Asia’s Strait of Hormuz oil cushion is running out

September 9, 2026
William Pesek

No one needs a more destabilizing oil surge as Trump’s war, tariffs and efforts to control Fed policy erode trust in the dollar and US government debt

Somali piracy was under control, then Came Iran war

September 8, 2026
Khaled Mahmoud
Bandits off the Horn of Africa have taken advantage of the deteriorating security situation, attacking at least 15 ships this year.

ایران و انقلاب

دربارهٔ انقلاب ایران در بهمن ماه سال هزار و سیصد و پنجاه و هفت که نزدیک به نیم قرن از آن می‌گذرد، بسیار گفته و نوشته شده است. جمهوری اسلامی به رهبری آیت‌الله خمینی از دل این انقلاب بیرون آمد و تا به امروز رژیم اسلامی بر همهٔ نهادهای کشور حکومت، و آنها را مدیریت کرده است. مردم ایران که اکثریت آنها به جمهوری اسلامی رأی دادند، اکنون چنان از این رژیم به ستوه آمده‌اند که هر ثانیه آرزوی نابودی آن را دارند، اما هیچ نیروی دیگری برای جایگزینی این رژیم ننگین وجود ندارد.ا

Why America Can’t Strangle Iran

September 8, 2026
Esfandyar Batmanghelidj

The Sources of Tehran’s Economic Resilience

 

At a local market in Bandar Abbas, Iran, August 2026 Majid Asgaripour / Reuters

Iran to declare new ‘restricted zone’ outside Strait of Hormuz – official

September 7, 2026

Tehran will slap sanctions on any vessel entering the area, the National Security Council secretary has said

On Labor Day, Mamdani Announces First-of-Its Kind ‘Office of Worker Power’ in NYC

September 7, 2026
Jake Johnson

“We’re setting it up to help workers organize in an economy where more and more is stacked against them.”

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani signs an executive order establishing the Office of Worker Power on September 7, 2026. (Photo: New York City Mayor’s Office)

In War Crime, Trump sinks Civilian Iranian Tanker, disables 2 Others

September 6, 2026
Juan Cole
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Trump administration continues to fire on civilian Iranian targets in a campaign that has intensified in the first week of September, after a relatively quiet August, returning the two countries to an dangerous active war footing. On Saturday, the U.S. Navy sank one Iranian oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman. The sailors were warned beforehand to abandon ship. US strikes badly damaged two other tankers by firing at the stern, one near Kharg Island and another near the port of Jask.

Evidence points to direct US hit on Iran wedding – Reuters

September 3, 2026

Vice President J.D. Vance says Washington is investigating the strike, which killed five people

FILE PHOTO. Iranians gather at a cemetery to commemorate victims, most of them children, killed in a US Israeli attack on a primary school in Minab, Iran on March 20, 2026. © Getty Images / Hassan Ghaedi/Anadolu

Explosions near Kharg Island amid Reports US Struck Iranian Oil Tanker

September 5, 2026

Explosions were heard near Iran’s strategic Kharg Island Saturday amid Iranian media reports that US forces struck an oil tanker nearby.

‘There was blood everywhere’: Survivors recount US strike on wedding in Iran

September 4, 2026

Witnesses describe chaos and devastation as a family celebration instantly turned into a night of mourning

A medic runs an ultrasound on an injured child following an overnight strike in Kuhestak, southern Iran, on 2 September 2026 (Morteza Akhondi/Tasnim News/AFP)

The War on Iran: Six Months of Epic Failure

September 3, 2026
Joe Cirincione
Trump’s illegal, unauthorized, unnecessary war is the worst strategic defeat in U.S. history.

 

The actual image Donald Trump and Natalie Harp published on Truth Social.

