Beggared and Battered The Islamic Republic Believes It is In Charge

"[The United States must agree to a list of demands for reopening the strait, including an end to the] war and aggression against Iran and its allies in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, and Iraq]."

Iranian Security Chief Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr 

 

"[Hormuz’s reopening had] nothing to do with the negotiations between Iran and Oman."

"[The] enemy is forced to accept Iran’s conditions for the opening of the strait."

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps 

 

"[We condemn the] hostile Iranian attack that targeted a tanker belonging to ADNOC (Abu Dhabi National Oil Company) with a missile while it was transiting the Strait of Hormuz, [despite that the attack occurred] without causing casualties."

United Arab Emirates’ foreign ministry

 

"[We condemn] repeated attacks on vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz."

"Ongoing negotiations regarding navigation arrangements in the Strait of Hormuz are proceeding in a positive and constructive atmosphere. [We urge against any actions that might jeopardize the progress]."

Omani Foreign Ministry

 

"We are low-keying it."

"We are only semi-negotiating with them. We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money."

"It will work out. It's like a chess game."

U.S. President Donald J. Trump  

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A man walks in front of a wall mural in Tehran, Iran, on August 6, 2026. Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images

 

"We currently have no negotiations with the United States. Intermediaries are still making efforts to find ways to resume negotiations. From our perspective, there can be no resumption of talks until the United States ends its violations of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and makes amends for the breaches it has committed."

"Until the violations of the memorandum of understanding by the United States are ended and the United States does not make amends for what it has violated, in our opinion, there is no possibility of resuming negotiations." 

"Of course, this [agreement with Oman] does not mean the opening of the Strait of Hormuz. This agreement may be reached, but the opening of the Strait of Hormuz is subject to a series of conditions." 

"The opening of the Strait is subject to other conditions, including the compensation for the US's violations of the Islamabad Agreement." 

Iranian Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araghchi  

"I try to remind people that we're really in the middle of the game here."

"[The question is whether Iran will be able] to give the things that are necessary for us to be happy, for us to feel like we've gotten what we need out of this particular engagement."

"What we're really working through now is how you can actually set up a traffic scheme so that the ships that pass can pass through safely."

U.S. Vice-President, J.D. Vance  

Battered and bruised, many of its key government figures, including the Grand Ayatollah, high-placed members of the Iranian military, nuclear scientists, IRGC officials were targeted and eliminated in the February aerial attacks coordinated between the U.S. and Israel. Iranian shipping and military fleets were bombed, its aircraft destroyed, nuclear facilities bombed as well as government offices, communications were hit and the country's munitions stockpiles destroyed. What wasn't destroyed is the arrogant assumptions by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that despite these massive losses, they remain 'in charge'. 

 

They engineered a response, though considered by analysts prior to its implementation as a possibility, that was a stroke of Byzantine economic/military genius; blocking the Strait of Hormuz to international shipping as a critical gateway from the Middle East to the rest of the world dependent for their energy supplies and agricultural fertilizers. Holding the Strait hostage to the world's dependency on this energy lifeline represented a clever move to squeeze the political fortunes of a foreign government that 'won' a war and lost the rewards of its aftermath through sheer economic gangsterism.

 

That 'conquered' nation whose economy is in tatters, whose military infrastructure is in huge upheaval, whose population prays for its downfall still managed to terrorize its neighbours in destructive bombardments of their territories housing U.S. military assets, in targeting their oil depots, in threatening that for every U.S. military move on Iranian assets in reaction to Iran's intransigence for refusing to be defeated, has demonstrated its cunning manoeuvres counteracting the 'victory' of a much more powerful military. 

 

A small boat sails past cargo ships and other commercial vessels anchored in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2026. (Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP) | AP

 

Iran, the defeated, yet actively defiant assailant of its own people, of its neighbours, has delivered an ultimatum to the world's most powerful nation: do as we demand or your victory will turn to the dust of history's recounting of a debacle of unforeseen consequences. Just as the Islamic Republic demands reparations from the very neighbours it has pounded time and again with missiles and drones in retaliation for their having acceded to hosting U.S. military emplacements, to prod its nemesis, the United States, to rethink its flawed efforts to bring down the regime, it now demands the same from the U.S.

 

Iran's Supreme National Security Council secretary Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, a commander in the Revolutionary Guard Corps, has issued a list of new demands, emphasizing that the Strait of Hormuz will not be reopened to international marine traffic until such time as the United States "corrects its behaviour" by adhering to the following:

• The United States must never again threaten Iran;
• The United States must permanently end its war with Iran and its regional armed proxies;
• The U.S. must lift the naval blockade of Iranian ports;
• The U.S. must withdraw its military from the area;
• The U.S. must completely compensate Iran for war damages;
• The U.S. must life sanctions and unconditionally release Iran's frozen assets.

Separately, Iran has been negotiating a stand-alone agreement with Oman to manage the Strait running between the two countries' borders. The waterway's reopening rests on other conditions, including the stalemate resulting from the U.S. violation of the interim deal signed in June to end sanctions and plan on compensation as part of a final agreement, according to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.  

 

Iran's UN envoy demanded full reparations from Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and Jordan, accusing them of facilitating unlawful armed attacks and breaching international obligations that led to significant material and moral damage to the Islamic Republic of Iran.  Tasnim News Agency

More recently, an Abu Dhabi state-owned ADNOC oil and gas company vessel while transiting the Strait was attacked, according to Emirati authorities. A reflection of Iran's tendency to fire missiles on commercial shipping as it seeks to 'privatize' the formerly international waterway by imposing stiff tariffs for passage through the Strait, paid directly to the Islamic Republic. The tentative agreement with Oman would see that country too exacting tariffs for safe passage through its side of the waterway. 

