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US Central Command on Wednesday announced that US Military forces destroyed an Iran-affiliated ship targeting US Navy ships in the Gulf of Oman on October 6. Two US Marine Corps Apache helicopters fired missiles at the dhow. Crew members were evacuated from the vessel prior to the destruction. Full statement from CENTCOM: On Oct. 6, U.S. forces destroyed an Iranian-affiliated dhow conducting surveillance and targeting U.S. Navy ships in the Gulf of Oman. Over the past seven months, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has continued to indiscriminately target thousands of civilian mariners transiting regional waters in addition to U.S. Navy...

Mattis wanted to send a third aircraft-carrier group to the Persian Gulf earlier this year, The Daily Beast has exclusively learned, in what would have been a massive show of force at a time when Iranian military commanders were publicly threatening to sink American ships in the Strait of Hormuz. The four-star Marine Corps general and CentCom commander believed the display could have deterred Iran from further escalating tensions, according to U.S. military officials familiar with his thinking. But the president wanted to focus military resources on new priorities like China, and Mattis was told a third carrier group was...

The Kingdom of Bahrain is a small island nation connected by a causeway to Saudi Arabia (15.5miles away) and once claimed by Iran (124 miles away). Wedged between these two larger regional powers, Bahrain has hosted a U.S. naval command headquarters since 1948. For decades, Bahrain has permitted U.S. access to its facilities and has hosted U.S. Naval Central Command (NAVCENT) and the U.S. Fifth Fleet at a base called “Naval Support Activity (NSA)Bahrain.” NSA Bahrain has long served as the logistical hub for U.S. maritime operations in NAVCENT’s area of responsibility and has hosted thousands of American soldiers, civilians,...

The sale of Lukoil's international assets, worth around $20 billion, has moved from sanctions policy into the talks between Washington and Moscow, with a Boehly-led consortium backed by Gulf investors and a US state agency challenging Carlyle's earlier agreement. Lukoil announced an agreement to sell its international assets to the American group Carlyle on January 29, 2026, following US sanctions issued in 2025. American investor Todd Boehly has assembled a new consortium, including Gulf investors and the US International Development Finance Corporation, to compete for the acquisition. The sale involves energy assets worth approximately $20 to $22 billion, including oil...

Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has moved back toward pre-war levels ... [Iranian] Oil exports have also collapsed ... Inflation is nearing 70%, food prices have more than doubled, and unemployment is above 9% ... youth unemployment at 20.1%

Everyone is watching the wrong thing this morning. The headline is that President Trump rejected Iran’s proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend. Oil jumped. Brent is back above $106. The pundits are calling it another setback for peace. They’re missing what actually happened. Iran offered to reopen the Strait within seven days if the U.S. lifted its naval blockade, released frozen assets, and eased sanctions. Six months ago, that offer would have been taken seriously. Hormuz was the single most valuable card Tehran held. Twenty percent of the world’s oil ran through it, and Iran could...

But it brings a dangerous moment for the U.S. DUBAI—Iran’s ability to choke off oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz—and use that as leverage in talks with the U.S.—is breaking down, raising the risk it will resort to military escalation to bolster its position. The erosion of Iran’s position comes as the U.S. Navy and Gulf oil producers have become better at fending off or evading Iranian attacks, allowing more tankers to cross the strait. Middle Eastern crude exports rebounded this month to around their highest level since the war began in February, oil data trackers say. Shipments via...

Eight US Marines were injured in an Iranian attack on a ship in the Strait of Hormuz on September 14, NBC reported Sunday evening, citing three US sources. The Marines were not seriously injured by the Iranian cruise missile hit on the vessel, but they sustained smoke inhalation and showed symptoms of concussions, including headaches, according to the report. The Marines were not on a US Navy ship, but the officials did not share what type of ship it was. All eight service members returned to duty soon after the attack.

WASHINGTON — Iran’s beleaguered economy will soon have “nothing to trade” in about two weeks after it makes its final oil deliveries, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claimed. Bessent assessed that the Islamic Republic is becoming desperate to make a deal because of its collapsing economy, hastened by Operation Economic Outcast, and warned that its problems will get dramatically worse in two weeks. “I am confident, given that there’s only 15 million more barrels of Iranian oil on the water, that Iran will have nothing left to trade for anything,” Bessent told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” “Probably within the next...

Defying Iran and heading through the Strait of Hormuz is a gamble. But like all the best gambles, it is a lucrative one, so crews are inclined to fancy their odds. To counter the high insurance costs for buyers, countries such as Iraq and Qatar have been offering crude oil at steep discounts. “People just assume one ship in 12 or one ship in 15 is going to get hit by an Iranian drone, but you make enough money on the rest of them,” said Rory Johnston, founder of the market research firm Commodity Context.

