An explosion ripped through the Sabiti, an oil tanker of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), at 05:20 on October 11 in the Red Sea, 60 nautical miles to the southwest of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, supposedly after a missile strike, Iranian media reports said minutes after the incident. Two of the tanker’s reservoirs sustained serious damage and some amounts of ...
Most analysts agree that Donald Trump’s main motivation for dismissing his National Security Advisor, John Bolton, was that Bolton had been giving off the impression that he was the real decision-maker in the White House, while the president was merely a talking puppet. Looking at Trump’s career, even before coming into office, it is clear that he is a man ...
The U.S. and Iran are locked in a tough confrontation for forty years. They do not have direct diplomatic relations and are engaged in a major ideological war, playing an important role on the geopolitical map of the world at the same time. Nonetheless, although Tehran and Washington have turned into two hostile camps over years of the stand-off, they ...
Following the outbreak of a tanker crisis between the UK and Iran, the U.S. has decided to take on the role of the main mediator in the conflict and has made an attempt to knock together an international coalition for guarding the Hormuz Strait. CONTEXT Tensions in the Hormuz Strait are running practically unabated already for two months. The tense ...
President Donald Trump’s Administration is getting ready to deploy hundreds of servicemen to Saudi Arabia as tensions with Iran are mounting, CNN said in a report quoting a well-informed official at the Pentagon. He revealed that some 500 soldiers would be sent to Prince Sultan airbase to the south of Riyadh. Sources told CNN a small number of U.S. military ...
On May 8, 2018, U.S. President Donald J. Trump announced his decision to end the US’ participation in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and begin reinstating nuclear-related sanctions against Iran. These extreme measures including the so-called “maximum pressure” policy and attempting to bring Iranian oil exports to “zero” have inflicted excruciating pain on the Islamic Republic. Tehran faces ...
Let’s delve into the heart of the matter: the blacklisting the IRGC, sanctioning the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, sanctioning Dr. Zariff, the Iranian Foreign Minster, sanctioning General Suleimani, the Commander of the Quds Force wing of the IRGC, et al. Naturally, it was not a surprise to any of us Middle East senior analysts that Iran’s IRGC would eventually ...
With a first ever visit by a Japanese prime minister to Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, many Iranian commentators were quick to declare that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe the best hope for successful mediation between the US and Iran, since Tokyo has warm relations with both sides. Some have argued that pacifist Japan has the capacity and motivation to ...
The principle governing the world oil market is, simply put, supply and demand. When there is a balance between supply and demand in the oil market, prices remain stable. Based on assessments by geopolitical theorists, an open conflict in the Strait of Hormuz, and even the threat of a possible conflict, can have dangerous consequences for energy security, and, consequently, ...
The recent Washington’s designation of Iran’s elite, 125,000-member IRGC (Islamic Revolution Guard Corps) as an FTO (Foreign Terrorist Organization) was overlooked in the Western media as a typical story with the short attention span of the everyday news cycle. I am not an alarmist in my work, but it is now completely ostensible, perhaps more than ever before, that the ...
After Tehran took the line at renouncing its obligations under certain provisions of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a question has arisen about when it will pull out of the nuclear deal altogether. In the conditions of an escalating conflict with Washington, Tehran has said it suspends compliance with a part of its obligations regarding the stocks of ...
On June 13, Iranian and Arab media reported attacks in the Gulf of Oman on two oil tankers, the Front Altair of Norway and the Kokuka Courageous of Japan. The vessels were attacked in the waters between the territories of Iran, the UAE and Oman. Some data is indicative of a torpedo attack that resulted in explosions and a fire ...