Russian superyacht gets a free pass through the Strait of Hormuz

This is the way it's going to be for ever. Iran, or in reality the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, will pick and choose who to let through the Strait of Hormuz. Us warships? No way. A western-flagged oil tanker? No chance. A Russian superyacht, owned by a billionaire and pal of Vladimir Putin? Be our guest. Before the war against Iran started, more than 130 ships were going through the strait without interference from the IRGC and without any toll system. Now the IRGC is totally in charge, and nothing is getting through except with its permission. Thus, the Russian superyacht. The Iranian foreign minister had talks in Moscow the other day and I assume the superyacht request must have been raised. It's both ironic and ominous that it has become so easy for the IRGC to do what the hell it likes in the strait and the US with all of its naval power seems to be able to do very little about it, other than impose a blockade of the Iranian blockade. If the US naval blockade is maintained and the Iranians can't use any of their ports for importing and exporting, then it should on the face of it drive Iran into penury pretty quickly. But it seems Iran has the ability to absorb terrible punishment and yet just carry on. At some point there will have to be a point of no return for the Iranian economy and the IRGC will come begging for a deal. But they are showing no sign of backing down right now or in the foreseeable future. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER. AMAZON, WATERSTONES, ROWANVALE BOOKS.

Iran tries to take the upper hand

Iran has made its first move to try and push Washington into a deal which will favour the Tehran regime. It won't work but it demonstrates how the generals of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are thinking. Their idea is that the Strait of Hormuz will be reopened and any talks about Iran's uranium-enrichment programme should be suapended for a future time. It looks tempting, especially for a US president who must be getting uneasy about how the war in Iran is going to affect the Republicans' chances in the mid-term elections in November. If he loses control of the Senate and the House of Republicans, his final two and a half years are going to be obstructed and stymied by a rampant Democratic party. But the Iranians have been clever. When they promise to reopen the Strait of Hormuz they are not suggesting Tehran will give up all control of the waterway. They just say they will agree to reopen it. So that can't be acceptable. As for the nuke programme, this is the biggest bugbear for Trump. He has to be the president who gets this huge issue resolved for good, but the IRGC which runs the nuclear programme are not going to give up this potential capability. So Trump will have to reject the latest move. But could it lead to something more workable? Let us hope so.

Could Trump's hopes for a deal rest with a wounded ayatollah?

With the generals in charge in Tehran there is no hope of a deal with the US. The military, at least in the form of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, don't understand or seek compromise and just want revenge. So is it the case that if there is to be any kind of settlement everything will rest on whether the new supreme leader, the severely wounded and incapacitated Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, recovers sufficiently to make a huge decision to go for peace? He has a history of alliance with the IRGC, so the chances are slim. The problem at the moment is that he can't speak because of facial injuries and by all accounts is waiting for a prosthetic for his amputated leg. So he is in no position to make such a decision, and even if he did, would the generals listen? There is absolutely no evidence that the latest supreme leader is a reformist or a moderate thinker. But when all the economic facts are put before him about Iran's current dire state, could he begin to think that a continuing war is not in his country's interest. The generals don't seem to care. There is no division in Tehran right now because the generals are united and they don't have to worry about the supreme leader disagreeing with them. But if Trump is going to get a deal, the White House must be praying that the injured leader comes to his senses, in every meaning of the words.

The new proposed talks in Pakistan were pointless

It's hardly suprising that Donald Trump has cancelled the proposed second round of talks in Islamabad. It would have been a pointless exercise. The Iranians aren't interested in a deal which will mean they will lose face, and Trump isn't interested in having talks that lead to nowhere. So why send your two envoys on an 18-hour flight to Islamabad? And anyway, the Iranian foreign minister who had flown to Pakistan for talks with Pakistani officials had already left. So Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump's envoys, were told to stay at home. This is not a breakdown, it's just a non-event. Talks have to be meaningful, otherwise it's a waste of everyone's time. I think Trump has realised that Tehran is not going to play ball. By that I mean, they are not going to give up strangling the Strait of Hormuz and they are never going to surrender their highly-enriched uranium to anyone. The 60 per cent enriched material may be buried under a pile of earth and concrete but it's going to stay there as far as the generals in charge of Tehran are concerned. So "peace" talks are going nowhere. I think Trump will go ahead now and do a further round of bombing once he calls off the ceasefire, and he probably will target Iran's energy infrastructure in the hope that that will persuade the generals that if they don't do a deal of some sort the country is going to be destroyed beyond repair. Trump says he is not in a rush to end the war. I have no doubt that means more bombing is on the way. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER. AMAZON