Here is an abbreviated version of my paid substack from yesterday. The Hoax News Media yukked it up with stories about how stupid Trump was for suggesting we could buy Greenland. Now, a few months later, we got what we needed from Denmark and Greenland for NOTHING. Truly the art of the deal. It was the final chess piece in an all-encompassing set of arrangements to seal off Chy-na from every single choke point in the world. Get out a world PAPER map, and use red to highlight these: Choke Point #1 Back around March of 2025, Muy Macho Marco...

Rep. Thomas Massie introduced articles of impeachment against Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on Tuesday for waging the Iran war without congressional approval. Massie (R-Ky.) made the surprise announcement on the House floor, accusing Hegseth of violating the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which requires congressional authorization to conduct military operations lasting longer than 90 days. “Peter Brian Hegseth, and and his capacity as Secretary of Defense has executed unlawful orders in contravention of Section 2(c) of the War Powers Resolution of 1973,” Massie declared. “Secretary of Defense Peter Hegseth, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a...

This is a short operational update posted by U.S. Central Command. Hi, I’m Admiral Brad Cooper, Commander of U.S. Central Command, here with a message to all Americans and an operational update on missions in the Middle East. CENTCOM forces have supported more than one billion barrels of crude oil leaving the Gulf. That’s one billion barrels of crude oil out through the Strait of Hormuz in the last couple of months. We’ve reached this significant milestone while assisting over 2,000 commercial ship transits through the Strait by providing coordinated protection. Clearly, momentum is building. Primary transit lanes in the...

A faction of hardliners inside Tehran took advantage of the country’s phantom supreme leader to launch the summer attacks in the Strait of Hormuz that derailed a peace deal with the US, according to a new report. After the US and Iran agreed to the Memorandum of Understanding in June, Iranian moderates led by President Masoud Pezeshkian believed the cease-fire would create a pathway to permanently end the war. Those hopes, however, were dashed when Iran attacked three vessels sailing in the Strait of Hormuz, an attack greenlit not by Tehran’s army, but by its newly appointed paramilitary chief, Hossein...

Strategic patience for the win? Iran's regime leaders thought they could force the US to buckle by strangling the global economy at the Strait of Hormuz. The US, however, has an actual blue-water navy, and that tends to matter in blockades involving a country entirely reliant on sea trade for its only valuable export economy. As the Wall Street Journal concedes, Donald Trump's Hormuz blockade is a lot less "leaky" than the IRGC's. And as Trump himself pointed out yesterday, the Strait may not matter for very much longer anyway:By squeezing the Strait of Hormuz, both the U.S. and Iran...

Iran announced Monday it will establish a new “restricted zone” near the Strait of Hormuz within the coming days — as the flailing nation desperately tries to expand its control over the critical chokepoint. The exclusion zone will span from where the US blockade of Iran begins to other areas of the Gulf, Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said on Sunday in an interview with state TV. Rezaei said that any ship that sails into the restricted zone will be placed on a sanctions list. “Any ship that enters this area with the intention of...

US special forces spent four months conducting a secret mine-clearing mission in the Strait of Hormuz in an attempt to open up the waterway, the Financial Times reported Sunday. Iran has said it placed mines in international and Omani waters following the outbreak of the war. The International Maritime Organization estimated in June that roughly 80 mines had been deployed along important shipping routes. The covert operation was carried out amid ongoing exchanges of strikes between the US and Iran in and around the Strait, according to people familiar with the mission. Navy SEAL divers worked with unmanned vessels, robots,...

WASHINGTON — Oman has quietly rejected Iran’s request to jointly charge service fees on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, The Post has learned — averting a clash with President Trump, who has threatened to rain down bombs on the US ally. A high-ranking regional official said that Muscat declined to consent to charging fees — even on a voluntary basis — for environmental and security services, contrary to a statement last week from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The terms of a proposed revenue-sharing deal had not been finalized, even by Tehran, a US official told The Post...

There are several ways that wars end. –One side conquers and annexes the other. –One side surrenders and gives up some of their land, treasure, and authority in a peace treaty. –One side has a domestic change of government and the new one befriends the other side. –Things reach a stalemate and the shooting stops in an ongoing, uncomfortable sort of permanent ceasefire. The USA-Iran War has never fit comfortably into such normal classifications. During the first 47 years of the war, the Twelver regime of Iran didn’t just attack the United States, but attacked countless countries and interests all...

China warned that it would “take all necessary measures” and retaliate against the US if any of its companies are included in the Trump administration’s new secondary sanctions targeting Iran.Companies based in Hong Kong and mainland China were among the entities targeted by the US after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced “Operation Economic Outcast” on Monday to further isolate Iran. The US, however, stopped short of listing large Chinese financial institutions, with Beijing — Iran’s largest oil buyer — warning that it will do whatever it takes to protect its economic interests. *** “China has made clear on many occasions...