Peace and War Report (Week of August 9th)

USA – Turmoil within the USA is increasing due to the unsettled affairs of the United States with Iran. Weak, indecisive leadership. A nation enthralled with conducting warfare over diplomacy. A Congress captured by a tiny nation that it supports so well that its citizens receive free healthcare. A nation so captured by lobbyists that money is minted just for the Pentagon to spend, while they reinvest their monies into many dark investment estates. This includes offshore-banking, endowments, and costumed spies, for instance.

Meanwhile due to scandals and intrigues, many community networks are eroding. For instance, in some places the local church folds because of charges of child-grooming and pedophilia. These lucrative lawsuits cause the church to have to file Chapter 11, and this creates severe stressors on social services for the indigent who rely on church assistance programs. Years of lawless style culture worship have fostered severe narcissistic personality disorders inside of families which divide themselves along lines of “golden child” versus “scapegoating,” often with success-story parachute-parent siblings ready to deny that anything could be wrong with their systems of control so well-aligned with the wealth gospel.

There is nothing abnormal about this fascistical style of upbringing and parenting and church leadership becoming dominant in a society where the police and military reign supreme. Schools become breeding grounds that base success less on creative-thinking and societal awareness than on fostering school-to-university pipelines where success is predicated only on perceptions. The only thing missing from this scenario of 1930s-style USA-Austria are the cemeteries and graves from World War II. Today, these might be welcomed as additions for year-long preparations for Halloween, all kinds of Saturnalian festivals, and other excesses embraced by the Epstein class.

One thing is that President Trump has been forced recently, at least temporarily, to withhold carrying out a new massive bombing campaign “to take out all of Iran’s bridges in an hour, as well as all its power stations.” The exact threats, which are laced with talk of “interest in the dialogue of peace,” are what is causing Iran to avoid diplomatic talks. Talks with American diplomats whose backgrounds in real estate, financial speculation, and lobbying for Israeli interests render them untrustworthy if not dangerous. If the Democrats are unable to take back the House, the portfolios of conflicts of interest which the DTO and his diplomatic cronies indulge in, the rank corruptions, and police aggression will probably accelerate.

Meanwhile, the Saudis have taken a card from the playdeck of Trump himself: in a recent phone call from Crown Prince bin Salman, he managed to convince Trump to hold off further attacks. Iran’s steep mountains with its hidden caves and missiles have proven to be too much. While the IRGC has mostly avoided destroying civilian infrastructure of the Gulf States, opting instead to logically attack the source of U.S. offensives—its numerous bases in the Gulf States and Jordan—-just the mention of bombing desalination treatment plants shakes these kingdoms to the core. After all, at least 80% of their drinking water resources are now sourced from desalination plants. What is worse, the rate of the ongoing ship destruction and oil spills, sinking cargo, rotting hulls releasing all kinds of biological, chemical, radiological, and metallic toxic pollutants are poisoning sensitive rare sea ecosystems. Besides destroying ancient fishing and pearl-diving economies, it places the desalination treatment plants at risk by requiring frequent filtration cartridge replacements and more downtime.

These self-same autocrats do not need to play nice again to President Trump. In fact, on the contrary, all MBS or even the Iranian counterparts (IRGC) need to do is publicly list Trump family properties and holdings and investments around the world. A threat to those properties or a threat to withdraw Sovereign Fund investments inside the USA or from planned technocratic projects (non-binding agreements signed at the 2025 Arab Summit) could cost the Trump family, their cronies, and A-list corporatecrats enough petro-dollars to spark a financial recession. (The same game can be played by China which has supported America for the past decades through their hefty Treasury bond purchases.)

Iran — Since the start of the war on February 28, 2026, transit to, from, and around Iran has remained extremely limited. For instance, the air traffic flowing into Iran is extremely limited as shown in air traffic maps published in real time. This may have eased a little during the 7-day funeral for assassinated Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, however most flights would enter Tehran from the north, such as via the Caspian Sea. Reason2Resist journalist-lawyer Dmitri Lascaris shared that he traveled into Iran via nearby Turkiye. Many traveled on foot using secured overland corridors from Iraq (these would have been secured by the many Shiite Muslim volunteers present during the week of the funerals).

