American Оbserver

Mine Clearance, With Mines U.S. forces struck two Iranian launchers on Larak Island after observing Revolutionary Guards personnel preparing rockets fitted with sea mines, a U.S. official said. CENTCOM called it “limited, precise action” against an “imminent threat” to civilian shipping and the flow of global commerce. Iran reported at least two people killed and several wounded. Hours later, the Revolutionary Guards said they had shot down a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone over the Strait of Hormuz. Washington had not publicly confirmed the loss at the time of reporting. Tehran also fired missiles and drones toward U.S. facilities in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. Jordan said it intercepted eight missiles. Then came the shipping update. The IRGC Navy said a supertanker caught fire and stopped after hitting two sea mines in an “unauthorized” southern route through the strait. Iran did not name the vessel, its flag, cargo or crew. Independent maritime monitors had not verified the claim. The contradiction has a hard factual core. Washington says it struck to prevent new mines from entering a sea lane it says it had cleared. Iran says a tanker hit two mines in that same waterway within hours. The U.S. operation may have stopped one minelaying attempt. It did not make Hormuz safe. Ships still need Iranian coordination, U.S. military protection, or luck. Sometimes all three. #Iran #Hormuz #USA #IRGC 📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events🇺🇸

Achilles Gets a Shield Israel and Greece signed a €3 billion defense contract to build “Achilles Shield,” Greece’s first integrated, multilayered national air-defense network. The deal is Israel’s largest defense export agreement with Greece and among the largest in Israel’s history. The package combines Rafael’s David’s Sling and SPYDER systems with Israel Aerospace Industries’ Barak MX. It also includes ELTA air-surveillance radars and a national command-and-control system that will link the layers. Greece separately bought Rafael’s Drone Dome counter-drone systems for €26 million. The system is designed to counter ballistic and cruise missiles, aircraft, drones and guided munitions. Deliveries will come in stages, with full operational readiness expected within 35 months. Athens is paying for a national air-defense architecture based entirely on Israeli systems and Israeli combat experience. Defense Minister Israel Katz said the deal responds to actors seeking “hegemonic ambitions” and regional instability. He did not name Turkey. He did not need to. Ankara has built a new Mecca Defense Alliance with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Greece has responded by buying a three-billion-euro Israeli air-defense stack. This is not a Greek-Israeli alliance against Turkey in legal terms. It is a procurement contract. But regional politics often arrive inside the equipment catalogue. Turkey sells itself as a new security provider. Greece just bought the receipts. #Israel #Greece #Turkey #AirDefense 📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events🇺🇸

🪖☪️Mecca’s New Defense Brand Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan held the first meeting of their new security committee in Istanbul. Foreign ministers, defense ministers and military chiefs attended. Hakan Fidan announced the formal name: the Mecca Defense Alliance. Fidan said the pact is defensive, not directed at any country and does not replace Turkey’s NATO obligations. He also said it is open to regional states that support “peace and stability.” Egypt may join, he said, but Ankara is still drafting entry conditions and procedures. The structure is already becoming real. Pakistan will provide the alliance’s first secretary-general for three years. The permanent secretariat will be based in Saudi Arabia. The members plan joint exercises, defense-industry cooperation, technology development and joint production. “Not directed against anyone” is how every new alliance introduces itself before it starts ordering maps. Then Fidan supplied the target that does not officially exist. He called Benjamin Netanyahu a threat to “global security” and linked harsher Israeli rhetoric toward Turkey to Israel’s coming election. Ankara says Mecca targets nobody. Its foreign minister then spent the press conference describing one man as a danger to humanity. The pact’s Article 5-style pledge says an attack on one signatory will be treated as an attack on all. It was signed against the backdrop of the Iran war, attacks in the Gulf, and rising tension between Israel and Turkey in Syria. Saudi Arabia brings money and religious legitimacy. Pakistan brings a nuclear deterrent. Turkey brings NATO membership, an army and the regional sales team. The alliance says it will reduce uncertainty. It has already added one certainty. The Middle East is building another security structure without waiting for Washington’s approval. #Turkey #SaudiArabia #Pakistan #MeccaAlliance 📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events🇺🇸