US Treasury chief claims Hormuz will become ‘worthless’ in two years

September 2, 2026

Bessent says overland pipelines will carry the region's oil within two years, even as the existing routes have room for at most a quarter of what the strait moves

آقای مهندس

 دو سه سال قبل از انقلاب بود. تازه ازدواج کرده بودم و با کمک مالی پدرم یک خانهٔ دو طبقه حوالی شمیرانات خریده بودم. بعد از فارق‌التحصیلی از دانشکده طب، مستقیما در بیمارستانی استخدام شده بودم و می‌دانستم که با حقوق مناسبی که داشتم می‌توانستم بدهی پدرم را در عرض یکی‌ دو سال پرداخت کنم، البته اگر اجارهٔ طبقه بالا را در نظر می‌گرفتم. بنابراین با معاملات ملکی‌ سر کوچه برای یافتن مستاجر مناسبی قرار گذاشتم.ا

One US dollar now costs 2 million rials in Iran, and here’s what it can buy

September 1, 2026
Alia Chughtai, Fatemah Karimkhan and Maziar Motamedi

Sanctions and the US-Israel war on Iran have left the country’s people unable to keep pace with rising prices as the rial hits a new all-time low.

The US military just got handed an odd job: Denying an 'attack' on Iran that its own president had just posted online

September 1, 2026
Jack Buckby

 
Airstrikes have resumed in the Middle East after the US fired on Iranian launchers accused of trying to lay more mines in the Strait of Hormuz. Anadolu via Getty Images

‘The President of the United States Is Mentally Unwell’: Deranged Trump Posts AI Slop of Iran Bombing

August 31, 2026
Jake Johnson
The chief executive of Iran’s government-run oil company dismissed the US president’s social media posts “laughable.” 

US President Donald Trump posted an AI-generated video depicting American forces attacking Kharg Island on August 30, 2026. (Photo: Donald Trump/Screengrab via Truth Social)

Iran Retaliates against UAE

August 31, 2026

Iran Downs US MQ-9 as Hormuz Ship Traffic Falls to Five Vessels a Day

Palestinian Christians are disappearing. Warnings are not enough.

August 30, 2026
Sami Mshasha 
Church leaders, activists, and Palestinian media keep sounding the alarm: Palestinian Christians are leaving the Holy Land. But what is needed now is an institutional and economic strategy that makes staying a viable choice, not just a moral one.

 

Orthodox Christians take part in the Easter "Holy Fire" celebrations on the eve of Easter Sunday on April 23, 2011, at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built over the sites where Christians believe Christ was crucified and buried. (Photo: Sliman Khader/APA Images)

After giving up on military force, Trump’s new plan to defeat Iran is…more economic sanctions?

August 29, 2026
Mitchell Plitnick 
Trump's "Operation Economic Outcast" to impose secondary sanctions on countries trading with Iran is a tacit admission of U.S. military defeat. But sanctions haven't worked for 47 years, and Iran won't let the U.S. decide when the shooting war ends.

President Donald J. Trump speaks with members of the press before boarding Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, Friday, August 21, 2026. (Photo: White House/Flickr, by Molly Riley)

US War on Iran: What Accountability for War Crimes?

August 29, 2026
Melanie O’Brien
The Trump administration has consistently viewed itself as being above international law. Not only does it claim international law doesn’t apply to the United States, it has imposed sanctions on officials of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Bombing Iran Is Not a Strategy

August 28, 2026
Sarah Neumann

Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Frank E. Petersen Jr. (DDG 121) fires a Tomahawk Land Attack Missile during operations in support of Operation Epic Fury, Feb. 28, 2026. (U.S. Navy Photo)

The US Seeing Itself & Others as They Are

August 27, 2026
Patrick Lawrence
Imagine the consequences for the empire’s managers were Americans to understand others and have some grasp of how they look upon the world.

 
The arrival in the Tehran cemetery Behesht-e Zahra on March 15, 2026, of the bodies from the U.S. sinking of the Iranian ship the Dena in the Indian Ocean. (Tasnim News Agency/Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY 4.0)

US Not Planning New Strikes on Iran, Will Focus on Economic War

August 26, 2026
Kyle Anzalone

Secretary of State Marco Rubio informed allies that the new strategy is “for the time being”

