I think he’s just making stuff up or someone is whispering “good news” into his ears to buck him up since the war is going terribly. But here he is with the latest:
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Tehran had offered Washington a “very significant prize” related to oil and gas, expressing optimism that a deal to end the conflict could be possible.
Trump did not provide details about the offer he said Iran had made but described it as related to oil, gas and the Strait of Hormuz.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio were among the officials leading the talks and were “dealing with the right people” in Iran.
Tehran has not publicly acknowledged any such proposal. Iranian officials, however, have been quoted by various outlets as saying that they have received proposals conveyed through intermediaries and are reviewing them.
It’s nothing but happy talk coming from these psychos — if you can call stuff like this happy:
Here’s what’s really on the table right now:
According to international media reports, including Bloomberg and Lloyd’s List Intelligence, Iran has begun charging oil tankers for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
Iranian outlets such as the state-owned Mehr News Agency and Tabnak—affiliated with Mohsen Rezaei, senior military adviser to Iran’s new leader—had previously reported that Tehran was considering the strait as a potential source of revenue for the Islamic Republic.
News reports say Iran is charging around $2 million per tanker. However, because U.S. sanctions prevent Iran from conducting international banking, it remains unclear what currency is being used and who ultimately receives the payments.
Earlier, Iran’s Foreign Ministry announced that various countries and oil companies should contact Tehran directly to coordinate safe passage.
The idea of monetizing control of the strategic waterway has also been echoed in Iranian political commentary. The IRGC-linked daily Javan wrote that it was Iran’s new leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, who first introduced the concept.
“He revived a forgotten historical truth in the geopolitics of the Persian Gulf,” the newspaper wrote on Tuesday, March 24.
In an editorial titled “The Strait of Hormuz: Iran’s Winning Card in the Post-War Order,” Javan argued that the waterway should become a strategic lever for the Islamic Republic and “the most important fund to compensate Iran’s losses in the war.”
Is this possible? I have no idea. But here’s former Defense Secretary James Mattis yesterday:
Former Defense Secretary James Mattis offered a sobering take Monday on the Strait of Hormuz, criticizing the Trump administration for what he saw as a failure to think strategically about Iran.
The CERAWeek conference here has been clouded by uncertainty over the future of a conflict that’s bringing historic supply disruptions — and upending industry planning in the process.
- “We’re in a tough spot, ladies and gentlemen, and I can’t identify a lot of good options,” the retired Marine general told attendees at the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference.
If President Trump declares victory and pulls back the U.S. military, Iran “would now say we own the Strait,” said Mattis, who served in the president’s first term before resigning in 2019 after the commander-in-chief reportedly rebuffed his advice on Syria.
- “I think that you could see a tax for any ship going through — something completely unsustainable in the international market,” Mattis said.
- The overall U.S. and Israeli strategic objectives for Iran remain “murky,” he said.
- “The Americans are fighting in a markedly limited war, and I think that what we’re seeing is a situation where [airplane] targetry never makes up for a lack of strategy,” he said.
- Mattis also explained why naval protection of ships would prove a huge challenge and leave major vulnerabilities.
- Even a degraded Iran retains the ability to attack ships from shore along a vast stretch of coastline in the wider region, he said.
- “If you look at the Texas Gulf Coast, that’s about 367 miles, that gives you an idea of how difficult this will be for the U.S. Navy to try and protect ships in that shipping lane, 600 miles down the Gulf, 100 miles through the Straits and then out into the water,” Mattis said.
- “And they’ve got anti-ship cruise missiles that could be fired off the back of a pickup truck that can go 100 miles. So there’s the problem.”
I’m pretty sure he does know what he’s talking about and this is grim.
At this point it’s best to assume that anything coming out of the administration is bullshit. There may be an element of truth in it but we have no way of knowing what parts of it might be. It’s possible that we’ll see a cease fire soon but how that changes the catastrophe we’re looking at for the foreseeable future is very unclear.