The TWZ Newsletter
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
U.S. President Donald Trump met with top national security officials today to discuss a new Iranian proposal that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed. Iran offered a new deal to reopen the Strait and end the war, with nuclear negotiations postponed for a later stage, Axios reported, citing a U.S. official and two sources with knowledge.
As part of that deal, “the ceasefire would be extended for a long period or the parties would agree on a permanent end to the war,” Axios posited. “According to the proposal, the nuclear negotiations would only start at a later stage, after the strait was open and the blockade lifted.”
The new proposal, passed to the United States by Pakistan, likely won’t earn the support of Trump, who has repeatedly demanded a final end to Iran’s nuclear program as part of an overall deal to reopen the Strait, lift the blockade, and make the ceasefire permanent.
“We have all the cards,” Trump told Fox News on Sunday. He also stated it is imperative the U.S. gets Iran’s enriched Uranium.
“These are sensitive diplomatic discussions and the U.S. will not negotiate through the press,” Assistant White House Press Secretary Olivia Wales told us Monday morning in response to our questions about the claimed Iranian offer. “As the President has said, the United States holds the cards and will only make a deal that puts the American people first, never allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”
The claimed Iranian offer comes as diplomacy has stagnated. Late last week, Trump called off a trip to Pakistan by envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner after Iran signaled it wouldn’t meet with the U.S. delegation there.
In an interview with Fox News on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio pushed back on Iran’s claim that it will reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
“And what they mean by opening the Straits is, yes, the Straits are opened. As long as you coordinate with Iran, get our permission, or we’ll blow you up and you pay us,” Rubio stated. “That’s not opening the Straits. Those are international waterways. They cannot normalize, nor can we tolerate them trying to normalize a system in which the Iranians decide who gets to use an international waterway, and how much you have to pay them to use it.”
Iran’s armed forces would be the authority responsible for the Strait of Hormuz under the country’s proposed law for managing the waterway, a top official says.
Ebrahim Azizi, head of the national security commission in Iran’s parliament, tells state television that the armed forces are already in control of the Strait and are seeking to prohibit the passage of “hostile vessels.”
Azizi added that the proposed law states that financial gains from the strait should be paid in the local rial currency.
Clearly, Trump’s blockade aims to cripple Iran economically and pressure the regime into making a deal or face possibly years of economic ruin once their oil infrastructure degrades.
A satellite image emerged showing Iran, as of Sunday, still loading oil onto tankers at Kharg Island.
“So beware of talk about Tehran running out of onshore / floating storage in only a couple of days,” Bloomberg energy and commodities columnist Javier Blas said Monday on X.
Blas’ observation about Kharg Island was in reference to a statement Trump made Sunday on Fox News signaling an interest in maintaining the blockade of Iranian ports. The president claimed that Iran’s oil infrastructure could “explode” in about three days because of mechanical issues exacerbated by that blockade.
“When you have, you know, lines of vast amounts of oil pouring through your system, if for any reason that line is closed because you can’t continue to put it into containers or ships, which has happened to them — they have no ships because of the blockade — what happens is that line explodes from within, both mechanically and in the earth,” Trump told Fox News’ “The Sunday Briefing.”
“It’s something that happens where it just explodes. And they say they only have about three days left before that happens. And when it explodes, you can never, regardless, you can never rebuild it the way it was.”
On that note, WSJ reports that China is looking to export oil to China via railway in order to circumvent the blockade, even though this is a far less efficient method:
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An Iranian F-5 combat jet flew through U.S. air defenses and struck Camp Buehring in Kuwait during the first days of the war, NBC News reported. The attack happened despite the aircraft being heavily outclassed by opposing aircraft and air defenses and the infrastructure to operate Iranian fighters being heavily targeted during this conflict, as well as the 12-Day War between Iran and Israel last June.
The news about the F-5 was part of a larger story by NBC that claimed Iran caused billions of dollars in damage to U.S. military assets and bases in the Gulf region. The targets included runways, high-end radar systems, dozens of aircraft, warehouses, command headquarters, aircraft hangars and satellite communications infrastructure, much of it we have already reported.
