Tag: Oman

Conflict End Run?

Donny has been playing grab ass with Iran for months now….it is an on again off again then back on conflict….lots of chest thumping like a sex crazed primate and lots of international chaos….not to mention my grocery bill going through the roof.

In the center of this war, excluding the magical hold the Israel has on Donny, is the Strait of Hormuz….where a lot of oil must travel to get to market.

In the silence of the night two players in this conflict pull an end run on Donny….

Oil prices fell and stocks climbed into record territory on Tuesday after US Treasury chief Scott Bessent said a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz was expected “today or tomorrow,” reports the Wall Street Journal. Not much is confirmed about the deal, though the New York Times reports that Iran and Oman are close to hammering out an agreement that would route incoming ships through an Iran-controlled channel and outgoing vessels near Oman. The nations would share a “service fee”—not a toll, but that may be a matter of semantics— from traveling ships to cover security and environmental costs.

The Times notes that getting oil and cargo moving again would ease market pressure and deliver a badly needed political win for Trump, with a catch: The deal still being worked out appears to give Tehran more leverage over the international waterway than it had before the war began. As analyst Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group puts it, Trump now faces a choice between “an unwinnable war and an unpalatable peace.”

Those “service fees” or tolls for ships transiting the Strait. Muscat and Tehran will split the funds. Additionally, Tehran will have full control over inbound traffic while Iran and Oman will have joint control over outbound shipping.

What Donny will not get his cut?

This should not fly well at the next cabinet meeting.

But believe it or not Donny has something to say….

U.S. President Donald Trump said a deal on the Strait of Hormuz could come as early as Wednesday or Thursday, while Iran and Oman inched toward an agreement to reopen the critical waterway and potentially help bring an end to the war.

Trump was asked by reporters traveling with him in California about a report on the Axios news site that an announcement on the Strait of Hormuz could be made on Wednesday.

“It could happen. Tomorrow or the next day,” he said, speaking on Tuesday evening California time, which was already Wednesday morning in the Middle East. “A lot of progress has been made.”

(apnews.com)

Positive right?

But if Donny holds true to form he will screw this up as well.

Is the lack of long range missiles fueling his acceptance?

Will Israel have something to say?

Stay tuned I am sure there will be more to this story.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Are We Containing The Wrong Country?

Our worthless wars for the last several decades have been about containing this country or that…..our present conflict is about containing Iran and its influence in the Middle East….but is it possible we are containing the wrong country?

An excellent point comes out of the small country of Oman on the boot of the Arabian peninsula and at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz…..

Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi penned an op-ed for the French outlet Le Monde on Tuesday. The article was a call for a new political and security architecture in the Gulf region, and served as a clear indictment not only for the current, disastrous war of choice that the United States and Israel initiated against Iran, but of forty-seven years of Western policy in the Gulf region.

The attention-grabbing statement comes when al-Busaidi notes the fundamental flaw of international policy in the Gulf was that it treated Iran as an existential threat to the security of the gulf region. In fact, he argues, the real threat comes from “decisions that are made in Tel Aviv.”

Unfortunately, although al-Busaidi is correct in his assertion, he merely states it as fact. He does nothing to support that point. That is a sorely missed opportunity.

Al-Busaidi has some genuine cache in diplomatic circles. He was the negotiator who managed to win a deal between the U.S. and Iran in February that would have significantly limited Iran’s nuclear program and allow for intrusive inspections. Donald Trump chose to blow that deal up by attacking Iran instead, at the behest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

If al-Busaidi had decided to use some of that credibility to elaborate on why Israel is the threat to Gulf stability rather than Iran, it would have been impactful.

Oman’s Foreign Minister to the West: You’ve been containing the wrong country

Finally someone publishing what many of us have been saying for 50+ years.

I totally agree with the foreign minister’s analysis and if you look at the history of the Middle East then a smart person will agree as well.

Israel has been the cause of more civilian deaths than any other country in the region…..they have attacked and destroyed in the name of security, which is a false narrative.

Sadly Israel will always have a free hand as long as the US is controlled by AIPAC money and a lame religious dogma.

I wish to thank al-Busaidi for speaking the truth.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Threaten Another Ally

Our Little Donny is good at only one thing….threatening allies to get his way.  With the Iran thing not going as well as he lied about he now has something to say to Oman…..the nation on the other side of the Strait of Hormuz.

President Trump on Wednesday said the US would “blow up” the country of Oman if it doesn’t “behave,” a threat made when asked if he would accept a short-term deal that involved Iran and Oman jointly controlling the Strait of Hormuz.

“No, the strait’s got to be opened to everybody, it’s international waters. Nobody’s going to control it. We’ll watch over it, but nobody’s going to control it. That’s part of the negotiation,” Trump told reporters while hosting a cabinet meeting at the White House.

“Oman will behave just like everybody else, or we’ll have to blow them up. They understand that they’ll be fine,” the president added.

Iranian media reported last month that Iran’s initial proposal to end the war with the US involved charging a fee for ships transiting the strait, with the revenue split between Iran and Oman, which both have coasts along the waterway, and Iranian officials have held talks with their Omani counterparts on the issue.

Initially described as a “toll,” the issue is now being framed in different terms. “There is no toll. We need to pay attention to the words we use. We’re not after money. Iran and Oman need to create protocols for the safe passage of ships, and this will be based on international laws,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said this week.

“It’s only natural that the services we provide, like navigation and the preservation of the ecosystem of the Strait, the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman will have costs. These should not be considered tolls. Iran and Oman are being responsible in our efforts and I hope we will reach a conclusion soon,” Baghaei added.

Iran is unlikely to back down on the issues in its negotiations with the US as it seeks the funds to pay for reconstruction after the US-Israeli bombing campaign.

(antiwar.com)

The bully has spoken.

Will Oman acquiesce or will they show the middle finger to the loud mouth?

This is fun watching an idiot make a bigger idiot of himself.

I Read,  I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Dhofar War

I know it is obvious that I am a student of history so much so that I tend to hit people over the head with history as often as possible.

I am always going on about the US and its wars…..so I decided to check into some of our allies and their little wars.  I have many English visitors so I decided to try and embarrass them if possible (that is a joke please do not take offense)…….

The English have a long history on the Arabian Peninsula….this is one of their wars against god-less commies during the Cold War….

Between 1963 and 1975 the Sultanate of Oman was the scene of one of the most remarkable, and forgotten conflicts of the Cold War. The British-led Sultan’s Armed Forces (SAF) would battle and defeat a formidable Marxist guerrilla movement based in the southern province of Dhofar. The Dhofar War remains one of the few examples of a successful Western-led counterinsurgency in a postwar Middle Eastern country.

An interesting aspect of this conflict is the polyglot nature of the forces involved, with British, Pakistani, Arab, Iranian, and Dhofari irregulars ultimately involved in fighting the rebels (known in Arabic as the adoo), themselves a transnational outfit. A survey of the war raises interesting questions about the myth of fighting ‘localized’ conflicts, insofar as the Dhofar War is often portrayed as an isolated contest between British and Omani troops and the Dhofari guerillas. . It also draws interesting parallels with other ongoing multi-faceted counterinsurgencies as seen in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq. As exhausted Western publics become increasingly hesitant to commit large-scale forces to conflicts in the Third World, their governments may depend on regional allies to provide the necessary manpower instead.  The war in the ‘Frankincense Mountains’ provides lessons in the benefits and complications of such strategies.

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2018/01/12/the_dhofar_war_and_the_myth_of_localized_conflicts_112890.html

You see the US was not the only participant in those proxy wars of the Cold War era….