Iran Issues List of Demanded American Concessions

The Felon has continually claimed that Iran is "desperate" for a peace deal and that the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz was imminent.   Like everything else flowing from the Felon's mouth these statements were lies aimed at calming the oil markets - the price of oil is rising again - or merely expressions of the Felon's delusion that he is in control of the situation.  With the release of a list of demanded American concessions, including war reparations payments, Iran has underscored the falsity of the Felon's claims.  Indeed, Iran appears like a cat playing with a mouse before going in for the kill - which in this context means keeping oil prices high and gleefully watching as the Felon's poll numbers tank and GOP concerns about the mid-term elections intensifies. All of this makes it clear that the war against Iran by the Felon and his unqualified Secretary of Defense was a fool's errand and unforced error that was doomed to go off the rails with America losing control of the situation.  By this statement, no slight is made towards American service members doing their best to follow the ill-advised directions of the Felon and Hegseth. Meanwhile, the Felon continues to threaten allies - a Texas company is seemingly preparing to drill for oil in Greenland without local or Danish approval. A piece in the New York Times looks at Iran's latest demands:

A top Iranian national security official delivered a sweeping set of demands on Saturday that he said the United States must meet before the Strait of Hormuz can reopen to maritime traffic, throwing the fate of the critical trade waterway into question.

Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, issued a statement carried by state media laying out multiple requirements for reopening the strait. He called for the United States to lift its naval blockade and sanctions on Iran, withdraw the U.S. military from around Iran, pay war reparations and release frozen Iranian assets, as well as end attacks on Iran’s allies in the region and threats against the country.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Iran’s demands. A previous cease-fire between Iran and the United States, agreed to in June, had said that sanctions would be fully lifted only in the event of a final deal regarding Iran’s nuclear program. And U.S. officials have said in the past that Iran could access its frozen funds only if it committed to giving up its highly enriched uranium first.

Mr. Zolghadr’s list of demands upended expectations that a deal with Oman would soon allow commerce to flow through the strait once more and ease global energy prices. They will likely put pressure on President Trump to consider Iran’s conditions if he wants to lower consumer prices for Americans, which pose a risk for Republicans ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Even before Mr. Zolghadr’s statement, Iranian officials had hinted on Saturday that the reopening of the strait was not imminent. Hossein Mohebbi, a spokesman for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, said that reopening the strait was “not contingent on the Iran-Oman negotiations.”

In comments carried by Tasnim, an Iranian news outlet affiliated with the Guards, Mr. Mohebbi said that it would depend “on the United States fully accepting Iran’s conditions.” . . . “However, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz is contingent on other conditions, including the United States compensating for its violations of the Islamabad Memorandum,” Mr. Araghchi was quoted as saying, referring to the cease-fire agreement that Iran and the United States signed in June.

The United States backed a southern route for ships that skirted Oman’s coastline and avoided Iranian waters, and Iran responded by warning and striking ships that took that route. The cease-fire soon collapsed, and the United States reimposed its naval blockade of Iranian ports.

“The Americans were seeking to establish new routes through the Strait of Hormuz, and despite the warnings issued by our country, they sought to undermine Iran’s management of the strait,” Mr. Araghchi said. “Therefore, any violation of the memorandum of understanding or of Iran’s management of the Strait of Hormuz is absolutely unacceptable to the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Raz Zimmt, an Iran expert at the Institute for National Security Studies, an Israeli research institute, said the comments by Mr. Mohebbi and Mr. Araghchi reflected Iran’s view that its negotiations with Oman were intended “at most” to work out how the waterway will be reopened in the future.

Even if Iran and Oman agree to specifics on the strait, “it is clear that Tehran will not agree to implement them without a return to the U.S. commitments under the memorandum, including lifting the naval blockade and resuming the process of sanctions relief,” Mr. Zimmt wrote on social media.

On Saturday, the Emirati foreign ministry said an Iranian attack had targeted a tanker belonging to the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company as it crossed the Strait of Hormuz.

Just over a dozen ships per day have navigated the strait over the past week, according to Kpler, a maritime data company. Before the war, an average of 130 ships used the route daily.

To avoid detection by the Iranian or American forces imposing blockades on the strait, some ships switched off the transponders that transmit their locations, making an accurate count of crossings difficult to compile.