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Arab News
9 hours ago
- Business
- Arab News
Iran's former economy minister calls for Iranian control over Strait of Hormuz
DUBAI: Former Iranian Economy Minister Ehsan Khandouzi has said that tankers and LNG cargoes should only transit the Strait of Hormuz with Iranian permission and this policy should be carried out 'tomorrow for a hundred days.' It was not immediately clear whether Khandouzi was echoing the establishment's decision or sharing his personal opinion. 'This policy is decisive if implemented on time. Any delay in carrying it out means prolonging war inside the country,' Khandouzi posted on X on Tuesday. Iran's Oil Ministry and Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Arab News
9 hours ago
- Business
- Arab News
Former Iranian economy minister calls for Iranian control over Strait of Hormuz
DUBAI: Former Iranian Economy Minister Ehsan Khandouzi has said that tankers and LNG cargoes should only transit the Strait of Hormuz with Iranian permission and this policy should be carried out 'tomorrow for a hundred days.'It was not immediately clear whether Khandouzi was echoing the establishment's decision or sharing his personal opinion.'This policy is decisive if implemented on time. Any delay in carrying it out means prolonging war inside the country,' Khandouzi posted on X on Oil Ministry and Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
New York Times
21 hours ago
- Politics
- New York Times
Four Thoughts on Trump's Hawkish Turn on Iran
The only way to know for certain where Donald Trump's Iran policy is going is to wait — for the president to throw in fully with the Israelis, for a new attempt at diplomacy with a battered Iranian regime, for a continuation of America's current position as spectator, cheerleader and secondary participant. But while we wait, here are four quick comments on the debate about the war: 1) There is nothing inherently surprising about Trump's permitting and indirectly supporting Israel's war against Iran. Trump generally took a hawkish line on Iran throughout his first term; he has never been a principled noninterventionist; his deal-making style has always involved the threat of force as a crucial bargaining chip; and the idea that you can accomplish a lot with a few sharp blows while avoiding regime change and nation building fits comfortably into his worldview. What is more surprising is that Trump would let war come after he had seemingly separated himself from his first term's hawkish personnel — sometimes with prejudice, as with the petty withdrawal in January of security protection from his former secretary of state Mike Pompeo. This separation helps explain the wounded shock with which some noninterventionists on the right have reacted to the war. They imagined that personnel was policy, that the realists and would-be restrainers in Trump's orbit would have a decisive influence. That was clearly a mistake, and the lesson here is that Trump decides and no one else. (And it could well be the hawks' turn to be disappointed tomorrow, if he decides to accept concessions from Tehran that they regard as fake or insufficient.) 2) I have a lot of doubts about the decision to let the Israelis go for it. But noninterventionists should recognize that the strongest Tucker Carlson-style argument for restraining Israel from war, the warning that Iran could plunge the Middle East into turmoil and strike at Americans across the region and the world, inevitably looked much weaker once the Israelis were able to absolutely wreck Iranian proxies, Hezbollah as well as Hamas, across 2024. Those successes were also of immediate strategic benefit to an America that's facing serious challenges from multiple rivals at once, reducing Iran's ability to add its own pressure to Russian aggression and Chinese ambition. So if you imagine the basic Benjamin Netanyahu pitch to the White House — in effect, Let us have a go at the Iranians, and you can decide whether to explicitly support us once you see the outcome — it's easy to see how Trump might decide that an 'America First,' national interest-based foreign policy is compatible with letting the Israelis try to settle all accounts. 3) With that said, I'm unconvinced by the arguments from some writers on the nationalist right, like Oren Cass and Daniel McCarthy, who have tried to square Trump's acceptance of the Israeli war with their own desire for American disentanglement from global obligations. Of course one can square the two in theory — acceptance is not participation, and Israel's war need not be ours — but in practice wars are almost always engines of entanglement for great powers, whatever their initial intentions may be. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Asharq Al-Awsat
10-06-2025
- Business
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Us and the Bickering in Washington