Many threats present in Strait of Hormuz

However the shipping traffic in and through the Strait of Hormuz (Persian Gulf) remains extremely limited. According to the House of Saud “Conflict Pulse,” there is a 94% traffic drop. The variety of threats transnational commercial vessels face are insuperable: they are physical (the weaponization of geography), economic (insurance premiums), psychological (war on various fronts), political (pressures from parties), and of course military (sea mines). Many podcasters are discussing the threats which are posed to transnational shipping and the eventual trickle down costs for consumers including the rising insurance premiums, the merchandise costs due to delays and availability, the rising price of oil per barrel whether or not it is “fixed” at the stockmarkets, the logistical supply chain disruptions, and the costs of traveling around the Cape (South Africa) to avoid the Persian Gulf.

In fact, according to the U.N. Trade and Development (UNCTAD), with passage of time, the “most vulnerable economies are exposed to oil and food price shocks.” Data collated in a chart reveals that 61 nation and island states which are net importers of oil and cereal products are facing dual-exposure economic vulnerabilities. These include the least developed nations and small island developing states, which cannot afford to pay their way out. Will this prompt a new wave of bankruptcies and resource takeovers by the wealthy predatory class?

Add to this additional security needed to protect against piracy, and the new threat of Red Sea closure: now Arab supertankers must try to pass through the Suez Canal, which is an additional expensive and time costly measure. The tankers can transfer the oil to Sumed pipeline heading toward the Mediterranean Sea; if Saudi ships must travel through Suez, across the Mediterranean, then down the West coast of Africa around the Cape to head eastwards towards Southeast Asia, the prices per barrel would surely double. Even with the costs through the Suez and waiting times tacked in, there is still no guarantee that the Yemenis will not be able to reach this “chokepoint” in shipping traffic, cutting it off via missile strikes.

The weaponization of geography both at the critical chokepoints of the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb (“Gate of Grief”) is the Trump card in Iran’s war of defense against the US-Israel led war against Iran. For the past 48 years, they have been preparing for a future confrontation between US-Israel; they know that when psychological warfare, such as with the recent failed color-revolution style regime change operations, fails, the escalation ladder flows up rather than down. They know that the Trump administration also believes in regime change through the decapitation of leadership, as this happened in negotiations last June, and happened again amid so-called peace talks at the end of February.

Thus specifically at the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, where Iran possesses the most coast line and should rightly be considered the dominant Gulf nation in an inclusive Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Iran has transformed its Gulf coastline into a major military artery. It has transformed small islands and the larger island of Qeshm into veritable complex armories capable of launching all kinds of defensive asymmetrical warfare operations. There are stealthy aerial vehicles manned or unmanned; missiles hidden in caves along its numerous mountain slopes; in Qeshm island itself, the ancient archeological wonder has transformed itself into multitudinous layered caverns stowing away treasure hordes of fast boats, patrol boats, naval mines, anti-ship missiles, marine torpedos, midget submarines, and manufacturing facilities for the design of 5th generation dronelets.

This is in addition to the land warfare rockets, of which there have been so many waves during Operation True Promise, lasting 98 days, that it crippled Israel’s vaunted “Iron-Dome” and rendered its citizens somewhat defenseless, especially when faced with complex 5th generation solid-fuel hypersonic missiles. The Western media has, of course, not been forthcoming in its coverage of these defeats. “Hybrid warfare” as termed by Prof. Seyed Marandi, includes the use of IT to generate unfavorable algorithms when searching for “Operation True Promise” or discovering its name; it encourages all manners of mainstream and institutionalized bias against privileging Iran as a major player in the Persian Gulf region.

However, this has not dampened the aspirations of Israel-United States and its Gulf allies in their drive to complete regime change in Iran. Trump and his War Department Secretary and cronies have intimated that if Iran’s present new leaders were taken out, they would not be missed. This is why the new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is keeping hidden from the public, even while the West goads and dares him to make an appearance, and undoubtedly Mossad persists in spying on and collecting data about his suspected security attaches.

Here is what the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) published about access to Hormuz Strait in an April 2026 official press release which continues in full force:

“The IRGC Navy Command issues an unequivocal decree: the Strait of Hormuz is under the complete sovereign authority of the Islamic Republic of Iran. No vessel of any type, flag, or nationality shall transit these waters without explicit IRGC authorization. Violators will be seized…

“The IRGC Navy stands ready to enforce this decree with all necessary force. Our patrol boats, submarines, anti-ship missiles, and naval mines are positioned. Any vessel that attempts unauthorized transit will be intercepted, boarded, and seized.”

Iran is exerting political-economic pressure over the Persian Gulf not only because the United States-Israel have repeatedly assassinated their leaders—possibly including late President Ebrahim Raisi in May 2024—-not only has it attempted to impose an outer blockade and tariff, not only is it persistently attempting to attack Iran’s southern coastal region, not only is it trying to pressure Oman into opening up independent ingress and egress corridors through the Strait, but also continuing to strong-arm the Gulf nations into retaliatory operations against Iran for the destruction of the string of American bases surrounding Iran, the number and size and power of which have only increased over the past decades.

Maritime Boundaries on the Blurry Side

Just as in Gaza or Lebanon, the American decree is that a nation vulnerable to attack from Western powers does not have the right to bear arms to defend itself, otherwise they are designated as terrorists. However the right of other Persian Gulf nations to safely passage the Strait of Hormuz does raise significant questions and concerns. It is just that Iran believes that it is facing an existential threat: should it continue to allow the U.S. and allies to passage the Gulf, from recent history, there is no doubt that attempts will be made to militarily occupy and take over islets such as Abu Musa, Lesser Tunb, Greater Tunbs.

Here is how Professor Seyed Marandi described the situation in a premonition days before the war started in his interview with Prof. Glenn Diesen on February 21 in “War for Survival”—-that Iran has prepared and will fight the good fight that it must to ensure its survival even if it must take the battle upon those hosting U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf:

“If the United States carries out an attack on Iran, that would be a different thing altogether. This would be an existential threat and this would be a war for survival. It would be a war of choice for the Americans. It would be done for the Israeli regime obviously. But in this scenario, Iran will do everything to protect itself.”

However according to Defense Analyst Scott Ritter, U.S. plans for taking over any Iranian island, such as Kharg Island, can create complex logistical twists. Any takeover might seem easy but they will be difficult to retain. The warped logic behind such an enterprise, if successful, is that the definition of maritime boundaries can be re-interpreted. Bear in mind that the West generally has the powers of international law on its side. Even were it to submit to the ICJ or ICC interpretations of Gaza an example of genocide—-it is contested so fiercely by Israel and the United States that they are considering measures to disband the ICC.

Thus it appears that nobody will have the last word on the U.N. Convention of the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS). According to What’s Going on with Shipping (Sal Mercogliano, “Why No One Truly Owns the Strait of Hormuz”), neither the United States nor Iran are signatories, but nevertheless, the basic definitions for key maritime zones still apply. The littoral zone sectional views are widely available, nevertheless there are formal descriptions defined by Tufts University School of Law. These are important to study because the U.S. and Gulf allies will argue that Iran can attempt to exert control over no more than 12 nautical miles from baseline (low water line established from state tidal records); in contrast, Iran has claimed, and is legally authorized under the Memorandum of Understanding signed by Iran and the United States, to exert control up to and beyond the Contiguous Zone of 24 nautical miles.

Territorial Sea is defined basically as follows:
“Everything from the baseline to a limit not exceeding twelve miles is considered the State’s territorial sea. Territorial seas are the most straightfoward zone. Much like the internal waters, coastal States have sovereignty and jurisdiction over the territorial sea. These rights extend not only on the surface but also to the seabed and subsoil, as well as vertically to airspace. The vast majority of States have established territorial seas at the 12 nautical mile limit, but a handful have established shorter thresholds.”

Contiguous Zone is defined basically as follows:
“States may also establish a contiguous zone from the outer edge of the territorial seas to a maximum of 24 nautical miles from the baseline. This zone exists to boster a State’s law enforcement capacity and prevent criminals from fleeing the territorial sea. Within the contiguous zone, a State has the right to both prevent and punish infringement of fiscal, immigration, sanitary, and customs laws within its territory and territorial sea. Unlike the territorial sea, the contiguous zone only gives jurisdiction to a State on the ocean’s surface and floor. It does not provide air and space rights.”