The Iranian military want to defeat Trump

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is holding out for a defeat of Donald Trump and the mighty US Navy. The generals now running the regime in Tehran are not interested in a peace settlement, they don't care about their own popularity, they don't care about the country's economy going down the tubes, all they want is to prove to the world that they can beat, or at least, obstruct the US president for as long as it takes for them to declare they have forced the world's only military superpower to back down. Right now, they are heading in that direction quite fast, even with the arrival of a third US aircraft carrier strike group in the region. This is a dangerous moment for the White House. Trump has to be able to declare victory, otherwise his personal ratings will fall beyond hope and the Republicans will be annihilated in the November mid-term elections. This presents the IRGC generals with another leverage card to play against Trump. Something totally decisive for the Americans is going to have to be achieved very soon. Otherwise the IRGC will just play for time until Trump becomes so desperate for a deal, he will concede something he has vowed never to concede, such as Iran's uranium-enrichment programme or future Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz. With the current impasse over the Strait of Hormuz, Trump may be forced to go down the route he really wants to avoid - putting thousands of boots on the ground in Iran. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER. AMAZON, WATERSTONES, ROWANVALE BOOKS.

The war in the Strait of Hormuz ignores the ceasefire

There may be a ceasefire in Iran but there's a big war still going on in the Strait of Hormuz and surrounding seas. Donald Trump has now given orders to the US Navy to fire on and destroy any Iranian gunboat or mine-laying vessels posing a threat to the waterway, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (Navy) is targeting cargo ships and anything it can spot worth hitting. It's chaos in other words and all the talk of a negotiated peace looks like finished for good, or at least for the moment, while the two sides try and outdo the other in the battla of the Hormuz Strait. It sounds like the US Navy is expected to do what it has been doing for months in the Caribbean Sea, knocking off Venezuelan drug boats and killing all the crews. I have lost count of the number hit but it has got to be around 30, and probably more. Now we're going to see IRGC speed boats knocked off one by one. It could take a long time, because the revolutionary guards have hundeds of them hidden away along the coastline. But if it happens on a daily basis, then we might as well forget about the ceasefire because Trump will want to get on with the war proper. He is now admitting there is no end in sight. So the world will have to get used to the idea of a Trump for-ever war, something he always vowed never to contemplate. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER PAPERBACK. AMAZON, WATERSTONES, ROWANVALE BOOKS.

Who will be the big losers when Iran war ends?

Basically everyone loses when the war in Iran is over: the US will have expended billions and billions of dollars in used-up missiles, interceptors and fuel costs from the myriad of aircraft and warships used in Operation Epic Fury, and there still won't be a really satisfactory outcome. Iran will lose because they are facing years of recuperation after the onslaught by the US and Israel. The Strait of Hormuz and global shipping will lose because there will still be uncertainty over the safe passage of ships through the choke point. The world economy will lose because of the huge impact of wayward energy prices. Europe will lose, especially the UK, France, and Spain for refusing to help Trump in his war, thus putting at risk future relations with Washington, and above all, the Iranian people will lose because they will have gained nothing from the war except more misery and the knowledge that despite all the bombs, the wretched Islamic revolutionary regime will still be in power, ready to suppress any effort to bring democracy to the nation. All in all, the whole world will be worse off for a long time. Perhaps the only winner will be Israel which has waged two wars at once, Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and has seen the world forget about Gaza which suits Tel Aviv very nicely, or I should say suits Benjamin Netanyahu who is happy to keep control of his chunk of Gaza, create a buffer zone in southern Lebanon and approve more settlements on the West Bank, driving out Palestinian families and farmers. Yes, Netanyahu will be very pleased with the way things have gone. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER. AMAZON, WATERSTONES, ROWANVALE BOOKS.