Middle East
UAE Seeks To Ease Tensions With Iran While Deepening Military Ties With US, Israel
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is seeking to ease tensions with Iran while strengthening its military and security cooperation with the United States and Israel, a balancing act aimed at protecting its economy and security interests amid heightened regional tensions.
The Financial Times, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that UAE President Sheikh Muhammad bin Zayed Al Nahyan has tasked three of his brothers with managing contacts with Tehran in an effort to reduce tensions: Vice President Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and National Security Adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Recent phone calls between Mansour bin Zayed and Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, and between Abdullah bin Zayed and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, are among the signs of the diplomatic effort, according to the Financial Times.
The UAE began pursuing the policy after a fragile cease-fire between Iran and the United States and stepped up those efforts following a memorandum of understanding between Tehran and Washington on June 12.
The renewed tensions in recent weeks have put the strategy to the test.
In the latest escalation, Iran launched missile and drone attacks against several Gulf states, including Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, while the UAE has sought to avoid a direct military confrontation with Tehran.
That marks a notable shift from the earlier phase of the conflict, when the UAE was among the hardest-hit targets of Iranian missile and drone attacks, with the UAE's Foreign Ministry reporting nearly 3,000 strikes.
Iranian Community Takes A Hit
The UAE has also taken steps affecting its large Iranian community. During the conflict, it suspended the residency permits of about 20,000 Iranian residents who were outside the country.
There have since been reports that some residency permits are being reactivated.
Two Iranians living in the UAE told RFE/RL's Radio Farda that the residency permits of some of their relatives had been restored, although hundreds of others were still waiting for their permits to be reinstated.
Radio Farda also contacted travel agencies familiar with the matter and found that tourist visas for Iranians were still not being issued.
An Iranian community activist in the UAE said no new residency applications for Iranians were currently being processed, while visas for people whose existing residency permits are expiring were being renewed.
The UAE's efforts to maintain ties with Iran are also driven by economic considerations, particularly in Dubai, which is home to hundreds of thousands of Iranians.
Economic Interests
In its report, The Financial Times quoted a Dubai official as saying Iran's large population and consumer market make the country important to Dubai as a trade and re-export hub.
The official said Iran's large population and consumer market offer significant benefits to Dubai as a trading and re-export center, and that maintaining those economic ties was important to restoring normal relations.
An Emirati businessman told the newspaper that doing without trade with Iran was possible but difficult.
The businessman said that while he could replace many items, some inexpensive goods, such as tomatoes, were difficult to replace.
The conflict between Iran, the United States and Israel also contributed to inflation in the UAE, although the government has taken measures to contain price increases.
An Iranian businessman who runs a shop selling Iranian products in Dubai told Radio Farda that Iranian goods were still entering the UAE, but the crisis around the Strait of Hormuz had pushed prices higher.
"For example, caviar comes through Oman, while some goods reach the UAE through the port of Fujairah, which is outside the Strait of Hormuz. And with the resumption of flights between Iran and the UAE, many goods reach us by air, carried by passengers."
The businessman said he had even developed a relationship with a co-pilot who helped him purchase some products from Iran.
The UAE said it was targeted by about 3,000 Iranian missile and drone attacks during the first phase of the conflict, adding that most were successfully intercepted.
The attacks prompted Abu Dhabi to take a more confrontational stance toward Tehran, and there were reports that the UAE had participated in some attacks on Iran.
The Financial Times described the UAE's approach as a bold gamble: cautiously reactivating diplomatic and economic channels with Iran while simultaneously deepening its military relationship with Israel and the United States.
For Abu Dhabi, the strategy reflects the challenge of balancing its dependence on Western security partnerships with the economic and strategic importance of maintaining workable relations with its powerful neighbor across the Gulf.
Biggest Clue In US-Iran Conflict Is 'The Dog That Hasn't Barked,' Says War College's Jacob Stoil
WASHINGTON -- A renewed exchange of military strikes and threats between the United States and Iran has raised fresh fears of a wider Middle East war. But Jacob Stoil, a research professor of Middle East security studies at the US Army War College, argues the more important story may be what has not happened.