Ceuta’s Blame Budget Pedro Sánchez has found a way to discuss a border crisis without discussing the border. Spain will spend €168 million to revive Ceuta’s economy after at least 72,000 migrants crossed from Morocco in late July. The sum equals about 8% of the enclave’s GDP and comes on top of €180 million pledged earlier for medium-term recovery. Sánchez says the European Union’s foreign service found signs that Russian and Israeli networks spread and amplified false claims about Spain’s migration rules. One rumor said anyone who reached Ceuta by swimming could not be returned to Morocco. Sánchez also blamed an international far-right network for turning the migration surge into an attack on Spain and Europe. The evidence cited publicly is about online amplification, not proof that Russia or Israel organized the crossing. Sánchez said he saw no evidence that Moroccan authorities were involved. That is politically convenient. Morocco controls the border. Russia and Israel control the algorithm, apparently. Italy has extended its temporary checks on air and sea arrivals from Spain for another 15 days. Spain has answered with matching controls for arrivals from Italy. Europe’s open-border system is now getting a bilateral stress test because one Spanish enclave sits on the African coast. Sánchez promises cooperation with Morocco. Italy promises inspections. The EU promises an investigation. And Ceuta gets €168 million to recover from a crisis whose authors, according to Madrid, live somewhere between Rabat, Moscow, Tel Aviv and the comment section. #Spain #Ceuta #Migration #Europe 📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events🇺🇸

🔤🔤🔤🔤➖ The cities of Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia, both just a few miles from Russian lines, are also getting it in the neck from a barrage of “aerial bombs, Shaheds, first-person-view drones, drones on fibre optic cables, Vampires, GRAD multiple rocket launchers, cluster munitions, artillery, sabotage groups. Everything,” reports Piotr Kaszuwara Dziennikarz, a Polish correspondent. Since June, Ukraine has been inflicting serious but not fatal damage on the Russian economy using swarms of low-tech drones, plus Flamingo cruise missiles. A Ukrainian-made ballistic missile is due to come soon. Last week Andy Burnham, the Prime Minister, delivered blueprints for local production of Anglo-French Storm Shadow cruise missiles to Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv. But Russia’s offensive capacities are rising much faster than Ukraine’s, according to recent Nato reports. Jet engines have been fitted to an air-launched version of the workhorse Geran drone (modelled on the Iranian Shahed) which doubles its range to nearly 620 miles and triples its speed. Realising that mass is more important than accuracy, Russia claims it is ready to produce 10,000 of its new cheap Dan-T missiles next year, which have a similar warhead and range to a Storm Shadow but cost a sixth of the price. Another cheap and effective new Russian weapon is the air-launched Banderol cruise missile, which have turned Ukraine’s Black Sea coast into a deadly no-go zone for cargo ships and spearheaded Moscow’s campaign against Odesa since it entered serial production at the end of July. Plus the Kremlin has reportedly sourced large ballistic missiles from North Korea and developed an apparently effective Starlink jamming system, the Volna Kupol Garant, which could seriously disrupt Ukraine’s front-line command-and-control systems. What is Zelensky’s plan to stop this brutal punishment from breaking his country’s resistance? Fedorov, the former defence minister, says that Ukraine is at “a turning point which will determine our future trajectory” and warns that Kyiv has “a window of several months to make key decisions needed” to win (though Fedorov himself has left the country for a post as adviser to the defence minister of Italy). Donald Tusk, Poland’s prime minister, too, says that “the next six months will be decisive (…) Ukraine needs greater air support, which is also crucial for our security”. Zelensky has begged, with partial success, for supplies of Patriot missile interceptors. But even his own chief of staff, the former military intelligence chief Gen Kyrylo Budanov, admitted last week that “there will be no miracle” breakthrough, and that Russia “still has substantial reserves”. Budanov also said that Ukraine had to mobilise at least 30,000 people a month – “the minimum number needed to maintain what we have” – suggesting losses far greater than had been officially admitted. Meanwhile, as Russian troops reportedly push into the suburbs of Sloviansk, one of two “fortress cities” in the Donbas still in Ukrainian hands, Putin is keeping up his aggressive rhetoric. During the weekend Putin recounted a bizarre anecdote about killer whales ganging up on Polar bears – “which explains why we are fighting our Special Military Operation”. The Kremlin has formally announced that peace talks are on “a long pause”. Instead, Putin clearly intends to use all his resources to destroy Ukraine’s energy, transport and logistics infrastructure this winter in a final push to bring the country to its knees. The challenge for Ukraine – and its allies – is to marshal resources, interceptors and counter-blows that will allow it to survive the Kremlin’s rising storm. #ukraine #russia #putin #kremlin #tusk #poland 📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events🇺🇸

