Iran Closed Hormuz… Then the U.S. Did Something Huge

It’s been more than 2 days since the ceasefire went into effect and only seven vessels have passed through the state of Hermoose.

Six of them being cargo carriers and only one being an oil tanker which was owned by the Chinese.

The ceasefire is still in effect even though we have had a lot of close calls at least from the US point of view.

US is not carrying out any more strikes on Iran.

But Iran has continued to attack Gulf countries.

Israel has continued to attack Lebanon and Hezbollah has continued to attack Israel.

So in a way the fighting is still going but it seems like ceasefire is still holding up.

The reason I say this is because Iran hasn’t pulled out of negotiations.

But what Iran has done is they have publicly announced that they will not be opening up the state of Hermoose to normal traffic all throughout the ceasefire.

I’m guessing they want to wait till a long-term peace deal.

Here’s more details going on.

We’re watching it by the hour.

So too is the White House.

And Connor Hansen has an update from the North Lawn there.

And Connor, good morning to you, >> Bill.

Good morning.

Only a handful of ships have been able to pass through the straight of Hormuz since the ceasefire began.

And questions over whether the straight is actually open could test this already fragile agreement.

So far, Iran has maintained its tight grip on the vital shipping lane, reportedly telling mediators it will limit traffic to roughly a dozen ships per day.

And those ships could have to pay tolls and coordinate with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Only five ships passed through the straight yesterday according to the firm Kepler and data from maritime traffic shows not all of them were carrying crude oil.

Now we are actually getting more details about this from the Russian media than the Iranian media.

And according to Moscow, Iran has announced that it will allow no more than 15 vessels a day to pass through the state of Hermoose under this ceasefire agreement.

Now, we’re not actually sure if this 15 number was part of the ceasefire agreement or not because no one has actually made the agreement public.

Everyone has put out the pieces of the agreement that supports their side, but we still don’t know majority of what was actually agreed on.

Now, we’ll talk about this in just a second, but before that, let’s go over why this ceasefire agreement is seemingly looking so fragile, and that has a lot to do with strikes that are still ongoing.

Starting with the Israeli strike that took place over Lebanon and it was by far the biggest strike that has ever taken place in this war that started roughly 40 days ago.

Let’s quickly go over some context around Israel Hezbollah war cuz this is something we really haven’t covered on the channel very much.

Right after Israel, Iran, and the United States war started, Hezbollah in solidarity with Tehran started firing rockets across southern Lebanon into Israel.

that prompted the current Israeli offensive against Hezbollah and that has escalated on its own.

Now, the United States is not playing any part in Israel’s war against Hezbollah, but it is part of the war that is going on in Iran because as you guys remember during negotiations, one of the point that the US kept pushing on was Iran stopped supporting its proxy groups around the world.

Basically, stop giving them money.

Well, Hezbollah is by far the biggest proxy group that Iran has supported.

And that’s exactly why Hezbollah started firing rockets at Israel right after Israel and the United States started attacking Iran.

In a way, Hezbollah is doing it in solidarity for Thran.

But there’s also like the financial angle to all this.

Iran has been paying basically Hezbollah’s bills.

So, they kind of have to fight for Iran if they want the future money coming in from Iran.

Now, from the Israeli point of view, it makes sense that they started striking Hezbollah targets because it was Hezbollah who started firing rockets into Israel first.

But to me, what’s a bit puzzling is that the strike that took place yesterday.

Like I said before, this is by far the biggest strike of this war.

This is bigger than the strike that took out Ham.

But then again, he was above ground, so you didn’t need a big strike to take him out.

But then again, this was by far the biggest strike.

It was in an area that Israel hasn’t really targeted before.

And it was also in a civilian area where Israel really didn’t give out any warning for people to evacuate before the strike.

And that’s why we see such a high number of casualties from the area.

As I’m recording this on Thursday morning, the casualty number is over 200, more than 200 people dead, more than a thousand people injured in this strike.

And there’s a widespread backlash from all around.

European countries are condemning this strike.

Iran is condemning the strike.

and they’re trying to use it as a way to back out of the negotiations.

Iran has been adamant about the fact that Lebanon was included in the ceasefire agreement and that means that this strike is basically Israel breaking that agreement that Iran, United States, and Israel all agreed to.

Now, in a second, we’ll get into all the back and forth that has been going on around Lebanon and if it was part of the ceasefire or not.

But more importantly, the most important thing here is that the Lebanese people who are truly suffering from this because I’m not sure if a lot of you guys know, but Lebanese government and vast majority of the Lebanese population don’t agree with Hzbollah.

They want Hezbollah out of the country.

But unfortunately, Hezbollah is just so strong that even the Lebanese government doesn’t have the firepower to go in and basically kick them out of the country.

And Hezbollah is the one that’s firing rockets at Israel.

And then Israel responds back.

But in this war, people who are suffering are the Lebanese people who actually don’t want anything to do with this war.

Here’s more details on this.

>> The anger that was expressed to me by different Lebanese people.

I went to meet government ministers.