دیکتاتوری

تصویر بالا که از فیسبوک کُپی شده است، جدولی‌ از یک سنجش آماری از پاره‌ای از مشخصات زنان ایران در مقایسه با زنان آمریکا می‌باشد. عنوان این جدول نقل قولی‌ از ترامپ است که می‌گوید: "رژیم حاکم بر ایران از پیشرفت زنان جلوگیری به عمل می‌آورد." در اینکه رژیم حاکم بر ایران یک رژیم ارتجاعی و دیکتاتوری است و اسلام مانند سایر ادیان، یک دین مردانه است، شکّی نیست. همچنین، در اینکه رژیم اسلامی از آغاز زنها را به زیر چادر و روسری بُرد نیز شبهه‌ای نمی‌توان داشت. مهم این است که زنان شجاع ایران با دادن خون خود حقوق حقهٔ خود را تا حدودی دریافت کردند، و هنوز هم در حال مبارزه‌ا‌ند. بنابراین، به دولت ایران در این مورد نمی‌توان اعتبار داد، بلکه زنان ایران برای احراز حقوقشان جنگیدند، و بدین دلیل آنچه که آنها دارند در مقایسه با زنان آمریکا ارجح است. ترجمهٔ مطالب این تصویر در جدول زیر می‌آید:ا

U.S. Threatens New Economic War on Iran by Targeting China & Tehran’s Other Top Trading Partners

August 25, 2026
The Trump administration has announced unspecified plans to further tighten sanctions on Iran, threatening other countries, including China, in the process. We speak to sanctions expert Nicholas Mulder about what he calls the “rhetorical” and “psychological warfare” of the announcement. For Iran, says Mulder, the announcement was not “really materially all that meaningful. And to the extent that they are, they hurt ordinary Iranians and not the government.” The impact on the U.S. relationship with China, however, could be much greater. If the U.S. does place secondary sanctions on Iran’s trading partners, the “U.S.-China trade truce might be unraveling,” warns Mulder. “The space for maneuver that the U.S. has in using these tools of very coercive economic statecraft has narrowed.”

 

Sanctions didn't break Iran. They hardened it

August24, 2026
Mahyar Ramezankhani

Tehran was denied a decade of growth, and given in exchange a tolerance for punishment that few open economies possess

A woman walks past an anti-US billboard in Tehran on August 24, 2026.

Iran vows ‘not a single drop’ of oil will leave Gulf if region complies with US plan

August 23, 2026

Tehran has warned neighboring states it will close the Strait of Hormuz if they take part in Washington’s economic pressure campaign

Oil importer China won’t aid Trump economic warfare against Iran

August 22, 2026
Stephen Prager

Factor in the US midterms when calculaitng Trump’s willingness to retaliate via economic war with the third-largest US trading partner

 

Hengli Petrochemical Co operates a 20-million-tons-per-year refining and petrochemical complex on Dalian’s Changxing Island. On Friday, the US Treasury Department added the refinery to its sanctions list. This marks Washington’s most significant action yet against China’s refining industry and highlights its determination to increase pressure on Iran, even just weeks ahead of a much-anticipated meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to a Bloomberg report. But how much farther will he be willing to go in view of upcoming US midterm elections? Photo: Baidu.com, Hengli Group

Iran breaks ground on ‘world's largest’ solar plant to tackle energy deficit

August 21, 2026

The 6,000-hectare complex is expected to supply close to a tenth of the electricity Iran consumes each month

Iran war live: China rejects US sanctions on Tehran; Israel hits Lebanon

August 21, 2026
Daniel Khalili-Tari & Christine Maguire

• China says it doesn’t support additional US sanctions on Iran as it calls for dialogue between Tehran and Washington. “Military force and pressure tactics will only lead to escalation that serves no one’s interests,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said.
• Iran’s Foreign Ministry has condemned the threat of new US economic sanctions, describing the proposed measures as “illegal and inhumane”. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the new sanctions threaten the global economy.
• This comes after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC that Washington will impose the “toughest sanctions in history” to “collapse” the Iranian government, calling on other nations, including China, to join the effort.
• Several areas in southern Lebanon, including Bint Jbeil district in Nabatieh province and al-Mansouri town in Tyre, have been hit by Israeli strikes today despite a ceasefire.
• Meanwhile, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian says that the war must end at some point, and it is better to end it today while Tehran is in “a position of strength”. He added that Iran will not “bow to bullying”.

 

Exclusive: How Trump tried to bribe the head of the IRGC

August 21, 2026
Empire of Chaos, Lies, Plunder, Piracy. And bribes.
Mike Pompeo, former aspiring Tony Soprano, admitted: “We lie, we cheat, we steal.” And we bribe.