In an interview with RFE/RL, Stoil explains why the latest escalation still appears to be calibrated, how Iran is using missiles, drones, maritime pressure, and information warfare to gain leverage, and the indicators that could signal whether the crisis is moving toward a broader regional conflict or renewed negotiations.
The views expressed in this interview are strictly those of Jacob Stoil and do not reflect the official policy or position of the US Army, the Department of Defense, or the US government.
RFE/RL: We've seen another round of heavy US strikes, Iranian retaliation, threats against American interests, and growing instability across the region. Yet in your recent research you argue that sometimes the biggest clue in a conflict is what doesn't happen. Looking at today's events, what is the "dog that hasn't barked" yet?
Jacob Stoil: The latest round of US strikes was in retaliation for an Iranian surprise attack against US facilities despite a renewed cease-fire. This is important because what we saw was an Iranian surprise attack followed by a limited US retaliation.
The US does not appear to have expanded the campaign toward bringing down the regime, and for its part Iran didn't initially strike every US allied and partner country in the region as it has in the past. Iran launched a limited strike against the US, and the US retaliated in a limited way.
Both could have used a lot more force, and both could have had a much more expansive target list. The other thing that, as I wrote in my article, is missing in the current round of escalation is any direct Iranian attacks on Israel.
RFE/RL: On the surface, this looks like rapid escalation. But from a military perspective, are Washington and Tehran still deliberately staying below the threshold of an all-out regional war? If so, what indicators tell you both sides are exercising restraint rather than preparing for a much broader conflict?
Stoil: Both Iran and the US have the capability to strike harder and to strike a wider variety of targets than they're hitting currently.
Iran has shown in the past that it can simultaneously hit targets in multiple countries around the region and reach as far as Israel, all while working with its proxies and allies such as the Houthis, Hezbollah, and even Hamas to escalate. It can greatly expand the scope of this conflict, and right now it isn't doing so. That is an indicator that, at this juncture, it is not interested in expanding the conflict.
In a similar manner, the US has a significant amount of military power that it has not yet brought to bear against Iran, and even in its latest retaliatory strikes it is not employing that full capability. That is another indicator that it is not currently expanding the conflict.
RFE/RL: Iran continues to respond through missiles, drones, and regional partners rather than direct conventional warfare. Does that reflect military weakness, or is it the strategy Tehran believes gives it the greatest leverage?
Stoil: For years, Iran has preferred the development of its missile force, its drone force, its irregular forces, and its proxy forces over its conventional military.
While its conventional military is large, its ground maneuver force and its air force are relatively weak, and they were further weakened by US and Israeli strikes earlier this year and last year. Its conventional navy was all but destroyed.
So Iran doesn't have the capability to effectively expand the war through ground maneuver in the way we've seen Russia do in Ukraine, or in a way that would really benefit it. Instead, it's playing to its strengths. Its strengths are in the information domain -- in creating false and misleading narratives and propaganda. Iran's strengths also lie in missiles, drones, and its ability to attack civilians and economic targets throughout the region.
RFE/RL: One of your latest studies focuses on Iran's strategy in the Strait of Hormuz. How do today's military operations fit into Tehran's broader effort to turn maritime pressure into political leverage at the negotiating table?
Stoil: Iran's strategy is to turn its ability to close the Strait of Hormuz and inflict economic pain on countries around the world into leverage at the negotiating table. The strikes Iran has carried out lately are an attempt to regularize the status quo.
Right now, Iran attacks its neighbors. Iran attacks other countries in the region. Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz, and ships generally need Iranian tolerance if not permission to transit the strait.
Iran wants this to become the status quo. It continues to launch attacks against its neighbors, US forces, and shipping in the Strait of Hormuz to make its conduct in the conflict part of the normal day-to-day reality of the Middle East.
RFE/RL: Both sides claim military success while avoiding decisive escalation. Has information warfare become almost as important as battlefield operations themselves?
Stoil: For Iran, information warfare and the use of misinformation and disinformation are central to its strategy. Its goal is not to defeat US forces militarily. It knows it really can't do that. Its goal is to raise the political and economic costs of maintaining the conflict higher than the US is willing to pay.
