنیاهو سومین جنگ جهانی‌ و تنها جنگ همه‌گیر این قرن را از یک احتمال به یک واقعیت تبدیل می‌کند. دولت صهیونیستی با پشتیبانی‌ بزرگترین قدرت نظامی دنیا، و به منظور تبدیل اسرائیل به بزرگترین دولت خاورمیانه، در پیِ نابودی و یا تضعیف کشور‌هائی در خاورمیانه است که به دولت ترامپ سر تعظیم فرو نیاورده‌ا‌ند. حملهٔ آمریکا به ایران در یکی‌ دو هفتهٔ اخیر، گسترش اسرائیل با حمله به سایر کشور‌های همجوار و با تائید کشورهای دیگر عربی‌ مانند عربستان و امارات و چند دولت دیگر، چنانکه ادامه یابد خطر جنگ جهانی‌ سوم را بیشتر می‌کند. از آنجائی که این جنگ در نهایت اتمی‌ خواهد شد، به نظر می‌رسد که به پایان دنیا نزدیک می‌شویم.اِ

Tehran slams Ukrainian strike on Iranian ship in Caspian Sea

July 26, 2026

Iran said Kiev bears ‘responsibility for the consequences’ of its attack, hours after Ukraine’s president announced the strike

 

The US Culture of Misunderstanding in Iran & the Middle East

July 25, 2026
Andrea B. Rugh
Washington, D.C. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – It has become increasingly clear that effective international communication is impossible without basic knowledge of world cultures. US officials say as much when they admit that failures in Afghanistan and Iraq were due in large part to ignorance of culture and pushing too many programs that conflicted with local values. In Afghanistan, for example, the US pushed tribal leaders to adopt a centralized form of government, when decentralization was a more familiar pattern of the past. It left the Afghan government only controlling Kabul in the end. The US also insisted that USAID-funded projects be staffed by 25 percent Afghan women. But in practice, few Afghan women had the requisite skills or the willingness to join their projects. Even when they did, social norms required that they be accompanied and transported everywhere—costly provisions that forced the cancellation of projects.

U.S. Imperialism Resurgent

July 25, 2026
Costas Lapavitsas
Evidence has been accumulating for more than a decade that the world has entered a period of profound geopolitical turmoil. Large-scale war has become a permanent feature of geopolitics, manifested in the fighting between Russia and Ukraine since February 2022—with the direct and indirect involvement of the United States and its allies—and in the devastation of the Middle East and destruction of Palestinian society and people by Israel. Alongside open violence, there has been widespread economic coercion applied by the United States, including massive commercial sanctions on Russia, freezing the reserves of its central bank, and using interbank payment mechanisms to isolate the Russian and other economies from the global monetary and financial systems.

 

Today’s Headlines: 16 Iranian Cities Hit | Al-Hayya’s Message to Mediators | ‘False Flag’

       July 24, 2026
Abu Obeida Issues Statement: Why Is the West Bank Suddenly Exploding?
PALESTINE CHRONICLE: Friday’s deadly events in Tell triggered a sweeping Israeli escalation, renewed resistance calls, and fears of a broader confrontation across the occupied West Bank.

US ramps up campaign against Iran by turning to a new weapon

July 23, 2026
Jack Davis
B-1 bombers have returned to the sky over Iran as the United States seeks to pound Iran into releasing its grip on the Strait of Hormuz.

The Iran Cease-Fire Was Doomed to Fail

 July 22, 2026

Neil Quilliam and Sanam Vakil

Why Transactionalism Won’t Deliver Peace in the Middle East

موجود هوشمند

 آیا ما تنها موجود هوشمند در این دنیا می‌باشیم؟ جهان ما آنقدر وسیع است که بسیاری از دانشمندان احتمال وجود موجودات هوشمند در منظومه‌های دیگر را قریب به یقین می‌دانند. فرضیه‌های بسیاری در مورد اینکه این موجودات چگونه هستند وجود دارد، تا جایی که حتی ضریب هوشی آنها برآورد شده است. 

Iran war live: Kuwait desalination, power plants damaged in fiery attack

July 21, 2026
Mariamne Everett and Christine Maguire

• A desalination facility and power plants caught on fire and suffered serious damage in Kuwait after new Iranian strikes targeted the crucial facilities, along with areas of Bahrain and Jordan, following a 10th-consecutive night of US bombing.
• “Massive fires” broke out on two tankers that “took an unsafe route” in the Strait of Hormuz, says Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
• Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen declare a maritime blockade against Saudi Arabia threatening to further disrupt the fragile global energy supply.
• US President Donald Trump warns Iran it will pay “many times over” for the deaths of American soldiers after a week in which at least three US personnel were killed.
• Lebanon’s army says its soldiers have begun deploying in the southern town of Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh after the withdrawal of Israeli forces as part of a US-mediated agreement.

An Iranian Vision of the New Middle East

July 20, 2026
Javad Zarif

Ending the War and Sustaining the Peace Requires a New Approach to Regional Security

Iran’s Kuwait Water Plant Strike: Oil Prices and Trans-regional War

July 19, 2026
Juan Cole
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In response to the renewed American bombing of southeastern Iran ports and facilities, including civilian infrastructure, the Iranian military responded Saturday with attacks on US bases and the infrastructure of Arab allies of the US, such as a desalinization plant and oil facilities in Kuwait and US personnel and installations in Jordan, where two American soldiers were killed and several more wounded.

Photo of Kuwait City by Optical Chemist on Unsplash

A blockade at Hormuz, a crisis for all humanity

July 19, 2026
W Julian Korab-Karpowicz

Military escalation in Middle East is exposing deep material and moral vulnerabilities in our hyper-optimized, globalized society

 
Ships idling in the Strait of Hormuz. Image: X Screengrab

What to expect after the US reimposes naval blockade on Iran’s ports?

July 18, 2026

Maziar Motamedi

Pressure is expected to build up against average Iranians, as well as global energy markets due to the US blockade.

Vessels are seen anchored in Bandar Abbas along the Strait of Hormuz [Amirhossein Khorgooei/ISNA/AFP]

The US military just emptied a third of its deepest missile magazine into Iran — and the Pentagon’s own wargames say the next war empties it in days

July 17, 2026
The U.S. Military’s Tomahawk Crisis: How Many Are Left, What the Iran War Used, and What a China War Would Take: As of July 17, 2026, the United States has fired well over 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Iran, the largest expenditure of the weapon in history, and with the ceasefire declared dead on July 8, the meter is running again. Roughly 2,000 to 3,000 missiles are estimated to remain, against a production line that has built about 90 a year. The sharper question is the one the war has forced into the open: whether the magazine that just emptied into Iran could sustain the conflict it exists to deter, against China or Russia. The honest answer, drawn from the Pentagon’s own wargames, is unsettling.

 

Donald Trump is running out of options in Iran

July 16, 2026
Andrew Gawthorpe
(The Conversation) – Serious hostilities between the US and Iran have resumed. On July 8, Donald Trump said that the ceasefire agreed by the two countries in June was “over”. Since then, he has ordered the US military to carry out intensive airstrikes on Iran and has reimposed an economic blockade of the country.

How the Strait of Hormuz is testing the Iran–Oman alliance

July 15, 2026
Fereshteh Sadeghi

The US-Israeli war on Iran has transformed the strategic waterway into a new flashpoint, placing unprecedented pressure on relations between Tehran and Muscat.