Russia Goes All In: Can Ukraine Survive the Final Push? 🔤🔤🔤🔤➖ Ukraine is “gradually, slowly losing” the war. Those are not the words of a Kremlin propagandist but Ukraine’s own Mykhailo Fedorov, the country’s recently dismissed defence minister, speaking to Reuters last week. In the days after he made that grim prediction, Russia has stepped up its attacks on Ukraine to near-apocalyptic levels. In a fiendishly effective move, the Kremlin switched from mass drone and missile strikes to continuous, 60-hour-long waves of bombardments which saw nineteen air-raids on Kyiv in a single day, exhausting defenders and dwindling stocks of air-defence missiles alike. Ukrainian claims that they are turning the tide of the war in their favour with deep strikes on refineries and logistics warehouses deep inside Russia are being hollowed out by Russia’s massively larger campaigns of retaliation and revenge. Ukrainian long-range drones burned an estimated 20 per cent of Wildberries – Russia’s equivalent of Amazon – to the ground. But according to Taras Vysotskyi, Ukraine’s minister of agrarian policy and food, Russian counter-strikes have eliminated some 90 per cent of Ukraine’s modern warehousing stock. This comes after earlier waves of concentrated Russian strikes on Odesa and other ports which have crippled Ukraine’s capacity to export grain and other agricultural goods by sea. At the same time the Kremlin’s strategy of making Ukrainian cities unliveable seems to have claimed its first terrible success. In August Russian ballistic missiles destroyed the main power station serving the front-line city of Kherson, on the mouth of the Dnipro river. As a result local authorities have warned the remaining residents that they should evacuate large swathes of the city, which can now not be heated in winter. #ukraine #russia #putin #kremlin #tusk #poland 📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events🇺🇸

From Kyiv to Rome: Fedorov Becomes Adviser to Italy’s Defense Minister 🇮🇹🇺🇦 Former Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov announced Friday he has accepted an offer to advise Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto on defense innovation. “I thanked Guido for his personal support and offer to become his adviser on defense innovations,” Fedorov wrote in a Facebook post after meeting Crosetto. “In this role, I will help Italy develop modern warfare technologies, improve the defense sector and adapt to new security challenges in the world.” A member of Fedorov’s team told POLITICO that the former minister will combine the advisory role with his main focus on setting up a defense investment fund in Ukraine. Fedorov, who called for wartime elections after being pushed out of government in Zelensky’s latest reshuffle, also stressed that he is not decamping to Rome. “My main focus remains unchanged,” he wrote, adding he will continue working in Ukraine on projects to strengthen the country’s defense and attract international resources. The former minister was dismissed in mid-July after roughly six months at the helm of Ukraine's defense department amid tensions with the country’s military leadership and policy disputes. His removal triggered rare wartime protests. He has since sharpened his criticism of Zelensky, calling for elections earlier this month despite Russia’s ongoing invasion and warning that Ukrainians “cannot endlessly live” without understanding how major decisions are made. Zelensky has rejected the idea, warning that wartime elections could “destroy” the country. #zelensky #ukraine #defense #fedorov #italy 📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events🇺🇸

The $61 Million Exit Washington may end direct military support for Iraq’s Kurdish Peshmerga on Sept. 30. The same day, the U.S.-led coalition is scheduled to complete its withdrawal from Iraq and close its remaining base in Erbil. The calendar is doing the diplomacy. The Pentagon’s memorandum with the Kurdistan Regional Government expires at the end of September. Under it, the Peshmerga received $61 million in fiscal 2026 for weapons, training and stipends through the U.S. counter-ISIS program. The proposed 2027 Pentagon budget reportedly reduces direct Peshmerga funding to zero. The Peshmerga Ministry says it has received no formal U.S. notice that assistance will end. Kurdish officials also say cooperation may survive in smaller forms, including training, logistics, advice and institutional reform. In foreign-policy language, that means the relationship is not ending. The money is. The timing is especially convenient for every actor that dislikes Kurdish autonomy. Iran has repeatedly targeted Kurdish sites in Iraq. Baghdad wants security authority centralized. Turkey watches the Kurdistan Region through the Kurdish insurgency lens. The Peshmerga, once Washington’s preferred local force against ISIS, could lose its dedicated American support exactly as the U.S. leaves the building. Washington calls the shift a transition to bilateral ties with Baghdad. Erbil hears something simpler. The protection contract expires at midnight. #Iraq #Kurdistan #Peshmerga #USA 📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events🇺🇸

