[Today’s Iran war update launched before complete because Things To Do. Please return at 8:00 AM EDT or refresh this page then for a final version]
This post is likely to be a bit skeletal given the givens, so please bear with me. But it also includes some hopefully useful informational hygiene.
What little happens in the way of actual reporting on this war is already deflating the latest episode of Trump “Deal coming soon!” hype.
Even though we included it yesterday, we were skeptical of a report from the generally excellent DropSite, that Iranian sources said that Iran offered to have Russia or China hold its enriched uranium when Iran has tartly rejected that before. This is a matter of sovereignity, which as Robert Pape has stressed, is a zero sum game. Pape has also stressed that it is dangerous for Iran to concede on any important issues, since that would grease the path for the US and Israel chipping away at Iran. Other experts have said that the US not only needs to be defeated but seen as defeated so it won’t try to come back and attack Iran for a very long time.
Notice how this Bloomberg headline puts the happiest face possible on the increasingly visible gap between the two sides:
From the text:
Iran said the latest proposal from the US partly bridged the gap between the warring sides, but comments from the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader about keeping Tehran’s uranium stockpile and a dispute over tolls in the Strait of Hormuz clouded the outlook for a breakthrough.
Tehran is in the process of responding to a text submitted by the US, which “has narrowed the gaps to some extent,” the semi-official Iranian Students’ News Agency reported on Thursday, without saying where it got the information. “Further narrowing requires an end to the temptation for war on Washington’s part.”
While that signaled progress, a Reuters report that Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei issued a directive that the country’s near-weapons-grade uranium should not be sent abroad initially sent oil prices higher. Then President Donald Trump said he opposed efforts by Iran and Oman to establish some form of permanent toll system through Hormuz.
“We want it open, we want it free, we don’t want tolls,” Trump told reporters Thursday at the White House. “It’s an international waterway. They are not charging tolls right now.”
And how, pray tell, does Trump know whether or not tolls are being paid? Two of the vessels that proceeded through the Strait of Hormuz were China-bound tankers carrying Iraqi oil. Trump has no way of verifying if the Chinese buyers paid in yuan or bitcoin. Admittedly, with China and Iraq both friendly, either no fee or a very small one might have been levied. But many shippers have no reason to be transparent with the US about their toll booth dealings.
Aljazeera’s live feed describes a fog of negotiations:
Significant challenges remain despite Pakistan mediating US-Iran talks
One hour we hear that significant progress has been made and then the next, reports emerge that huge disagreements remain between the US and Iran.
So it’s extremely difficult to read the situation here.
Iran says it still reading the US proposals and will convey its answer to the Pakistani mediators. Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi has been in Tehran for three days and is trying to bridge the gap between the negotiating parties.
Pakistan’s army chief Asim Munir didn’t arrive in Tehran yesterday as expected.
Many believe that Munir will only come to Tehran once significant progress has been made. This would mark his second visit to the country.
Hindustan Times squares the informational circle:
The segment says that multiple Iranian sources said publicly that Iran would not let its enriched uranium leave Iran mentioning several, including a Foreign Ministry spokesperson. Hindustan Times had said there were some who favored making the concession tha it be held outside Iran but opposition to the idea solidified after Trump kept threatening attacks.
And on the continuing Trump noises about hitting Iran hard yet again…
Many readers are skeptical, despite the readings of from military professionals who get gossip from insiders, that Trump would return to a hot war, even if only briefly due to limited capabilities. Recall that professor Robert Pape also argues that nations locked in fights over sovereignity will typically choose to gamble on escalation, even if the odds of success look poor, rather than accept a certain loss by walking away.
In their Thursday morning Breaking Points show, Ryan Grim and Saagar Enjeti both said they expected the US and Israel to make new strikes. They discussed how each time before launching major attacks on Iran, Trump and Netanyahu feigned being at loggerheads.
We’ll turn to an early discussion in the show, of Iran clearly rejecting the idea of moving its enriched uranium outside Iran. From a lightly cleaned-up machine transcript:
Saagar: This is the latest breaking news. Reuters, Iran’s Supreme Leader has now issued a directive that the country’s near weapons-grade uranium should not be sent abroad, two senior Iranian sources said, hardening the Iran stance on one of the main US demands. So this is by far Ryan the biggest sticking point of the entire deal. Not even potentially even more so than the Strait of Hormuz where the Iranians have shown some level of flexibility because effectively what this new directive from the Supreme Leader says is number one, this cannot be questioned, because it’s coming from the Supreme Leader. So that means this is policy. This is the policy that has been set out. Two, Trump has said actually that all of the weapons-grade uranium, in fact, all of the uranium has to not only be taken out of Iran, but they would not even accept it being sent to China and to Russia, which previously had been floated. Here, the Supreme Leader is drawing a complete red line, saying it is not leaving the country, period.