 

According to ADNOC, over a dozen of its vessels have been hit by missiles and drones while  transiting the Strait, since the war on Iran was launched in February. In that time, one crew member was killed and twenty others wounded. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Center confirmed that a vessel east of Khasah, Oman, was struck by a projectile causing a fire which the  crew put out. 

 

Iran demands US reparations and Hormuz control in latest peace proposal. (Photo: FILE) / Reuters

 

 

Locked Out Shipping in the Strait of Hormuz

"Our candidates are worried. And they are not worried about the Middle East. They're worried about [the] United States and Israel ... There seems to be a lot of rules being broken, and that is a scary place to be. The candidates, they're sending pictures and posting stuff about fires. Some people are overly concerned. The rest of the people know that it's a fairly safe country in general. But again, the fear is not coming from the Middle East. The fear is coming from the U.S. and Israel and how far they're going to take it."

"It's small wonder why many of the employees feel like sitting ducks. We work in oil and gas only, and all of our clients are the national oil companies. So they're government-owned companies for oil and gas, LNG production, and all of the employees have just been told to wait for it [the situation] to stabilize."

"There's a lot of fear and desire to leave the area. And they're not able to. There's no way in or out. So if you're a Canadian citizen, the Government of Canada and the U.S. government aren't able to really do anything for the citizens who are living and working there, but the national countries' governments over there are doing quite a bit. The UAE is covering all the costs for hotels and whatnot, for stranded people and the people who are living there just being told to stay home."

Anisa Rosvold, regional vice-president Arabian Gulf region, Petro Staff International 

A general view shows the Saudi Aramco oil facility in Dammam City, 450 kilometres east of the Saudi capital, Riyadh. Photo by Hassan Ammar /AFP/Getty Images

 

"Insurance companies are cancelling war risk coverage ​for vessels in the Middle East Gulf as the widening Iran conflict disrupts shipping, leaving tankers damaged or stranded and at least two people dead."

"Shipping through the Strait of ‌Hormuz between Iran and Oman, which carries around one-fifth of oil consumed globally as well as large quantities of gas, has ground to a near halt after vessels in the area were hit as Iran retaliated against US and Israeli strikes."

"One tanker in the region was ablaze on Monday, at least four others were damaged and about 150 ships were stranded."

Business Recorder 

Iran announced navigation has been  closed through the Strait of Hormuz and waters surrounding it, from Sunday, the day following the first aerial attacks on the country by Israel and the United States. While defending its territory from the combined attacks that have targeted its military and nuclear installations, flattened government buildings, killed Iran's Supreme Leader and much of the government and Islamic Republican Guard Corps elite, Iran has also focused on causing total disruption and chaos within the Middle East in a surprising move that has alienated its neighbours, including those in support of Iran, like Qatar and Oman.

Birds fly near the boat in the Strait of Hormuz amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, as seen from Musandam, Oman, March 2, 2026.  REUTERS/Amr Alfiky

 

While Iran's plans to foment a wider war, using its military resources to send out thousands of drones and missiles over Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman, numbers greater in total than they launch to strike Israeli targets, what is left of the Iranian military command has not yet called on the services of its Houthi proxies in Yemen which has up to the present been striking international shipping in the Strait, upending normal international shipping. 

 

In the last few days 150 ships including tankers for oil and liquefied natural gas where 10% of the world's container ships pass through, have dropped anchor, unable to venture any further. 

The ships have been ensnared in backups, cargo soon to begin  accumulating at ports and transshipment hubs in Europe and Asia. Asian governments and refiners have been forced to assess their oil stockpiles in this aura of uncertainty where no one knows how extensive it will become or how long it will be before normal shipping passage can resume with safety.

With the threat issued by the IRGC commander that any ship attempting transit of the 21-mile-wide (34-km-wide) maritime chokepoint, tankers remain clustered in open waters off the coasts of Gulf oil producers, including Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and LNG giant Qatar. While berthed in the Middle East Gulf, one U.S.-flagged tanker was damaged by 'aerial impacts' while a Honduras-flagged tanker was burning in the Strait of Hormuz after being hit by IRGC drones.

 

Photo Reuters

 

Contracted oil workers, thousands from Canada the United States and other western countries, have been stranded at work sites throughout Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait. Several hundred Canadian workers out of Calgary dispatched by Petro Staff International are now stranded across the Gulf States and are fearful of the effects of the conflict exploding in the region. Their vulnerability to vengeance attacks by Iranian forces convince many that once they escape their nightmare they plan never to return to the Middle East.

 

Many of the Petro agency's workers are asking to be repatriated, to be stationed elsewhere -- anywhere that is safe in comparison to the conflict surrounding and threatening them. All these employees have been  assured they will be safe as long as they follow local authorities' orders. And that to leave the region is currently just not possible until such time as it has become stabilized once again. No flights are able to get through, so all these employees must wait out the conflict where they are, for the time being.

 

Rumaila oil field, Basra, Iraq   Reuters

 

Operations have, in any event, been shut down temporarily with measures being taken by the Petro group to "minimize becoming targets", according to Anisa Rosvold of Petro Staff International.