No, Trump, this isn’t regime change — Iran just doubled down on the iron fist

August 20, 2026
There are moments when personnel decisions reveal more about a political system than its speeches, slogans, or diplomatic statements. The military hierarchy now taking shape in Tehran is one of those moments. Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei may represent a new leadership at the apex of the Islamic Republic, but the men being elevated around him belong overwhelmingly to an older political world: the revolution, the Iran-Iraq War, intelligence and counterintelligence operations, ideological enforcement, confrontation with Israel and the United States, and the suppression of dissent at home.

The End of the American Middle East

August 18, 2026
Marc Lynch

Iran and the Last Gasp of a Failed Order

Iran May Be Today, But Who Knows What Tomorrow Will Bring

August 19, 2026
Tom Engelhardt

Hey, Donald Trump couldn’t have made it clearer that he wanted to go to war with Iran, could he?

Report: US Considers Reducing Persian Gulf Military Presence After Iran War

August 18, 2026
Dave DeCamp

Many US bases in the Gulf Arab states were evacuated due to their vulnerability to Iranian attacks

President Trump and US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth at the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar on May 15, 2026 (US Air Force photo)

Personal bankruptcy filings are soaring in 2026, signaling growing economic distress

August 19, 2026
Jay L. Zagorsky
The number of Americans who file for bankruptcy is growing. More than 500,000 people took this step in 2025, nearly 50% more than in 2022. And the numbers have kept on climbing, with a 12% jump in June 2026 from a year earlier as many consumers struggled to pay their bills.

ماهها

ماههای قمریا

ز محرم چو گذشتی برسد ماه صفر

دو ربیع و دو جمادی ز پی یکدیگر

رجب است از پی شعبان، رمضان و شوّال

پس به ذی‌الحجه و ذی‌القعده بکن نیک نظر

Trump labels Strait of Hormuz ‘US territory’ as Iran says Israel is biggest obstacle to negotiations

August 18, 2026
Elis Gjevori

Tehran says the waterway will remain closed until Washington lifts its blockade and fulfils an interim agreement

On 15 August 2026, Iran rejected the US president’s threat to declare the Strait of Hormuz part of US territory, saying the crucial energy waterway it has blockaded 'will remain Iranian'. (AFP)

Trump Threatens to ‘Bomb the Shit’ Out of Oman as Strait of Hormuz Traffic Again Grinds to a Halt

August 17, 2026
Brad Reed

Trump’s warning to Oman over its negotiations with Iran comes as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is once again putting upward pressure on petroleum prices.

Imperialism in a Full World: Neomercantilism and the Return of the Zero-Sum Game

August 17, 2026
Alberto Garzón
In September 2010, a Chinese fishing vessel was detained by the Japanese Coast Guard near the disputed Senkaku Islands. China’s unofficial response was to halt rare-earth exports to Japan—a country whose entire electronics industry depended on them. The dispute was brief: Japan released the captain, and China never formally acknowledged the embargo. But that episode became a geopolitical watershed, exposing the enormous dependence of the developed world on a single country’s monopoly over the minerals that are indispensable for the energy and digital transitions. Interdependence, once praised as a virtue of globalization, had become a weapon and a vulnerability.1

Dora Weiland (1892-?) from Wietze uses a hand scoop to fill barrels with oil that has run together in pits. By Unknown author - Deutsches Erdölmuseum Wietze (Erdoel Museum), CC BY 2.5, Link.

Trump reinvents the Portuguese Empire with Plan to make Hormuz US Territory

August 16, 2026
Juan Cole
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump said in a speech on Saturday that he wants to make the Strait of Hormuz part of the United States.

Netanyahu’s réprise of the ‘Iraq WMD deceit’ – re-launched to promote war on Iran

August 15, 2026

Trump’s pivot to economic pressure as the key to Iranian capitulation is not a credible strategy.

Iran war live: US eyes ‘indefinite’ naval blockade, vows to isolate Tehran

August 14, 2026
Yashraj Sharma and Caolán Magee

• US Vice President JD Vance has outlined Washington’s key objectives in the Iran conflict as keeping energy prices stable for Americans, preventing Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons and securing a stronger US position.
• US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth says that the US can sustain its blockade against Iran “indefinitely”.
• Iran’s military disputes US assertions that maritime traffic is flowing normally through the Strait of Hormuz, maintaining that no vessel passes without its authorisation.
• US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says the United States will apply economic measures against Iran that have “never been seen” before in efforts to isolate Tehran.