Which means that they will retain some level of control over it. They have offered in the past to down blend their uranium under IAEA inspections. And I know this can sound a little bit technical, but the bottom line is this: It is a huge middle finger to probably the number one nuclear demand that Donald Trump has made from the outset in this entire war.
Later in the segment:
Ryan: And as people have been pointing out, um, Axios published by Barack Ravid almost identical stories in, , June of 2025, right before the 12-day war started, and then again in February of this year, right before this ongoing war, started. So when some people saw that article, like, wait, I’ve read this twice before and I know what follows, war resumes..
And perhaps the Iranians are tired of this pattern and are kind of throwing in some type of new variable here >> because otherwise it’s like groundhog day. like Barack Ravid promises Netanyahu is furious and that Trump is on the brink of reaching a deal with them and then there’s a surprise attack and they you know they kill all the as many politicians and military figures and and middle schoolers as they can as they can in like a a short period of time…
Saagar: I think people should be pessimistic because in the way Trump has talked, Trump has actually trapped himself twice ironically. So he did the escalation trap where he didn’t def defeat Iran and so now he has only two options surrender andor uh basically escalation. The other trap that he made is he basically left himself no negotiating room whenever it came to the nuclear issue where he said, “No, we’re going to take it all.” And so those two things is way past the JCPOA and actually Iran in a stronger position now because of their drone threat, their ability to sustain and survive an onslaught of the full force and might of the United States Empire.
This Trump propensity comes despite more evidence of the dwindling US capacity to carry on militarily:
US used over half its THAAD interceptors defending Israel from Iranian attacks; also fired 100+ SM-3/SM-6 missiles. Israel used fewer than 100 Arrow and ~90 David’s Sling interceptors. US official says future Iran fighting could require even more US interceptors due to Israeli…
— ILRedAlert (@ILRedAlert) May 21, 2026
Japan Times tells us Iran can assert sovereignity over underseas cable without destroying them, merely by denying access to them for maintenance. From Iran’s threat to Strait of Hormuz submarine cables:
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threatened Monday to impose “permits” on submarine fiber-optic cables passing through the Strait of Hormuz…
Major connections running through the strait include a branch of AAE-1 (Asia, Africa, Europe), which connects points from Hong Kong to Italy and France.
Meanwhile, the FALCON and Gulf Bridge cables connect countries in the Persian Gulf — including Iran — with India and eastern Africa as far as Egypt.
Data running over the cables includes “all kinds of traffic, any data you can think of — videos, email, social media, financial transactions, government communication,” said Alan Mauldin, research director at specialist data firm TeleGeography.
The potential for global disruption is limited as data flowing between Asia and Europe on AAE-1 does not pass via the Gulf branch, Mauldin said.
What’s more, “all of the Gulf countries using submarine cables that traverse the Strait of Hormuz have multiple other connectivity options,” he added.
But Mauldin did note in a March blog that “the capacity of terrestrial networks may not be sufficient to handle the complete rerouting of traffic” if the Gulf’s subsea connections are cut off…
Hormuz is “a closed-in geographic area in a strait, with relatively shallow waters … it’s especially favorable for harassment operations using manned or unmanned systems,” said Eric Lavault, a former French naval officer.
Lavault pointed out that American forces have not been able to prevent Iran from launching operations from its long Gulf coast, with Tehran retaining “solid military potential.”
Iran could both attack the cables themselves and “prevent the cable firms from carrying out operations, either for maintenance or for laying new cables,” he said.
“If Iran damages them, they’ll have to be repaired,” Lavault added.
Cables around the world are regularly damaged — mostly by accidents, such as ships dragging their anchors. The International Cable Protection Committee tallied around 200 incidents a year, Mauldin wrote in March.
“A dedicated fleet of repair vessels is on standby,” he noted.
But these require permits to enter a country’s waters and must remain stationary on site for long periods — making them potentially vulnerable to attack.
A new Eurodollar University talk returns to one of Jeff Snider’s ongoing themes: how the behavior of mass retailers confirms that budget stress on ordinary consumers is rising, as confirmed by Kroger attempting to lower prices…how exactly, with big increases starting in some products and expected to extend more broadly as the impact of fertilizer shortages and pricey diesel. Snider also describes better performance at Walmart as a misleading indicator as far as household budget health is concerned, since it is mainly the result of affluent customer slumming:
