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The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain

Stale-mate in the Gulf

by our Arab Affairs correspondent

IT’S STILL stale-mate in the Gulf. Trump mouths off his usual threats then backs down claiming a number of his feudal Arab allies had implored him to keep on talking to the Iranians. The Hezbollah resistance is beating back the Israeli invaders who are now penned into positions just across the Lebanese frontier.

Benjamin Netanyahu fights for his political future after Israeli MPs vote to dissolve parliament to pave the way for fresh elections. And a mysterious explosion in an Israeli missile factory that rocked Jerusalem is said to be a “controlled experiment” while others say it was either hit by a Hezbollah drone or sabotaged by the Palestinian resistance.

Pakistani and Turkish diplomats are continuing to act as go-betweens in mediation efforts to end the conflict that began when America and Israel launched their “decapitation” offensive against Iran in February. But there’s been little progress since the cease-fire in April be cause Trump refuses to budge from his demand that the Iranians unconditionally re-open the Strait of Hormuz, hand over their uranium stockpile and abandon their nuclear research programme.

Trump offers the Islam ic Republic next to nothing in return. Iran says it’s ready to accept inspections and controls over its nuclear programme but only in return for a genuine peace agreement with the USA, and end to the war in Lebanon, the lifting of all sanctions and reparation for damages inflicted during the recent conflict.

The US economy is cracking under the pressure from the war it began but now cannot end –and ordinary Americans are left to pay the bill. Washington is divided. It’s said that Trump has fallen out with his deputy, JD Vance – who is reportedly in favour of accepting compromise terms to end the war well before the crucial mid-term elections in the United States.

This week Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Americans are being forced to absorb the rising costs of Washington’s illegal war of aggression against Iran. “Put aside gas price hike and stock market bubble. Real pain begins when US debt and mortgage rates start to jump,” Araghchi said. He pointed to rising US Treasury yields, warning that the consequences of the US-Israeli escalation will not be limited to fuel prices or market turbulence. “Auto loan delinquencies are already at 30+-year high. This was all avoidable”.

The Strait of Hormuz – a critical choke-point accounting for over 20 per cent of seaborne oil trade prior to the US-Israeli war against Iran – remains effectively blocked despite the tentative ceasefire. And oil prices, over $100 a barrel on the spot market, remain elevated, hovering roughly 62 per cent higher than their pre-conflict levels.

Some oil tankers do get through – but only on Iranian terms. The Islam ic Republic has set up a Bitcoin-based scheme to provide insurance to shipping companies to pay the toll the Iranians demand for passage out of the Persian Gulf. The Lloyds List shipping journal reported on Monday that at least 54 vessels – including ten Chinese-linked vessels – transited through the strait last week – more than double than a week prior but still only a fraction of what it was before the war, when around 3,000 vessels crossed the strait every month.