Ep. 93: Seena's Prediction 😵💫
Hey FRs,
ICYMI, this week we dug into the last 10 days or so in West Asia. I mean, not a lot happened– or, wait, did Seena just predict we may be on the precipice of WWIII?! In short, the MOU is toast, the ceasefire is definitely over, and the Strait of Hormuz now belongs to who the f*ck knows. With everyone staking a claim, we figure we may as well throw our hat in the ring.
Why did the Iran ceasefire collapse into daily airstrikes this week?
It collapsed because the United States and Israel kept routing commercial traffic through the lane of the Strait of Hormuz that the MOU explicitly assigned to Iranian and Omani administration. Iran's response to that violation was to fire on a Saudi-flagged tanker and a Qatari LNG vessel on July 6th and 7th to force compliance. In response, CENTCOM struck 80-plus Iranian targets. In response to the response, Iran struck U.S. facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait, and the cycle compounded from there.
By July 11th, CENTCOM had conducted over 300 strikes across three consecutive nights, targeting sites in central Iran while Iran struck Gulf state infrastructure and American airbases in Jordan. Things are...not looking good.
If you haven't listened to the episode, you missed Seena's (hopefully) insane prediction. Listen now and tell us what you think!
What does the U.S. tolling a 20% fee on Strait of Hormuz passage actually mean?
It means the United States has formalized a protection racket over the world's most critical oil chokepoint, crude prices already sitting at $84 a barrel, and the practical effect is mostly theater. The toll announcement came specifically because Chinese vessels continued transiting the strait unmolested while the U.S. and its Gulf partners were exchanging strikes with Iran daily. No insurance underwriter is sending a tanker through an active missile exchange corridor regardless of what Pete Hegseth promises, so the fee functions less as revenue and more as a signal to Beijing.
Did Lindsey Graham die before finishing the one useful thing he was trying to do?
Apparently, yes. Graham died of aortic dissection on July 13th, hours after announcing a bipartisan Russia sanctions bill with Senator Blumenthal of Connecticut, and the same night Russia struck the Ukrainian drone factory where he had spoken days earlier. He reportedly told staff as he fell ill that he could not die yet because he needed to get the Russia sanctions bill through, normalize Saudi-Israeli relations, and close an Iran framework. According to Axios, those were his exact priorities in his final hours. The bill is reportedly still moving forward and will carry his name, which means if someone did kill Lindsey Graham to stop it, they accomplished nothing except the eulogy.
What did Ukraine actually get from the NATO summit in Ankara, and is it enough?
Ukraine got a license to manufacture its own Patriot interceptors, which is significant and also about three years too late. The summit announced $50 billion in defense industry deals covering long-range fires, surveillance platforms, drones, and submarine partnerships. But the Patriot license — something the U.S. blocked during the Biden administration as well, not just under Trump — requires Ukraine to spin up an entire domestic production industry while actively fighting a war and while Russia has every incentive to target the supply chains that feed into it. Ukraine is getting the tools to eventually sustain its own air defense. Whether the timeline survives the war is a different question.
Drop us a line....
Email us your questions and tell us your thoughts at Theforeignreportlpn@gmail.com.