As TWZ editor-in-chief Tyler Rogoway notes, U.S. Marine Corps F/A-18 C/D Hornets F/A-18C Hornets from the VMFA-312 “Checkerboards” that arrived in the Middle East will bring special capabilities to the fight, especially around the Strait of Hormuz, should it reignite.
“USMC F/A-18C/Ds pushed to the Middle East are extremely capable drone hunters,” he wrote on X. “Now significantly upgraded w/APG-79V4 AESA and APKWS air-to-air rockets. Good targeting pod etc. Marines better at dispersed ops. Expect them forward and working in counter air screen over gulf if needed. Good for hunting small boats too etc.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with Russian President Vladimir Putin today in St. Petersburg to discuss the war and efforts to end it. The meeting comes as a shaky ceasefire extension issued by U.S. President Donald Trump continues to hold despite Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz and an ongoing U.S. blockade of Iranian ports.
Araghchi “explained the diplomatic process of Pakistan’s mediation for the complete end of the imposed war and the establishment of peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and the Strait of Hormuz,” his Telegram channel noted. “He considered the continuation of America’s destructive habits, especially insistence on unreasonable demands, frequent changes in positions, threatening rhetoric, and continuous breaches of agreements as factors slowing down diplomatic progress.”
Putin, for his part, said he hopes that the Iranian people will get through “this difficult period of trials and that peace will come,” according to Russia’s official TASS news outlet.
Putin added that Moscow is ready to do everything in its power to ensure that peace in the Middle East “is achieved as quickly as possible.” He also stressed that Russia “intends to maintain” its strategic relations with Iran.
As we have frequently noted, Iran and Russia have close military and economic ties. Moscow has reportedly provided Iran with intelligence to help its targeting of U.S. assets in the Middle East while Iran provided Russia with Shahed-136 drones used during the war in Ukraine.
Referring to the U.S., German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said “an entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by these so-called Revolutionary Guards.”
“The Iranians are obviously very skilled at negotiating, or rather, very skillful at not negotiating, letting the Americans travel to Islamabad and then leave again without any result,” he added during a talk to students in the town of Marsberg.
Merz also said the Strait of Hormuz had been partially mined and added that he did not see what exit strategy the United States was pursuing in the war.
The number of ships transiting the Strait continues to drop amid the Iranian closure and U.S. blockade of Iranian ports. On Sunday, transit volume through the Strait of Hormuz fell to eight crossings — four inbound and four outbound, all AIS-visible (zero dark transits in either direction),” the maritime intelligence firm Windward reported Monday. “Inbound was led by Panama-flagged products tanker Deepblue (Iran-staged, High risk) via the Northern Corridor, with three small India/Comoros cargo dhows (MSV Al Shama, MSV Al K M Khwaja, Al Ahmed) routing through the Southern Corridor. Outbound traffic was uniformly Northern Corridor: high-risk Barbados bulker Kaia, moderate-risk bulker Kaiser (St K&N), Panama general-cargo Cstar Voyager, and Comoros aggregate carrier Arad 10.”
Gulf-wide presence of ships “rose to 920 vessels (an increase of 28 from the previous day), while dark activity events eased to 117 (a 5% reduction) — a small but constructive divergence between rising AIS-visible traffic and falling dark behavior,” Windward noted, adding that the list of ships in the Gulf region included 156 bulk carriers, 146 product tankers, 83 crude tankers, 62 container ships, 43 LNG/LPG carriers, and 38 chemical tankers.
A superyacht linked to sanctioned Russian billionaire Alexey Mordashov sailed through the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, shipping data showed, according to Reuters. Nord is one of very few vessels to transit the blockaded shipping lane at the heart of the conflict.
“Nord – a 142-meter (465-foot) yacht worth over $500 million – left a Dubai marina at around 1400 GMT on Friday, crossed the strait on Saturday morning, and arrived in Muscat early on Sunday,” according to data on the MarineTraffic platform.
The status of the Tifani and Majestic X – two Iranian-linked oil tankers seized by the U.S. in the Indian Ocean last week – remains unclear.
Both appear to be crossing the Indian Ocean westbound in quite close proximity to one another, digital signals from the two carriers indicate, according to Bloomberg News.