That means attacking the will of the US and American partners while also undermining US public support for continuing the conflict.
Together with its closure of the Strait of Hormuz and its attacks against its neighbors using missiles and drones, the most effective tool in Iran's arsenal is information warfare.
RFE/RL: Finally, what should military analysts be watching over the coming days and weeks -- not the headlines but the indicators that would reveal whether the region is moving toward renewed negotiations or toward a broader regional conflict?
Stoil: It is important to understand that violence and negotiations are not opposite sides of the coin. Within a conflict, violence is also a form of language.
Iran and the US are using violence as part of a negotiation to establish tolerances. Iran is trying to make it acceptable that it can strike its neighbors with impunity, and every time the US retaliates, the US is sending a message about where the red line lies. Iran, in turn, is trying to push that red line.
So violence can itself be a language. When it comes to this conflict, negotiations are happening through violence, through information, and through other diverse channels.
Iran Has Tested The Gulf. Now Washington Must Rethink Its Security Role, Says Former Trump NSC Official Allison Minor
WASHINGTON -- Iran's latest missile attacks on US forces and bases in the region have exposed growing strains in the decades-old US-Gulf security partnership, according to Allison Minor, director of the Atlantic Council's Project for Middle East Integration and former director for Arabian Peninsula affairs at the White House National Security Council during US President Donald Trump's first term.
In a recent Atlantic Council analysis co-authored with Alina Romanowski, a former US ambassador to Kuwait and Iraq, Minor argued that Washington and its Persian Gulf partners should move away from a US security guarantee and toward regional integration, shared capabilities, and stronger partnerships.
RFE/RL spoke with Minor about why she believes the traditional US security model in the Gulf is no longer sustainable and what should replace it.
RFE/RL: Iran has carried out attacks targeting US forces and bases in the region. What does this moment reveal about the vulnerabilities of the current US security posture in the region?
Allison Minor: This latest round of strikes just underscores the really tough situation that the US has found itself in, with an escalatory spiral that has proven extremely hard to get out of. The Iranian regime is making it clear they will end this conflict on their own terms, and that they're not afraid of continued confrontation with the US.
Getting back to some sort of de-escalation, a cease-fire, and a new agreement on the Strait of Hormuz is going to be extremely difficult in these circumstances.
RFE/RL: Your Atlantic Council article argues that this is a turning point for the US-Gulf security partnership. Why do these latest attacks make a reset necessary now?
Minor: The tensions in US-Gulf security partnerships go back years. There's been this overriding sense that the idea of a US security guarantee -- this idea of the Carter Doctrine (then-President Jimmy Carter's 1980 pledge to use US military force to defend vital American interests in the Persian Gulf) that has been in place for decades and really was the overriding assumption in the region following the Gulf War -- has been fading.
I've argued that the US needs to really embrace this idea...of transitioning from a guarantor to an integrator."
It's been clear to Gulf partners that the US is not interested in living up to that commitment or capable of living up to that commitment, and many in Washington are questioning whether that is the right approach.
The Iran war has only exposed the tensions in this assumption of a US security guarantee in the Gulf, and Gulf partners were frustrated with Washington. They were not consulted before the outbreak of this war that really put them on the front lines and saw them face really unprecedented assaults.
RFE/RL: For decades, large US military bases have been the foundation of American power in the Persian Gulf. If the traditional security model is no longer sufficient, what should replace it?
Allison Minor: We should start with the question of what the US role should be. In a recent piece, I've argued the US needs to really embrace this idea, which has been talked about for years, of transitioning from a guarantor to an integrator.
The idea here is the US is not supposed to independently guarantee the security of Gulf countries. It can be a partner. It can work with those Gulf countries to help them come up with defenses against external threats and work collaboratively with them to help address broader regional instability.
But it should not be the US going in independently and leading a campaign as it did with the Iran war, and certainly not without the consultation of key partners in the region, again, as was the case during the Iran war.
If you start with a conversation about what that new US security role in the region looks like, the answer of what US basing should look like will follow more naturally.
