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  

"

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

 

 

Iran on a Repressive Execution Tear

Rights groups condemned the latest executions and warned that they could signal a wider crackdown on protesters facing death sentences. (file photo, MEHR)

 

 

"With the breakdown of the ceasefire and the resumption of the war, we are deeply concerned that the authorities will exploit the situation to intensify the execution of political prisoners."

"The international community -- and the European Union in particular -- must make an immediate moratorium on executions a central issue."

Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director, Iran Human Rights NGO (IHR) 

"Hundreds of political prisoners and protesters are currently facing capital charges", with around 100 already sentenced to death, warns the Iran Human Rights NGO. Over 70 people await the gallows in the central city of Isfahan. Iran's "Killing machine" must be a central issue for dialogue with the Islamic Republic, the IHR has repeatedly stressed.

 

Iran executed Erfan Esfandiari, reportedly 18, and Gol Mohammad Mohammadi, a 23-year-old Afghan national, on July 19. Iranian authorities accused them of involvement in the deaths of four members of the security forces.  IHR

 

Vahid Baniamerian, 34, and a physics academic, was sentenced to death, included with sentences issued to five other defendants charged with membership in the Iran-outlawed People's Mujahedin (MEK) organization. He and the five others have been hanged, their families only discovering their execution when it was reported by Iranian state media reports.

 

Dozens of Iranians identified as political prisoners by rights groups, are political prisoners that have been executed since the U.S.-Israel aerial bombardment of Iran began. They represent Iranian protesters against the regime, as well as people accused of being members of banned groups, along with others who have been convicted on charges of spying. 

 

File photo by ISNA shows Rajaeishahr Prison west of Tehran

 

Since the earliest days of the war which came to a halt in March, Iran has committed to increasing executions, interpreted by activists as a scheme to instill fear within Iranian society, with a view to preventing mass protests that shook the regime's leadership last year, from recommencing. The rupture of the on-again-off-again ceasefire has rights groups fearing that executions will continue to be expedited as another intimidation tactic to ensure silence prevails within the fearful populace.

 

According to Iranian authorities, the convicted are guilty of having carried out deadly attacks against security forces, or having targeted public buildings. Rights groups respond by charging that those arrested and confined in Iran's prisons were tortured and convicted in fast-tracked trials.  

 

So far this year according to IHR, over 400 people have been executed, even as the bulk of capital punishment strikes at those hanged on drug-related or murder charges. Inmates at Ghezel Hesar prison outside Tehran, in nearby Karaj, staged a sit-in protest in the wake of fellow prisoners taken to solitary confinement preparatory to hanging on drug charges.  

"These are prisoners who committed errors simply to afford the basic necessities of life, and they deeply regret their actions."

"Where else in the world is a human life taken for a first mistake?"

Prisoner statement 

Over 2,150 Iranians were put to death in Iran in 2025. Identifying it as one of the world's most prolific executioners, second only to China.  

 

Radio Free Europe / AFP

 

 

Canada, Leaving Afghans in the Lurch of Taliban Vengeance

"In Afghanistan, there is the risk of detention and prosecution for those who want to get a passport under the Taliban."

"Those who worked for the Canadian government and international partners -- the risk is always there."

"We wish and we hope there will be a more flexible approach when it comes to documentation inside Afghanistan and also the paperwork that is required in terms of bringing people to 

Canada."

"Women are being gradually but systematically erased from public life. They are denied access to education, they are not able to work, they cannot protest — it means they gradually become invisible." 

"Afghanistan is the only country in the world where girls are denied a secondary education."

"I am very much hopeful that the outcome will help with a kind of solution that will help with the humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, without helping the Taliban consolidate their power, without legitimizing the Taliban."

"[he Taliban are becoming increasingly hard-line and  not a moderate or more inclusive version of the previous regime; they are] the same old Taliban — they have not changed."

Hassan Soroosh, Afghan Ambassador to Canada 

Ambassador of Afghanistan to Canada Hassan Soroosh stands outside the Embassy of The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in Ottawa, on Thursday, July 7, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

Clearly this fearless man is not speaking on behalf of the current government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, but is reflecting the sensibilities of the previous Afghan government which gave him his appointment to represent the country in Canada. He dare not himself return to his country of origin as long as the Taliban remain in power, but his concerns are for fellow Afghan civilians and those whose lives are in danger under the present regime. His office continues to represent the interests of Afghan citizens outside Afghanistan requiring consular assistance.

And he is extremely concerned over the plight of people whom the government of Canada pledged it would extend security to as a recompense for their services to the Canadian diplomat corps, Canadian servicemen and Canadian charitable groups as translators and office workers while Canada deployed its troops along with other NATO countries in the U.S.-led mission to the country in an effort to ward off the Taliban, combat members of al-Qaeda and help the country modernize itself toward democracy and the upgrades of civic installations.

 

Taliban fighters stand guard at the site of an explosion in front of a Sikh temple in Kabul, Afghanistan on June 18. (Ebrahim Noroozi/The Associated Press)

 

Canada is one of the few countries involved in Afghanistan that has failed to honour its promise to withdraw vulnerable Afghans from the repressive threatening searches of the Taliban for people who they claimed 'betrayed' Islamic values by befriending and assisting foreign countries that invaded Afghanistan to free it from the first restrictive and oppressively violent Taliban rule. While other countries devised ways to extract those who gave aid to their military, those awaiting Canada's promise to be fulfilled remain in danger.

Canadian veterans' groups who worked with Afghan volunteers and workers as well as Canadian humanitarian charitable groups and members of the Canadian political opposition have all called upon the ruling Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to live up to Canada's obligations, to no avail. Complex paperwork must be completed, and special visas approved in a long, drawn-out process that leaves vulnerable people in danger. The year that has passed since the pullout of Western countries leaving the population of Afghanistan at the mercy of the Taliban has failed to convince the Canadian government of the urgency for it to act.

 

Painda Mohammad Noori, a former schoolmaster, died of a heart attack in Pakistan while his family waited for news in Islamabad about when they might be able to travel to Canada. (Submitted/Jamil Ahmad Noori )

 

Ambassador Soroosh emphasizes that those Afghans who committed to helping Canada prior to the Taliban's return have been left in a state of "high vulnerability", calling on Canada to widen the eligibility criteria for arrival to Canada under a humanitarian program meant to expedite vulnerable Afghans to Canada who face Taliban persecution. A need also exists, he emphasized, to provide Canadian charities aiding Afghans with needed paperwork to enable them to get on with their work.

Some Afghans awaiting final paperwork to enable them to board flights to Canada were able to leave Afghanistan to take up temporary haven in Pakistan on visas that have now expired. Leaving them at real risk of being involuntarily returned to Afghanistan and Taliban reprisals. Aidan Strickland, a spokeswoman for Canada's Immigration Minister, gave assurances that her department "can help facilitate travel to Pakistan", but not, unfortunately 'facilitate travel to Canada'.

A group of Afghans seeking to come to Canada on special immigration measures for former employees of the government and their families, hold a protest over travel delays in Islamabad on Canadian consular grounds in early May. (Submitted/Asad Ali Afghan )