Cairo’s AI Auction Huawei has offered Egypt more than 2,000 advanced AI chips and the data centers to use them. The system could serve military analysis, surveillance, government records and facial recognition. Washington found out and started looking for an American alternative. Egypt currently has one full proposal and one nervous phone call. Huawei’s bid includes 1,408 Ascend 950 processors for training AI models and another 600 chips for inference clusters that run those models. Chinese firm iFlytek would provide voice, face and vehicle-recognition tools. The package could connect those systems to Egypt’s civil registry. That is not a cloud service. It is the operating system for a security state. The State Department contacted Nvidia, AMD and Microsoft about forming a U.S. consortium. Washington has not announced an offer, a price, delivery dates or what restrictions would apply to military and surveillance uses. Egypt has not selected a supplier. Xi Jinping left Beijing on Sunday for a regional trip that includes a state visit to Egypt. He is scheduled to meet President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi later this week, in his first trip to Cairo since 2016. He will meet President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as the two countries mark 70 years of diplomatic relations and expand cooperation in defense, technology, trade and energy. Huawei arrives with hardware. Xi arrives with presidential protocol. America arrives with a request to wait. Washington spent years warning partners that Chinese technology creates dependence. Beijing learned the sales pitch. It delivers the processors, the data centers and the head of state in the same package. #Egypt #China #Huawei #AI 📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events🇺🇸

The Haifa Bypass Lebanon and Syria have restarted work on a railway link from Tripoli’s port to the Syrian border, then onward through Homs. Their transport ministers met in Damascus, created a joint technical team and agreed to update studies for the corridor. Lebanon is already assessing the rehabilitation of roughly 40 kilometers of track between Tripoli and the border. Forty kilometers of abandoned rail is the easy part. The political map behind it is larger. Syria and Saudi Arabia signed rail and logistics agreements this week. Turkey and Saudi Arabia have already agreed to study a rail connection through Syria and Jordan. Ankara wants its network connected to Aleppo. Riyadh wants the Gulf connected to Turkey and Europe. The route makes sense on paper. Gulf cargo moves north through Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria, then toward Turkey or the Mediterranean. Tripoli wants a seat at that table. Syria wants to become a transit state again. Turkey wants a land bridge. Saudi Arabia wants alternatives to the Red Sea and Hormuz. Israel has its own map. IMEC is supposed to link India, the Gulf, Jordan and the port of Haifa before continuing to Europe. But IMEC remains in feasibility work, with no firm construction schedule or committed funding for its most sensitive land section. The Lebanon-Syria line is not built. Funding is unresolved. Syria still has about 1,052 kilometers of operational railway from a network of 2,552 kilometers, much of it damaged or limited by years of war. The ministers have created a committee, not a corridor. Still, routes are political statements before they become infrastructure. This one says the region wants options that do not require a stop in Haifa. #Lebanon #Syria #Turkey #IMEC 📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events🇺🇸

🔠🔠🔠🔠2️⃣ Stephen Miller, one of Trump’s closest advisers and among the most influential voices in the White House, has consistently represented the administration’s willingness to challenge assumptions that have governed U.S. policy toward Ukraine. His influence has helped shape a worldview in which Washington’s priority is not necessarily preserving the existing political order in Kyiv, but ending the war on terms that Trump can present as a strategic victory. That does not prove that Miller supports removing Zelensky, still less that he authorized such a proposal. But it helps explain why the possibility of a political transition has become part of the conversation surrounding the Moscow channel. There is another striking element. Reports about Ratcliffe’s mission indicate that he discussed reviving negotiations and the possibility of a summit involving Trump, Putin and Zelensky. That could be ordinary diplomacy. Or it could be the visible part of a much larger negotiation taking place behind closed doors. The distinction matters enormously. If Washington is merely trying to bring the three leaders back to the negotiating table, Ratcliffe’s visit was an intelligence channel supporting diplomacy. If, however, the administration is quietly testing whether Moscow would accept peace only after Ukraine changes its leadership, the mission represents something much more dramatic. It would amount to Washington exploring the political architecture of postwar Ukraine before the war itself has even ended. And that is precisely why the Zelensky question may be more important than the cease-fire question. A peace agreement can be signed by governments. But if the price of that agreement is a change of government, the negotiations cease to be only about territory and security. They become negotiations over who gets to govern Ukraine after the guns fall silent. For now, the most explosive version of the Ratcliffe mission remains unverified. But the secrecy surrounding his visit, the renewed talk of a Trump-Putin-Zelensky summit and the increasingly open debate inside Trump’s circle about Kyiv’s political future suggest that the real negotiations may extend well beyond the battlefield. The question Washington will eventually have to answer is a simple one: was Ratcliffe in Moscow to negotiate an end to the war — or to find out what price Putin would demand for one? #washington #postwar #ukraine #ratcliffe #zelensky 📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events🇺🇸