I met public officials.

I met clients of the International Rescue Committee.

I met our own staff.

The anger is widely spread.

There’s anger at Hezbollah for dragging Lebanon into the war.

There’s anger at Israel for the way in which it’s conducting the campaign.

There’s anger at America.

There’s anger at their own government.

There’s a lot of anger and the tension is high because a whole society is at risk.

Second point, there’s also anger that Lebanon is a silent emergency.

It’s ignored.

Uh thank you for having me on your show to talk about Lebanon.

But my own organization, we’ve had to cut in half from about 220 to 105.

The number of staff that we’ve got in Lebanon over the last year because of precisely the funding cuts that you are describing.

Overall around the world, there’s been a 50% cut in humanitarian aid in the last year led by the US.

But it’s not only a US phenomenon.

Sadly, the UK, uh Germany, France have also cut their their aid programs.

The European Union has not cut its aid program.

I think that’s very uh significant.

And so the aid cuts are compounding the problem.

I just want to bring something to your attention.

New research from the Center for Global Development, which is a highly respected organization, it’s already tracked that the aid cuts of the last year have led to a 5% increase in the amount of conflict that’s going on.

>> So this is a very vicious circle that we have to understand.

Yes, it’s about politics that has broken down, but it’s also about basic humanity that’s broken down.

And again, I don’t want to make it sound like that Hezbollah is not at fault at all because to this very day, as I’m recording this on Thursday, Hezbollah is still firing rockets at Israel.

So, it makes sense that Israel going to respond.

But what doesn’t make sense to me is that Israel responded with one of the biggest strikes of this war right after a ceasefire was announced.

And we also have reports from Israeli media basically hinting at that Israeli prime minister and the Israeli administration wasn’t very happy with the ceasefire.

So you can see very easily how it seems like that Israel was trying to do something that derails the whole ceasefire and derails the negotiations.

Now this is where we want to talk about the confusion around Lebanon.

So take a look at this initial post or statement President Trump made announcing the ceasefire.

Nowhere in this post is Lebanon mentioned.

But now take a look at this post from the Pakistani prime minister who has been playing a very big part in the negotiations.

Pakistan is the mediator in between the United States and Iran.

And according to this post, you can see it in the third line.

There’s an immediate ceasefire everywhere including Lebanon and elsewhere.

So according to this post, you can clearly clearly see that Lebanon is part of the ceasefire.

And these post came out well before any type of you know firing happened on both sides.

Now this is the post this is the exact post that Iranian officials are reposting basically saying that hey take a look even in the initial post everyone said it clearly that Lebanon was part of the ceasefire and that’s why what Israel is doing is basically breaking the ceasefire but US officials are actually now going on record basically telling on
camera that Lebanon was not actually part of the ceasefire at all.

Here’s a statement from Vice President JD Vance.

Now, before we look at that, just a quick reminder to hit the like and subscribe button down below.

It truly does help us out in the algorithm.

Now, here’s the clip.

I actually think, and there’s a lot of bad faith uh negotiation and a lot of bad faith, you know, propaganda going on.

I think this comes from a legitimate misunderstanding.

I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon and it just didn’t.

We never made that promise.

We never indicated that was going to be the case.

What we said is that the ceasefire would be focused on Iran and the ceasefire would be focused on America’s allies, both Israel and the Gulf Arab states.

That said, the Israelis, as I understand it, again, I’m I’m supposed to get a fuller report when I get on the plane, have actually offered to be um frankly to check themselves a little bit in Lebanon because they want to make sure that our negotiation is successful.

That’s not because that is part of the ceasefire.

I think that’s the Israelis trying to set up us up for success and we’ll of course see how that unfolds in the next few days.

But look, if Iran wants to let this negotiation fall apart in a conflict where they were getting hammered over Lebanon, which has nothing to do with them and which the United States never once said was part of the ceasefire, that’s ultimately their choice.

We think that would be dumb, but that’s their choice.

This is the same message President Trump himself repeated.

Even the White House press secretary repeated in front of all the journalists.

Basically, US is saying that Lebanon was not part of the ceasefire.

Iran is saying it is.

And of course, because of that, there seems to be some confusion about if the ceasefire is going to last or not.

Now, luckily, as of Thursday morning, it seems the ceasefire is holding.

But the important test of the ceasefire will come tomorrow or I guess technically tonight US time because that’s when it will be morning in Islamabad in Pakistan and there’s supposed to be an in-person meeting between a US delegation and an Iranian delegation.

If Iran shows up to that meeting, that means they are willing to continue the negotiations.

If Iran doesn’t show up to that meeting, that means the ceasefire is basically up.

Now, publicly, Iran has said that they will cancel the meeting if Israel keeps attacking Lebanon.

But based on reports that are coming out, it doesn’t seem like the meeting has been cancelled yet.

Again, that may not mean a lot.

What really matters is if they show up or not.

Doesn’t matter what they’re saying, but at least as of right now, it seems like they are on track to show up.

Now there are a lot of Lebanese or maybe Hezbollah supporters who are very mad about this because from their point of view it seems like that Lebanese people are getting bombarded while Iran is willing to look the other way and continue with the negotiations because all Iran cares about is of course Iran which that’s something we’ve been
calling for all this time.

Iran doesn’t really care about Lebanon.

They’ve been using Hezbollah as a way to keep the war away from their territory.

Unfortunately for Iranians or unfortunately for the Iranian regime, that failed horrendously.

But now people are realizing what Iran’s goals were all this time.

Now all this brings us to the 10point peace plan that Iran sent to the United States before a ceasefire was agreed on.

Then in his public statement, President Trump said that the 10-point peace plan was a very workable basis on which to negotiate on.

Now, many people took this to believe that the US had already agreed to all the points on this 10-point plan.

But that’s not what the US said at all.

That’s not what anyone from the US side said at all.

That’s something that Iran has been pushing a little bit in their domestic news channels, but even Iran is not saying that publicly internationally.

But guess what? This isn’t even the confusing part.

The confusing part is that there is not one 10point peace plan.

There are three different versions of 10point peace plan and the version that the US actually said was reasonable is the one that has never been made public.

Here’s Vice President JD Vance talking about this.

Again, >> I think it’s very important for the American media to be honest with the American people uh on this particular issue because it it affects not just, you know, the the normal issues of public policy, it actually affects peace and war.

And here’s what I mean.

So, in the past couple of days, I’ve seen a lot of reporting from the American media about the 10-point proposal that the Iranians have made.

Now, as I know because I’ve been involved in this, there are three different tenpoint proposals, at least that I’ve seen floating around.

The first 10-point proposal was something that was submitted and we think frankly was probably written by Chat GPT that was submitted to Steve Whit and Jared Kushner.

That immediately went in the garbage and was rejected.

There was a second 10-point proposal that was much more reasonable that was based on some back and forth between us.

That is the 10-point proposal that the president was referencing in his truth yesterday.

And then, frankly, I’ve seen a third 10-point proposal that’s even more maximalist than the first 10-point proposal that’s been floating around various social media channels.

Now, here here’s what’s interesting about all this is that I’ve seen various organs, the New York Times, CNN, others, pick up and run the original Tinpoint proposal based on little more than a random Yahoo in Iran, submitting it to public access television in the country of Iran, and then them saying that somehow represents the negotiating position of the government.

It’s the equivalent of somebody in, let’s say, a Democratic councilman in Boise, Idaho, saying something crazy, the local public access TV picking up that crazy statement, and then the New York Times running that as the position of the president of the United States.

It doesn’t make an ounce of sense.

What’s happening on the ground in Iran is that you have clearly the position of the government, which is to negotiate with the United States of America.

You have the position of the president of United States which is to send the negotiators to Pakistan and engage in this good faith negotiation.

And then yes, you have some crazy people at the fringes of the Iranians who are leaking anonymously either for propaganda purposes or because they’re embarrassed or because they don’t like what happened.

And this is something we have talked about a little bit, not too much, but there are different factions inside of Iran, inside of the regime who want different things.

That’s why it was so important for the United States to figure out who held the power and then negotiate with that faction or that person.

But as you can see from the report on your screen, even to this very day, there are people inside Iran who are saying Iran should not be negotiating with the United States.

Iran should not agree to a twoe ceasefire.

And some of these people are supporter of Hezbollah and they want to do it because of the strike that took place.

And some of these people just want the war to continue.

A lot of the IRGC commanders have gained a lot more power over the Iranian society as a whole because of this war and they don’t want the war to stop.

They want to make sure that the IRGC is the only organization that’s standing after when everything is said and done and they want to make sure that they create some sort of military dictatorship inside of Iran.

Iran is a dictatorship even right now where the supreme leader is the dictator but a lot of people want to create some different kind of dictatorship where they can have more power.

So basically that’s all to say is that there are different factions inside of Iran.

Just like how there are different factions here in the United States.

I’m sure there are different factions in European countries.

Every country has that and a lot of these different factions want something else.

What matters is what happens in the negotiations tomorrow which is technically tonight US time because it would be morning in Pakistan.

So be sure to hit the subscribe button down below.

Once we have more information about the negotiations, if they’re taking place or not, and if they are taking place, what is being discussed, we’ll make sure to make an updated video for you guys tomorrow.

So, I’ll see you guys
tomorrow.

Now, to understand why Iran is behaving the way it’s behaving right now, we have to go back and look at how Iran got to where it is today.

That doesn’t just mean going back to 1979 when the Islamic Revolution took place.

In fact, we have to go further back to when the Kger dynasty was ruling Iran in the 19th century and look at how the decisions the ruling class made back then still affects Iran to this very day.

Well, guess what? That’s exactly what we’re doing in our multi-part podcast that just came out today.

So, if you’re someone who is interested in the history of Iran and how we got to where we are today, definitely go check it out.

You can watch it by clicking the links in the description or you can just watch it by clicking the end screen on your screen.

Basically clicking the video that’s on your screen.