One can observe that the Iran does have the right to defend its state against those who have violated its national airspace and contiguous zone repeatedly through aggressive attacks such as the daily bombing campaigns against South Iran and elsewhere undertaken by the U.S. recently in July in the cause of weakening its defense capabilities. Imagine a hostile outsider setting up tents around your home property, brandishing guns, and plotting to take over your house in the name of ridding the household of the head terrorist. In any case, parallel analogies of enforcing territorial and contiguous zone rights do exist. The U.S. Coast Guard interdicts illegal fishing as do the Russian Coast Guard, let alone the recent examples of extrajudicial extra-territorial activities being conducted to combat drug trafficking off the coast of Venezuela; or the ongoing blockade set up around Cuba.

In fact, under the MOU Article 5, Iran can claim control over its Territorial Seas, Contiguous Zone, and even up through the Exclusive Economic Zone (an additional 176 nautical miles). The Strait is only 21 miles wide, but Iran is already claiming that under Article 5, the entire Persian Gulf ingress and egress is under the control of Iran.

Here is Article 5 as presented in the MoU signed on June 17th by both Iran and the United States of America:

5. Upon signing this Memorandum of Understanding, the Islamic Republic of Iran will make arrangements, to the best of its ability, for the safe passage of commercial vessels, free of charge for 60 days, from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and vice versa. Commercial shipping will begin immediately and will be fully established within 30 days, subject to the removal of technical and military obstacles and demining operations carried out by the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Islamic Republic of Iran will consult with the Sultanate of Oman regarding future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz, in accordance with applicable international law and the sovereign rights of coastal states of the Strait of Hormuz, and will also exchange views with other Gulf coastal states.

Why Iran So Concerned about Control through the Exclusive Economic Zone?

Exclusive Economic Zone is defined basically as follows:
“Unlike other zones whose existence derived from earlier international law, the EEZ was a creation of the LOSC. States may claim an EEZ that extends 200 nautical miles from the baseline. In this zone, a coastal State has the exclusive right to exploit or conserve any resource found within the water, on the sea floor, or under the sea floor’s subsoil. These resources encompass both living resources, such as fish, and non-living resources, such as oil and natural gas. States also have exclusive rights to engage in offshore energy generation from the waves, currents, and wind within their EEZ. Article 56 also allows States to establish and use artifical islands, installations and structures, conduct marine scientific research, and protect and preserve the marine environment through Marine Protected Areas…”

Law enforcement rights within the EEZ is officially limited to protection of resources, however, those rights can include extensions and prohibitions. For instance, now Iran may have a cause to protect mines implanted within the EEZ for the benefit of protecting its oil and gas infrastructure buildouts and resources. For certain, the IRGC views it that there should be no innocent passage for aircraft or ships without a thorough vetting by Iran where the entire Persian Gulf is the stage for US-Israel onslaughts. Because the Arab Gulf states are complicit in harboring enemy-state criminals, all these states are bought, bribed, paid criminal accomplices; that is, according to Cornell University Law School, “they share equal criminal liability with the principal, meaning they can be prosecuted and punished to the same extent as the person who actually commits the crime.”

In fact, the U.S.-Israel began disregarding the MoU from the very day that it was signed. As has been seen with regard to Palestine, these treaties mean much less than the string of historical treaties signed with the Native Americans. Israel, supported by the United States, has continued to bomb in South Lebanon almost daily, and carry out vicious attacks inside of Gaza and the West Bank. The United States also soon began colluding with Oman to establish a dual passage for ingress and egress along the Omani coastline. It has outright encouraged transnational shipping to avoid the Iranian shipping route option and in particular to avoid filling out the forms and paying the passage security fees.

A map of the dual passage proposed by the United States-Oman which would establish independent routes under “United States Guardianship” so that ships could bypass the Iranian coastline was even published.