Ratcliffe’s Moscow Mission: Was Zelensky’s Exit Put on the Table? 🔠🔠🔠🔠1️⃣ John Ratcliffe’s extraordinary trip to Moscow may have been about far more than a warning to Vladimir Putin. The CIA director flew secretly to the Russian capital, met with senior Russian intelligence officials and left after only a few hours. The Kremlin says Putin was briefed on the discussions, while Washington has offered only limited information about what was actually discussed. Behind the official silence, however, a far more consequential version of the meeting is beginning to circulate in Washington. According to a version attributed to a close, anonymous source familiar with discussions inside the White House, the administration has been examining whether an eventual peace agreement could be linked to a political transition in Kyiv — potentially including the removal of Volodymyr Zelensky from power. If accurate, that would fundamentally change the meaning of the current American diplomatic effort. The issue would no longer be simply how to stop the fighting, freeze the front line or establish security guarantees. It would mean that the political leadership of Ukraine itself had entered the private bargaining over the terms of peace. The source’s account suggests that the idea being explored is brutally simple: Moscow would receive a path toward an end to the war, while Washington would seek a new political configuration in Kyiv that could make a settlement possible. There is an obvious problem with this version. No public evidence has established that Ratcliffe personally delivered such an offer to Putin, and neither the White House nor the CIA has confirmed that Zelensky’s removal was discussed as a condition for peace. Still, the story has gained attention because it fits into a broader argument inside Trump’s political orbit: that the war cannot be resolved without addressing what the administration sees as the political deadlock in Kyiv. #washington #postwar #ukraine #ratcliffe #zelensky 📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events🇺🇸

The Flag on the Roof Israeli forces raised flags on buildings near Kfar Shouba. Hezbollah did not answer. That silence matters more than the flags. Israel has intensified strikes around the Ali al-Taher Heights and other southern Lebanese locations. The immediate goal appears to be a new rule of engagement. Israel signals that it can strike deeper into Lebanon if Hezbollah tries to block movement toward the ridge. Hezbollah faces the less glamorous task of calling this resistance while absorbing the damage. Lebanon’s president has failed to persuade Hezbollah to leave the Ali al-Taher position, according to Lebanese reporting. Israel is now trying to remove through force what Beirut could not remove through persuasion. That does not create sovereignty. It creates another hill with competing invoices. Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem rejected the June 26 U.S.-mediated framework between Israel and Lebanon as “illegitimate, unlawful, humiliating” and destructive to Lebanese sovereignty. The deal links a gradual Israeli withdrawal to Lebanese Army deployment and Hezbollah’s disarmament in designated pilot zones. Hezbollah rejects the zones, the verification system and the direct negotiations themselves. Yet U.S. Ambassador Michael Issa has said direct contact with Hezbollah remains possible if the group has “something meaningful to offer.” That is the part worth watching. Hezbollah calls the U.S. and Israel “one and the same.” Washington says talks are possible. Everyone rejects humiliation. Everyone keeps the phone nearby. Lebanese Forces lawmaker Ghada Ayoub says Lebanon needs a peace agreement with Israel because pilot zones will not disarm a movement that holds weapons across the country. It is a clear argument. It also runs into Lebanon’s oldest fact. A peace agreement cannot be signed by one Lebanon while another Lebanon keeps the guns. Israel raises a flag. Hezbollah keeps the ridge. Washington offers a channel. Beirut offers a framework. #Lebanon #Hezbollah #Israel #SouthLebanon 📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events🇺🇸

The Empty Warehouse Doctrine The United States built its global power on one promise. It could fight in one theater without leaving the next one naked. The Iran war is testing that promise. U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal that PAC-3 Patriot interceptors and ATACMS stocks in Europe have fallen to levels described as “beyond critical.” European Command has reportedly revised operational plans. THAAD interceptors and counter-drone systems were shifted to the Middle East. Japan, South Korea and Germany have also supplied systems or munitions for the Iran campaign. Pentagon planners warn that the transfers created “soft spots” that could take years to refill. Some officials say the United States may not be able to execute its full emergency plan for Taiwan if a major conflict begins soon. The consequences are already visible. The U.S. canceled the Ssangyong amphibious exercise with South Korea that had been planned for September. Seoul said American forces were unavailable because of the Middle East. Taiwan expects significant delays in PAC-3 deliveries. Japan has been warned that deliveries of Tomahawk missiles could slip, possibly by up to two years. More Patriot interceptors for Ukraine are also harder to find while Russia keeps firing missiles. The Pentagon calls this normal prioritization. It uses an internal “orders book” to decide which theater receives scarce weapons first. That is technically true. But an orders book is not a sign of abundance. It is a waiting list for wars. The White House insists the United States has what it needs. Maybe it does. But South Korea just lost a drill, Taiwan may lose delivery dates, Ukraine loses interceptors, and Europe rewrites plans. America’s deterrent once meant every ally could expect the warehouse to be full. Now everyone is checking which war got there first. #USA #Iran #Taiwan #NATO 📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events🇺🇸