What links the ongoing rift between US President Donald Trump and his 'fleeting ally,' billionaire Elon Musk, the visible divergences between US positions and the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu's government, and the looming clouds over the approach of the US and Israel to Iran? This question deserves serious reflection if we overcome highly costly illusions. There is no doubt that the Trump-Musk dispute has dangerous implications, regardless of who is right or wrong. It reflects two 'problems' that many Arab apologists refuse to acknowledge: The first problem is that Trump is a dealmaker with little regard for institutions. He shows no concern for the norms of engaging with allies and opponents, and he has no qualms about ruling through executive orders, even if this comes at the expense of consensus and collective responsibility, which statesmen are expected to prioritize over partisan loyalties... to say nothing about loyalty is to a circle of friends, cronies, donors, and fixers. Accordingly, the political costs of the 'tactical alliance' between the president and an unruly businessman, who mocks politicians, the government, and even the public to deliver results and secure a quick knockout win, have quickly become apparent. Even their shared view of what constitutes government waste and how to curb it evaporated as soon as the high social and economic costs came to light. In fact, these costs had only been temporarily masked by the MAGA bases' penchant for contradictory populist slogans. It's worth remembering that Musk did not obtain his temporary job by winning an election. He was appointed by Trump, meaning that Trump bears direct responsibility for the current dysfunction and for any future fallout. The second problem is that many of Trump's second-term appointees could easily meet the same fate as Musk. Rumors are swirling about members of Trump's cabinet, his advisors, and his aides. While one of them, Mike Waltz, has already been removed from his position as National Security Advisor, a number of the Trump team composed of circles of friends, Fox News alumni, golf buddies, lobbies, and major donors are not on stable ground. The key reason, in my view, is that most of them are 'political operatives,' not statesmen. They have no real grasp of strategic US interests. This vulnerability has become increasingly apparent in the administration's ad-hoc approach to Western Europe, Russia, and China. In the Middle East, the picture is more muddled than ever. Arab, Israeli, and Iranian dynamics are more confused than at any time since the Camp David Accords. While it used to be taken for granted that Washington and Tel Aviv would adopt nearly indistinguishable positions under certain Republican and Democratic administrations, very serious questions are now being raised. Chief among them is whether Washington still holds the final say on Israel's regional decisions or if the Likud-led far-right now sets its own agenda, with the US happy to merely placate Israel through a UN veto here or a meaningless arms deal there. Furthermore, does Washington truly wish to 'correct the mistake' of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, averting further fragmentation in the Middle East, as one of its diplomats recently claimed? Or has it effectively endorsed, or at least acquiesced to, the extreme Israeli right's project of division, disintegration, and displacement? How does Washington see the region's ethnic, religious, and sectarian minorities as it engages with mosaic societies that have overwhelming Arab and Muslim majorities, while navigating its relations with three non-Arab powers? Each of these powers has its own interests and ways to manipulate its affiliates and exploit their entanglements. Iran has made no secret of intention to export Khomeini's revolution. Until the regional priorities of both Washington and Tel Aviv become clear, Iran will remain an influential player in three countries, though it has effectively lost control over Syria. As for Türkiye, which is now widely seen as aligned with the new leadership in Damascus and enjoys significant popular and sectarian support in Syria, it is proceeding cautiously. Ankara understands the need to remain mindful of Israeli, American, and Russian considerations. In fact, the questions around who 'holds the cards' in Syria between the Israelis and Americans, could delay solutions for the country's political and its economic reconstruction after 14 years of war and 54 years of dictatorship. And now we come to Israel or 'the tail that wags the lion'! The recent Israeli strike on Beirut, along with its insistence on displacing Gaza's population, confirm that Tel Aviv's priorities have not meaningfully changed. While Washington offers the Lebanese soft words about supporting their new president and its envoy Ambassador Tom Barrack (of Lebanese origin) flirts with the Syrians and stresses Trump administration's commitment to 'Syria's unity,' Israel's military and intelligence machine continues to operate in Lebanon, Syria, and what remains of Palestine. The most striking revelation came just last week in a report published by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that sheds light on Tel Aviv's recruitment of rogue 'ISIS-affiliated' thugs to loot humanitarian aid convoys headed for Gaza. Israeli spokespeople then tell international media outlets that the looters are Hamas fighters themselves. According to Haaretz, Netanyahu personally confirmed what the paper had reported months earlier: his government had armed, funded, and protected criminal gangs in southern Gaza, because 'anything that undermines the rule of Hamas benefits us'! Thus, after years of creating proxy militias across borders and planting undercover agents disguised as Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza to commit crimes that deepen domestic schisms, Israel is now empowering 'starvation thugs', who are looting humanitarian aid in broad daylight. Washington is lost in its own confusion, and the instability and chaos with the administration have clearly played a key role in fueling this situation.