Both sets of shipping lanes would avoid the traditional shipping lanes centered between Iran and Oman because the middle region has been mined. It was verified by the BBC and various others that as early as in April, mines were planted along the seabed probably stealthily and swiftly by Iran’s numerous fast boats. These would include: contact mines, limpet mines, influence mines, moored mines, and even rocket-placed mines. Once a ship triggers a floating mine or activates the acoustic and radar sensors, those mines will detonate, causing damage to ship hulls. Once placed, there is no guarantee that the mines will not drift with the current some distance, although contrary to what the House of Saud opined in an editorial, it is fairly certain that the technically fastidious, creative, and intelligent Iranian engineering corps have methods for keeping track of the mine placements and numbers.

The IRGC is definitely much more hardline than the diplomatic team, if only because they recognize the manifold “Trojan Horse” type machinations which the US-Israel are capable of. Short of any apology for murdering Iran’s top nuclear scientists and political leaders, these regimes are still openly plotting regime-change inside Iran. From the Pawns in the Game perspective, Iran is the gateway into conquest of Russia, which is another great Western corporation wet-dream. Furthermore, the BRICS alliance will become more easily uprooted.

However by placing Iran and the Persian Gulf under IRGC martial law, any Gulf conflagrations can be overruled through military tribunal; the courts of law with its tedious routines are dispensed with. Iran is not on the track to become the genocidal Zionist state, rather, it is presuming that the law of the land, which includes the MOU, must be defended aggressively and pro-actively. The historical understanding and context is that most of the Gulf nations and the US-Israel have long conducted various kinds of warfare against the Islamic Republic of Iran: economic sanctions, trade embargo, withholding of visas, withholding of IMF loans or assistance, freezing of bank accounts, covert intelligence operations, information warfare, assassinations, recruiting spies (even former President Ahmadinejad is suspected), political targeting, and well-rehearsed military games and studies in the lead up to this new war.

Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA) Questioned by the West

The Islamic Republic of Iran requires transnational commercial and transport cargo vessels to use its shipping corridors. The inbound lane passages westwards between Larak Islet and Qeshm Island. The outbound traffic follows an eastwards route parallel to inbound but south of Larak Islet. Both routes are within the Iran’s territorial and/or contiguous waters. Both PGSA authorized shipping corridors allow captains to steer clear of the middle section of the Strait which is mined. The square border measures roughly 20 miles square on the map but is bounded by coordinates. The IRGC Navy danger area encompasses Oman’s Musandam Peninsula and in fact, in a recent warning to Oman, another map spells out the IRGC lines of control spanning the Strait’s east side between Umm al-Quwain (UAE) to the west tip of Qeshm Island, and west side between al-Fujayrah (UAE) to Mount Mobarak (Iran).

This precludes the UAE using shortcuts such as ships transferring oil on the west side of the peninsula and piped to the east side of the peninsula at the Port of Fujayrah for avoiding transit fees. (In fact live marine traffic maps from CGTN indicate squadrons of boats crowded on the west side (Dubai) and east side (Fujayrah) of the Musandam Peninsula already as if many basic necessities are unloading.)

The PGSA has issued warnings and even fired upon vessels that ignore IRGC warnings especially after Oman attempted to establish dual shipping lane corridors. Today’s shipping-data maps (such as TankerMap) may display 9 vessels in the zone, however many are clearly lingering and hugging the Strait west and east of Oman’s Musandam Peninsula, indicating that very likely cargo and oil transfers are taking place; slow and laborious processes compared to pre-February 28th.

Once the middle lanes have been mined there are a variety of challenges to work out. One concern is whether the depths of water are even adequate near Iran’s Larak Islet for Supramax bulk carriers which require sea lane depths of at least 50 feet. Another is whether there will ever be a time for de-mining, let alone channel restoration. Currently the estimated time for de-mining would take at least several months of uninterrupted activity for security. And as various investigators such as Animated Military (“Why the U.S. Navy Cannot Clear the Mines”) reveal, the U.S. War Department under War Secretary Pete Hegseth decommissioned the Avenger-class mine-clearing ships in November 2025, citing cost-savings, when in fact, only these wooden-fiberglass coated vessels are capable of evading the sensitive electromagnetic sensors used by influence mines. There are only a few left, and even if a full ceasefire agreement and treaty were signed today, and it will take many months of de-mining sweeps before the Gulf can be restored.