RFE/RL: Should the US then move away from being the region's primary security guarantor and toward being more of a partner that helps Gulf states build their own capabilities? Is that your position?
Allison Minor: Exactly. Gulf states realize now they cannot rely on the US to guarantee their security. That was quite clear. The US has proven incapable of addressing the Iranian threats to the Gulf either via military action or via negotiations, so the idea of the US as the security guarantor in the Gulf -- that idea is already gone.
RFE/RL: How can Washington reassure Gulf partners while avoiding deeper military entanglement in a conflict that could continue to expand?
Allison Minor: There's the immediate challenge of how the US can reassure Gulf partners as the Iran conflict continues to rage on.
That needs to be dealt with first. The US needs to get back to a more sustainable cease-fire agreement with Iran, and one that addresses the challenge in the Strait of Hormuz and Iran's attempts to control the strait, which essentially gives them a noose around the neck of Gulf economies. That needs to be dealt with first.
The first step is ending the Iran war, and then it's having this conversation with partners about where are the opportunities, how can we rebuild some sort of consensus policy on dealing with regional threats."
RFE/RL: US officials and others have highlighted the need for stronger regional capabilities. You also served during Trump's first term at the National Security Council. Is this an entirely new idea? Should the priority be integrated missile defense, intelligence sharing, cyber resilience, maritime security, or something else?
Minor: It's definitely not a new idea. The idea of the US pivoting from a guarantor to an integrator in the Gulf has been talked about certainly during the first Trump administration, but even before that.
Again, it is formally addressed in the 2023 CENTCOM operation plan. So it's not a question of embracing the idea; it's a question of actually operationalizing it and changing the way the US operates in the region.
RFE/RL: We have also seen Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates increasingly seek greater strategic independence. What role should those Gulf powers play in leading regional security moving forward?
Minor: They do need to play a larger role. We need to be clear that there are very significant divisions between Gulf countries, and especially right now, we're seeing this rift between Saudi Arabia and the UAE as both seek to vie for varying levels of regional leadership.
It's not the time for a fully unified Gulf security architecture, but that's why the US role is so valuable.
RFE/RL: Beyond military cooperation, what diplomatic or political changes are needed to create a more durable, Iran-proof security architecture in the Gulf?
Minor: Until we end the Iran war, all of this is going to be very difficult. It's an extremely difficult environment. All actors, whether it's in Europe or in the Gulf, are hesitant to get entangled in the US-led campaign in Iran.
The first step is ending the Iran war, and then it's having this conversation with partners about where are the opportunities, how can we rebuild some sort of consensus policy on dealing with regional threats, how can we rebuild a consensus policy with our partners on that critical regional issue?
RFE/RL: What would success look like if the US and its allies succeed in creating a new security posture and architecture in the region? How would we know that this reset in US-Gulf security relations is actually working three to five years from now?
Minor: That's a great question. The early indicators would be a lowering of tensions between Washington and Gulf capitals because there's this shared understanding of what that relationship should look like, and a sense that we're both living up to those commitments.
In the longer term, the primary purpose of these kinds of security partnerships is deterrence.
It is providing the level of peace and stability because potential foes, competitors, nonstate actors believe that that security architecture is so strong.
If we can actually build a stronger integrated Gulf security architecture that is supported by the US, that is supported by other trusted partners in Europe and beyond, that is seen as sufficiently robust, sufficiently resilient, sufficiently diversified, [then] actors -- whether it be a future Iranian regime or nonstate actors like the Houthis -- feel that this security architecture is strong enough that they don't even want to go up against it.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
- By Daud Khattak
How The Iran War Is Changing Security Dynamics In The Middle East
The prolonged US-Iran war has prompted many Persian Gulf nations to reassess their defense needs. For Pakistan, which has acted as a mediator in negotiations between Tehran and Washington, the conflict has created an opportunity to stabilize its fragile economy and improve its diplomatic outreach.
But the emerging partnerships between Islamabad and Middle East capitals are also reshaping the region's security dynamics, pushing the militarily weaker Gulf states closer to larger and better-armed neighbors -- Pakistan and India.