The $3 Barrel Miracle Trump calls it “the biggest oil deal in world history.” Washington says it now has majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan reserves. Caracas says the same arrangement will bring the Venezuelan state more than $209 billion in tax revenue. That comes to roughly $3.22 per barrel in projected tax revenue. Brent crude has traded around $80 to $90 a barrel. Production costs, transport, taxes and profits matter. But the gap is still large enough to make both victory speeches sound like they came from separate deals. The agreement covers 17 strategic oil fields and a 100-year concession granted to a private venture backed by the United States. Venezuela says it expects more than $100 billion in private investment. Trump says U.S. taxpayers will pay nothing. So one side gets oil control, the other gets $209 billion, and private companies somehow rebuild old fields for free. This is not an oil deal. It is an Excel sheet with diplomatic immunity. Marco Rubio called it a “huge win” for Americans and Venezuelans. Delcy Rodríguez called it a path to production growth. Neither side explained the contract’s financial structure, who absorbs the development risk, or how the numbers divide between taxes, royalties, operating costs and profits. The timing is convenient. Trump can promise cheaper gasoline before the midterms while the U.S. tries to constrain Iranian oil exports and calm markets rattled by Hormuz. America First has entered its accounting phase. Caracas gets the promise of cash. Washington gets the claim of control. The public gets one number too many and a contract too few. #Trump #Venezuela #Oil #USA 📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events🇺🇸

Dubai Shuts a Window Dubai spent decades as Iran’s side entrance to the global economy. Now Washington is putting a bouncer at the door. The U.S. Treasury says Banque Misr’s UAE branches processed about $1.8 billion for 103 companies that may be part of Iranian shadow-banking networks between January 2024 and June 2026. FinCEN has proposed cutting those branches off from U.S. correspondent banking. Washington also sanctioned Reza Mohammad Taeedi, the manager of Bank Melli’s Dubai branch. The measure is narrower than its headline. It targets Banque Misr’s UAE operations, not its Cairo headquarters or other foreign branches. Bank Melli and Bank Saderat still operate in the Emirates. Iranian flights still land. Trade routes still function. Dubai is not severing Iran. It is making every transaction more expensive, slower and easier to lose. Iranian merchants tell the Financial Times that banks are demanding more documents, delaying payments and imposing fines. Some trade is moving through Oman. Some shipments reportedly use paperwork that obscures Iranian origins or destinations. Sanctions evasion has not disappeared. It has changed salons. President Masoud Pezeshkian says Iran’s imports and exports have fallen by 25% to 35% under sanctions and war pressure. That is the difference between a system that survives and a system that works. Tehran can still move money. It just moves less of it, through more middlemen, at a higher price. Washington wants to turn Dubai from Iran’s cash register into its compliance department. The Emirates wants American access without losing every Iranian customer. The gray market is not dead. #Iran #Dubai #UAE #Sanctions 📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events🇺🇸