“The US has given no formal indication of what it intends to do with either,” the outlet added. “They are still signaling the same destinations in Asia as they were when the interdictions happened, adding to the confusion about where they’re going now.”
Cape Town, at the southern tip of Africa, would be a standard waypoint for ships sailing onward to the U.S., Bloomberg noted. “Equally, they are heading in the direction of the UK-controlled Chagos archipelago, where there’s an American military base at Diego Garcia.”
We have reached out to the Coast Guard and Department of Justice for more details. The Coast Guard referred us to the Pentagon, which declined comment.
The downstream effects of the Strait closure are being increasingly felt in the U.S.
The average price of gasoline in the U.S. rose 7 cents over the last week and currently stands at $4.04 per gallon, according to new data released by GasBuddy, an app that tracks gas prices across parts of North America and Australia.
While average gas prices have increased in 39 U.S. states since last week, average diesel prices declined across the country, said Patrick De Haan, a petroleum analyst at GasBuddy, told CBS News.
“However, that divergence may prove short-lived,” he said. “Oil prices have been climbing again as markets react to renewed geopolitical tensions and the cancellation of talks between the U.S. and Iran. As a result, gasoline prices are set to rise further this week, with diesel expected to follow.”
De Haan suggested the Great Lakes and Plains regions, as well as other inland states, could see average gas prices reach their highest points since 2022.
Texas shrimp boat captains told NBC News that the surge in diesel prices since the Iran war makes it almost impossible to turn a profit.
“The industry is going to disappear,” one of the captains told the network.
Israel sent the United Arab Emirates an Iron Dome air defense system with troops to operate it early in the war with Iran, Axios reported, citing two Israeli officials and one U.S. official.
“The military, security and intelligence cooperation between Israel and the UAE has reached new heights during the war,” the outlet added. “The unprecedented deployment of the Iron Dome system during the war was not previously made public.”
Dr. Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to UAE President Sheikh Mohamed, said the Gulf’s containment strategy towards Iran had “failed miserably” and warned the country could pose a threat for decades to come.
The senior Emirati official said the “ferocity and recklessness” of Iranian aggression against its neighbors during the conflict had been unexpected, according to The National, an Abu Dhabi-based English language news outlet.
Gargash added that agreements were in place that U.S. military bases in the region would not be used to launch strikes against Iran and insisted Tehran had deliberately stoked confrontation.
“This folly, this ferocity, this indiscriminate attack, which we now see from the launch sites of the aggression, is clearly a premeditated attack,” Gargash proffered during the Gulf Creators event, held at Atlantis, The Palm in Dubai.
“This was a premeditated plan, not a decision made in 24 or 48 hours,” the advisor noted. “Iran’s attack on its Arab neighbors is a planned attack, part of a confrontation scenario devised by the Iranian planners, who built the necessary fortifications and armed themselves accordingly.”
Hezbollah drones continue to take a toll on Israeli forces in southern Lebanon. Video shot by an IDF soldier shows a Hezbollah one way attack munition striking just a few meters from an Owl helicopter that was dispatched to the incident where a sergeant was killed and five more soldiers were wounded by an explosive drone launched at them. We outlined this threat earlier this month in a story you can read here.
Hezbollah and Israel each escalated their attacks and accusations over the other side violating the ceasefire, according to the Jerusalem Post.
“Leading into Sunday, the first dispute between the sides following the April 17 ceasefire was that Israel said that the ceasefire only applied North of the Litani River, but not within southern Lebanon,” the newspaper noted. “The IDF already controlled southern Lebanon and wanted to continue to destroy Hezbollah’s weapons stored in nearby villages as well as kill the terror group’s fighters if they remained in that area and refused to surrender.”
Since the ceasefire, the IDF had killed over 40 Hezbollah fighters, but almost all in southern Lebanon, the Post stated.
In the broader scheme, Israel has also hoped to hold onto southern Lebanon for an extended period to help pressure Hezbollah into a process of disarming.
Hezbollah rejected the ceasefire worked out between Israel and Lebanon.
The Israeli Air Force said it has begun to attack infrastructure of the terrorist organization Hezbollah in the Beqaa Valley and in several areas in southern Lebanon.
Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com