 

Sen. Van Hollen: Iran war is illegal and we cannot fund another dime

August 14, 2026

Martin Di Caro

In an interview with RS, the senator discusses Israeli influence in the US, whether Libya was a mistake, and more

 

Iran’s next front isn’t the Middle East — it’s America’s backyard

August 13, 2026
Jose Lev Alvarez
When Israeli officials revealed in November 2025 that Mexican security services had disrupted an Iranian plot to assassinate Jerusalem’s ambassador in Mexico City, naive Washington bureaucrats predictably responded with surprise. Mexico’s regime mendaciously denied the operation. Yet, Israeli intelligence identified its architect as Hasan Izadi, an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force operative embedded within the Iranian Embassy in Caracas. Diplomatic whitewashing cannot erase the chilling warning: Tehran is actively preparing murder in the Americas.

Tehran says 'Hormuz is ours' after Trump claims ownership of strait

August 13, 2026

The president went on social media and said that the waterway is under 'full US control'

‘Lies and Fabrications’: Khatam al-Anbiya Rejects US Claims on Hormuz

August 13, 2026

Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters says Hormuz remains closed and under Tehran’s control, rejecting US claims of normalized maritime traffic.

Lieutenant Colonel Ebrahim Zolfaghari, spokesperson for Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters. (Photo: Video grab)

America’s Fatal Attraction to War

August 12, 2026
Emma Ashford

The Perverse Incentives for Presidents to Use Military Force

تاریخ

کسانی‌ که به تاریخ علاقه‌مندند و وقایع تاریخی‌ را مطالعه می‌کنند، هر یک از دید خاصی‌ به آن رویدادها می‌نگرند. ولی‌ آنچه که بیش از همه جلب توجه می‌کند جنگ‌ها و لشگر‌کشی‌هاست که در هر دورهٔ تاریخی‌ بی‌وقفه ادامه دارند. نه تنها داستان جنگ‌ها و لشگرکشی‌ها، بلکه مرور ابداعات و اختراعات جنگی و سلاح‌هائی که ضایعاتِ انسانیِ و نظامیِ نیروی خودی را کمتر، و در عوض خسارات جنگی دشمن را چند برابر می‌کنند. گرچه جوامع بشری همواره و در طول تاریخ با اختراعات و اکتشافات و نوآوری‌های خود رو به پیشرفت بوده‌ا‌ند، بلکه همواره در نقطه‌ای از این کرهٔ خاکی درگیری نظامی بین دولت‌ها و ملت‌ها رقم خورده است. ولی‌ روند جوامع همیشه به سمت بهتر و راحت‌تر زیستن بوده است، و بسیاری از جنگ‌ها نیز به منظور تحت اختیار گرفتن و یا غلبه کردن بر آن نوآوری‌های نظامی بوده‌ا‌ند. دانشمندان همیشه با کاوش و تجسّسِ خود کشف کرده‌ا‌ند که چگونه می‌توان از آنچه که در دسترس بشر قرار دارد، چون عوامل جوّی و رودها و اقیانوس‌ها، و سایر ثروت‌های طبیعت مانند کشتزارها و معادن،  و انرژی خورشیدی، و هر آنچه که در این کرهٔ خاکی یافت می‌شود، به منظور راحت زیستن استفاده بهتر و شایانی کرد.ا

US War on Iran Is Devastating for Women Who Want Life and Freedom

August 11, 2026
Iranian feminists asked for international help — but the U.S.-Israeli war has killed women, left many jobless and given the government a pretext to violate their rights.

An Iranian woman walks past anti-U.S. graffiti painted on a wall of Tehran University in downtown Tehran on April 25, 2026

Iran Has Changed the Question

August 11, 2026

Vijay Prashad
For more than three decades, the United States has treated Middle Eastern diplomacy as an exercise in writing the terms for others. Iran’s emerging regional strategy is challenging that privilege. The immediate evidence is emerging in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran and Oman are negotiating an arrangement under which Tehran could oversee vessels entering the Gulf while Muscat manages outbound traffic. The proposal remains unsettled, but it represents something larger than a maritime agreement: Iran is attempting to move the diplomatic agenda away from the narrow question of its nuclear compliance and towards the wider architecture of Gulf security.

Image Source: Wikideas1 – Own work made with Numbers for Mac and data from https://portwatch.imf.org/ – CC0