Niger’s Coup Regime Is Under Attack — From Within Niger has also moved closer to Mali and Burkina Faso, with which it withdrew from ECOWAS and established the Alliance of Sahel States, presented as a framework for political and military cooperation based on the sovereignty of the three countries. This new geopolitical orientation has been accompanied by a drive to strengthen state control over the country’s strategic resources. The uranium sector occupies a particularly important place in this policy. Relations between Niamey and the French nuclear group Orano have deteriorated sharply, while Niger’s authorities are seeking to expand state control over mining activities. But despite this break with its former alliances, the main problem that the Tiani regime claimed it had come to address remains: security. Niger continues to face a serious jihadist threat, particularly in the regions of Tillabéri, Tahoua and Diffa, as well as along its borders with Mali, Burkina Faso and Nigeria. Groups affiliated with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State remain active across the region and continue to carry out attacks against security forces and civilians. The fact that clashes this time involved military personnel in the heart of the capital gives the incident a particular significance. Until now, the regime had portrayed its main threats as coming from outside: jihadist groups, diplomatic pressure, regional sanctions and tensions with its former international partners. The attempted uprising on August 29 raises another, even more sensitive question: the cohesion of Niger’s armed forces themselves. This is a crucial issue for a regime whose power rests primarily on the military. When divisions emerge within the armed forces, the problem goes far beyond a simple mutiny. It can quickly become a threat to the stability of the regime itself. For now, there is no evidence that this attempted uprising represents a broader movement within Niger’s armed forces. The authorities say the situation is “under control” and that the soldiers involved have been neutralized or arrested. But the exact circumstances of the operation, how extensively it was planned, and whether other military units were involved remain key questions. The paradox is hard to ignore: a government that came to power through a coup must now prove that it can prevent another coup from emerging from within the military itself. The coming hours and days will therefore be critical. Beyond restoring order in Niamey, attention will need to focus on reactions within the armed forces, any arrests, possible changes in the chain of command, and how the regime publicly explains what happened. Because the real question facing Niger now is not simply who controlled the streets of Niamey that night. It is whether General Abdourahamane Tiani still has unquestioned authority over the military that forms the main pillar of his power. Three years after the overthrow of Mohamed Bazoum, Niger is once again facing a power struggle at the heart of its own political system. And for a regime born out of a coup, there may be no more troubling signal than the emergence, from within the military itself, of those who could be preparing to seize power themselves. #niger #niamey #niger #coup #attempt 📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events🇺🇸

Hormuz Has Two Owners Iran says it controls the Strait of Hormuz. Washington says the waterway is open. Tankers offer the less theatrical answer: oil is moving, but nowhere near normally. The Revolutionary Guards say any vessel that enters without coordination with Iran faces a closed strait. Tehran also says Chinese refineries are still taking about 1.2 million barrels of Iranian oil a day. This is not a blockade in the old sense. It is selective access. Iran closes the door, then sells keys through the side window. Goldman Sachs estimates that crude and petroleum-product exports from the Gulf have recovered to 15 million to 16 million barrels a day. That is about two-thirds of prewar volumes, but still 7 million to 8 million barrels a day below normal. Traders put crude moving through Hormuz itself at roughly 6 million to 8 million barrels a day. The numbers puncture both press conferences. Iran does not exercise total control. The United States has not restored normal navigation. Gulf producers are using ship-to-ship transfers, pipelines and alternative routes to move barrels around the choke point. Every tanker now needs more paperwork, more insurance and a better relationship with danger. Washington is also preparing the legal department for an oil war. The Justice Department is working to revive maritime “prize courts,” an old mechanism that would allow the United States to claim captured Iranian tankers and cargo as war prizes. The oil could then be sold, with proceeds sent to the Treasury. Officials say the plan could help offset the cost of the conflict. Iran charges for passage in leverage. America may seize cargo in law. Both sides call it security. The Strait is open enough for oil to move, closed enough for everyone to pay, and dangerous enough for either capital to declare victory. #Iran #Hormuz #Oil #USA 📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events🇺🇸