The fledgling PGSA administration is clearly still working out the protocols which will make using the Iranian shipping corridors safe, easy, and painless. Under the clouds of war, everything can change overnight; if nuclear weapons are used, the entire Gulf will be bathed in radioactive dust. If the shipping corridors are redrawn with only one westwards ingress through Iran’s contiguous waters, and one eastwards egress corridor through Oman-UAE’s territorial waters, this would make more sense, but PGSA insists on 1%-2% fees, if only to help with their war recovery.

Currently they have set up an official website, but due to the potential for technical difficulties and scammers, AGN checked out “Persian Gulf Strait Authority” via Wikipedia. Under the entry for “Persian Gulf Strait Authority“, the proper logo is displayed for PGSA and the website is listed as PGSA.agency. (The previous website PGSA.ir is now disabled or inaccessible.) A search for “PGSA” also resulted in a listing of data-scraping website PGSA.io. It contains faulty advice even recommending that shipping vessels avoid the route and skip payment.

As referenced under Wikipedia, the collection of tolls and payments from passage through Iranian ports have long been a way of doing business. The form required by PGSA.agency is the typical type of form which most ship captains and crew must complete when they hope to transit Suez Canal or Panama Canal or travel through the Turkish Straits. The new PGSA.agency website appears much more professional and navigable than the previous one. It states that “Our mission is to enhance maritime safety, streamline transit procedures, and support international trade through efficient vessel management systems and regulatory oversight.”

The type of information required allows for mutual coordination and maritime development and includes basic information for permitting such as vessel name, type, weight carrying capacity, maximum draft, estimated cargo value, country of origin, and destination. Other information includes listing the crew, condition of the vessel, and vessel owner.

However, the United States continues to pressure Oman into accepting an alternative route and advising vessel owners to avoid the Persian Gulf, even while sending mixed messages that it can serve as a “Guardian of the Strait of Hormuz.” As of Friday, August 7, 2026 it was not able to put out a fire on an oil tanker that perhaps ignored warnings from the IRGC. The very idea that the nations which have attacked Iran repeatedly now wish to become the “Guardians of the Strait of Hormuz” goes against the MOU and it is counter-intuitive when considering that before February 28th, any ship could pass through the Strait freely without need of U.S. ship and plane escort. Most likely, as some have suggested, the number of planes and ships accompanying the UAE vessel last night sent worrisome alarms to the IRGC that a “Trojan Horse” operation was planned.

Return to Peacetime Commerce in the Persian Gulf

In a recent discussion at The Duran (“Iran Strike Called Off. Inside MBS’s Desperate Gamble,” August 2nd), analyst Alexander Mercouris suggests that the payment proposed by Iran is relatively small, amounting to 1% or an estimated $1 per barrel of oil, so it is quite affordable. If the Arab nations would go along with it, but meanwhile build out optional cross-continental pipeline infrastructure, which they can afford to do, the Gulf nations would soon have more options. For instance, Saudi Arabia already has an East-West pipeline running to the Port of Yanbu. The UAE also has cross peninsular options from Dubai inside the Persian Gulf to al-Fujayrah. It may be possible to establish an agreement with Oman, whose ports lie outside the Strait of Hormuz. Since Oman and Iran both share the Gulf of Oman, it makes the most sense that a maritime PGSA agreement can be cobbled together that provides Iran security.

All of this is more practical, according to these geopolitical analysts, than continuing the zigzag agreement process interlaced with bomb-and-missile strike exchanges. The ongoing situation, which the Trump administration is unwilling to admit, is wreaking havoc around the world in real earnings and for small businesses (outside the Wall Street dystopia), from Asia to Africa, from the Middle East to Europe, not to mention eventually it will catch up inside the United States.

Can the Americans overcome their hubris and concede to the right for Iran to function as its own sovereignty and allow Iran to recoup her losses from decades of wartime level persecution? Can the Islamic Republic of Iran refrain from throwing their mass virtue-victory-signaling demonstrations if they succeed in establishing this PGSA?

Image credits: Al Jazeera, Eagle Eye Military, Daniel Davis Deep Dive, Tufts Law School, Global Sach
Report by Christine H. Kroll, PE, MA, AGN Editor