"The newly emerging security arrangements in the region are more like overlapping partnerships rather than fixed blocs," Alex Vatanka, senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, told RFE/RL while referring to Saudi-Pakistan, UAE-India, and China-Pakistan relations.
These arrangements give "states more room to maneuver, but also make regional crises more complex and harder to manage," he added.
Kuwait, like other Gulf states, came under repeated Iranian missile and drone attacks before ratifying the agreement, causing damage to infrastructure and casualties. The country hosts at least three US military bases with an estimated 13,000 personnel.
With that target on its territory, Kuwait became the second Gulf state to ratify a defense agreement with Pakistan that provides for military training, personnel exchanges, and intelligence sharing. Although signed in June 2023, the agreement only received final approval from the Kuwaiti cabinet last week, Kuwait's official Gazette Al-Kuwait Al-Youm announced on July 26.
Kuwait's neighbor, Saudi Arabia, signed a Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement with Pakistan last year that includes a clause along the lines of NATO's Article 5 that states "any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both."
Meanwhile, Pakistani officials say a draft of a separate defense arrangement between Turkey, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia has already been prepared and is awaiting a final consensus from the three sides.
On top of that, leaders of the "regional four," or R4 -- Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey -- have been discussing closer security cooperation since the 12-day US-Israel-Iran conflict in June 2025.
'Center Of Gravity'
Analysts say the urgency among rich Gulf states to seek defense agreements with Pakistan and forge alliances has been driven by the vulnerabilities of their defenses in the face of Iranian missile and drone strikes, despite being allies of the world's most powerful country, the United States.
Mushahid Hussain Sayed, a former Pakistani senator and an Islamabad-based defense analyst, said there has been a rethinking among Middle Eastern countries as "approximately 16 [US] bases could not save them from the Iranian missile and drone strikes."
Sayed said Pakistan had become the "center of gravity" because it acts as a bridge between Tehran and Washington regarding peace and has an outreach with China.
Vatanka said Pakistan combines military capability with strategic flexibility.
"It maintains ties with Saudi Arabia, Iran, China, and the US without fully joining any one camp, making it a useful security partner in a more multipolar region."
As Pakistan expands its outreach in the Middle East, its much larger neighbor, India, has already forged strong ties with Israel and the United Arab Emirates, which was once counted among Pakistan's closest allies.
Apparently unhappy over Pakistan's expanding defense ties with Saudi Arabia and the country's mediatory role in the Iran-US conflict, in April, Abu Dhabi asked Pakistan to repay a $3.5 billion loan immediately.
For decades, nuclear-armed Pakistan has remained dependent on loans and financial support from the rich Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar. Pakistan's fragile economy mostly remained dependent on aid from the United States, especially during the Afghan war from 2001 to 2021, as well as loans from the International Monetary Fund.
"For Pakistan, the driving factors are its fragile economy and the persistent risk of isolation by its much larger South Asian neighbor, India. For the Gulf states, the motivation lies in strengthening their defense capabilities through indigenous military development and technological advancement which have drawn them closer together," said Feroz H. Khan, a retired brigadier of the Pakistani Army and research professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in California.
Khan told RFE/RL that Gulf countries have lost faith in the previous security architecture under the US umbrella because they were attacked both by Iran and Israel.
"They are now more interested in an indigenous security apparatus instead of relying on outside forces," Khan said.
Nuclear-armed Pakistan and India have fought several wars since their independence from the British in 1947. Being much larger in size, population, economy, and defense capabilities, India has traditionally been considered the regional power in South Asia.
"As part of its Strategic Relevance, Pakistan has carved out a role for itself in the Middle East by presenting itself as the eastern fortress of the Muslim world," said Khan. "Rather than trying to compete with a much larger India in South Asia, Pakistan has successfully leveraged the US-Iran conflict to position itself as a Middle Eastern power."
Could The US-Iran Battle For Hormuz Be A Win For Russia And China?
MANILA -- For years, policymakers in Washington have viewed Asia primarily through the lens of Taiwan, the South China Sea, and China's military rise. Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine has only reinforced that perspective, cementing Europe and East Asia as the principal arenas of geopolitical competition.