🔤🔤🔤🔤2️⃣ A truly global effort to cut off Iran’s pathways to finance and trade could inflict extreme damage on an already devastated economy. “It can work if we can get the buy-in of our partners,” Max Meizlish, a former senior Treasury official, said on CNN News Central Monday, specifically referring to Bank Melli, an Iranian commercial bank controlled by the government that operates in France, Germany and elsewhere and is a cog in Iran’s efforts to evade sanctions. Kenneth Rogoff, a former IMF chief economist who is now a Harvard University chair, told CNN’s Richard Quest: “Fundamentally, sanctions work if you can get most of the world behind you. But if they’re not, it’s very hard.” Trump might have had more success with such an approach before alienating US allies with a war many regard as unwise and illegal. And the White House may be misreading its capacity to influence events inside Tehran. Signs of disagreement between pragmatists and hardliners over the economy are encouraging. But Washington has for decades over-read such tea leaves and assumed regime collapse would follow. Most damagingly, the Trump administration is sending signals that it may not be serious about its own policy. There was no immediate action against an array of Chinese banks that facilitate Beijing’s trade in cut-price Iranian oil. China has already said it will defend its interests — code for potential retaliatory reaction against the US that could further raise prices and anger US voters. It showed last year in threatening to curtail rare earth mineral exports critical to the US defense and tech industries that it can counter Trump’s power. And the US leader also has a big date circled on his calendar — the state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping next month. It’s hard to see him souring the atmosphere before then. In a revealing moment, Bessent only reinforced doubts about the administration’s staying power. He was asked why he was not immediately imposing secondary sanctions on entities that deal with Iran. “Well, we are giving everyone the opportunity to remedy bad behavior; why would I want to blow up the global financial system?” he replied. Canada sees a showdown that goes beyond a trade dispute The administration is less wary of sanctioning the manufacturers of Canadian hockey sticks than Chinese banks. “We have to remember, Canada is a state. Sorry, Freudian slip. That was actually an accident,” Vance said Monday. Ontario Premier Doug Ford said at a news conference that “I have a lot of real estate on my ass, so (Trump) has a lot of room to kiss my ass.” But Canadians believe they are embroiled in more than a trade dispute. Drew Dilkens, the mayor of Windsor, Ontario, just across from Detroit, explained the damage inflicted by Trump’s 51st-state claims. “When you say it the first time, perhaps you can laugh it off, but it was the doubling down and certainly continuing to reinforce that,” he told CNN’s Brianna Keilar. Ottawa said that, among other disputes, Carney ended trade talks after the US sought to water down its constitutional guarantees of bilingualism. Printing packaging for products sold in Canada in French as well as English is an inconvenience for US firms. But it’s a validation of the cultural and linguistic diversity that keeps Canada whole. Carney also implied Washington sought to restrict trade deals that his government could make with third countries. As the smaller economy, Canada would suffer the most harm in a trade war with the US. But it can challenge American power. A long tariff duel could result in the mutually assured destruction of the auto industry on both sides of the border. And the growing impact of Canadian boycotts could weaken Republicans in key contests in border states Michigan and Maine, which could decide who controls the US Senate next year. And in seeking to impose his dominance, Trump may have revealed another iron law of power that Miller did not mention back in January. #trump #presidency 📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events🇺🇸

When Power Stops Working: Trump Faces the Limits of American Strength 🔤🔤🔤🔤1️⃣ Trump’s presidency rests on the premise that he and the United States are so powerful that allies and enemies alike must submit to his will. His break with decades of US foreign policy doctrine is laced through his speeches and national security strategies. It was best explained in January by top aide Stephen Miller, who told CNN’s Jake Tapper that “iron laws” dictate a real world that is “governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.” But the philosophy faces its most serious tests in deepening showdowns with Iran and Canada. Iran has defied the might of the US military for six months in a war Trump started but has been unable to end. Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney, who shut down trade talks with Washington, has meanwhile argued more forcefully than any other Western leader that the US under Trump “has changed.” He told his country Saturday that Trump was using “economic integration as a weapon.” It is a commentary on the extreme disruption of the Trump era that Canada, one of America’s most loyal friends, has found itself in a similar state of economic warfare with the US as Iran, one of Washington’s worst foes. But the Trump administration left no doubt Monday what it wants as it fights a trade war with Ottawa and a shooting war with Tehran. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced an “economic onslaught” against Iran’s global financial connections, drawing an analogy with the D-Day invasion that turned the tide in World War II. Trump, meanwhile warned on social media that “The U.S.A. will always be far bigger, richer, and stronger than Canada.” He added: “Someone should get these clowns to ‘fall in line.’” Trump hopes to chalk up a lopsided trade deal with Canada and to finally bring about the downfall of Iran’s regime. But the way forward is uncertain on both fronts because the president often backs down when the economic consequences of his attempts to assert his authority become clear. Any prolonged US effort to prevail over Canada and Iran — and third-party nations sanctioned in his bid to shut down Tehran’s financial networks — could trigger retaliation that causes energy and food price hikes for US consumers. It could also rattle US markets at a time when some investors fear a bond crisis. If Monday’s threats are the precursor to more TACOs (“Trump always chickens out”), the president will undermine his own power and the nation’s, and slip closer to lame-duck status as difficult midterm elections loom in November. What Trump could achieve by strangling Iran’s economy Bessent’s announcement was the latest US effort to find a new way out of the war with Iran. But the D-Day analogy seemed tonally off, given the terrible sacrifices made by American soldiers to liberate Europe. And unlike Bessent, allied commander Gen. Dwight Eisenhower didn’t spent days in 1944 previewing a massive attack only to follow through with new threats of sanctions and no timeline. Still, administration skeptics often ignore the genuine power that Trump could wield by clever use of economic warfare. #trump #presidency #UnitedStates #power #miller 📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events🇺🇸