But security experts in Southeast Asia increasingly argue that another crisis thousands of kilometers away in the Middle East may ultimately reshape the regional balance of power far more profoundly than either Ukraine or Taiwan.
The strategic importance of the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world's oil passes, has become impossible for governments across Southeast Asia to ignore.
As tensions involving Iran threaten one of the world's most important energy chokepoints, analysts say the consequences are already altering regional calculations about security, diplomacy, and alliances.
"We're already seeing ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) moving toward Russia, not in security but in energy reliance," Lester Joseph Buitizon, a Manila-based threat intelligence analyst with Aldebaran Threat Consultants whose work focuses on international security and politics in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), told RFE/RL.
Military operations between the United States and Iran in recent days have renewed attention on the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran is claiming control of the strategic transit route, while the United States says it has been launching air strikes aimed at targets in southern Iran "to further degrade Iranian military capabilities used to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz."
Despite a significant US military presence, shipping companies remain reluctant to transit the strait, highlighting a reality that extends beyond naval power: The greatest challenge may be restoring confidence among commercial operators.
Oil transit in the Strait of Hormuz is of critical importance to Southeast Asia because it remains deeply dependent on Middle Eastern energy.
The Philippines, for example, imports more than 90 percent of its oil from the Middle East, making disruptions in flow an immediate economic and political concern rather than a distant foreign policy issue.
Although Manila remains one of Washington's closest treaty allies and public opinion continues to favor the United States over China, the Marcos administration has sought to increase Russian crude access and expanded discussions over long-term energy cooperation.
For Buitizon, the message is simple. If even America's closest regional ally is forced to engage Moscow to safeguard energy supplies, countries with more neutral foreign policies such as Indonesia and Malaysia are likely to do so even more readily.
"If Russia successfully reorients its economy eastward," he argues, "Western sanctions become structurally less effective."
While Russia may gain economically, China may see diplomatic gains amid the same situation.
There was a time, according to Vincent Kyle Parada, a defense research analyst with the Philippine Navy's Office of Naval Strategic Studies and Strategy Management, when ASEAN could successfully hedge East and West: China provided economic growth, while the United States guaranteed regional security.
Today, Parada said, that distinction is becoming increasingly blurred. He pointed to the Iran crisis as evidence that economic security and national security have become inseparable.
"The overlap between economics and security has become much greater than it was 10 or 20 years ago," Parada told RFE/RL.
He added that recent US policy decisions including reductions in regional development assistance, trade tensions, and intervention in Iran have weakened Washington's foothold across Southeast Asia while creating opportunities for China to expand its economic influence.
"China doesn't really need to do anything but wait," he said.
In Iran's South, A Renewed War Means No Power, No Fuel, And Boats Lost
Some blame Tehran. Others blame Washington. But pretty much everyone on Iran's southern coast can agree on one thing: The renewal of air strikes between the United States and Iran is hitting hard, bringing a summer without electricity, fuel, or a way to make a living.
Across the shores of Khuzestan and Bushehr on the Persian Gulf, and along the Makran coast in Hormozgan on the Sea of Oman, life has long been tied to the water.
But recent US strikes -- which Washington says were sparked by Iranian attacks on commercial ships in and around the Strait of Hormuz -- on ports, vessels, and fishing boats have upended the livelihoods of fishermen, sailors, and anyone dependent on maritime trade.
"So many boats have sunk, gone under the missiles," a resident of the south said in a video shared on social media. "So many boats burned… Forget the money -- think how many lives were lost."
Iranian authorities say the bombings have killed around 50 people, including civilians, since the US started targeting southern Iran in late June. The attacks have become daily over the past nine days.
The United States says its primary objective is the systematic degradation of Iran's maritime and anti-access capabilities around the Strait of Hormuz, a vital global energy transit corridor that Iran has effectively blocked in response to the war. Washington says the strikes are aimed at military targets used to threaten shipping through the strait.
Residents say the impact extends deep into daily life.
Strikes on power plants and transmission substations along the coast have knocked out cooling systems in a region where July heat often breaks 40 degrees Celsius. In the port city of Bandar Abbas, one resident described sitting in a parked car with his family because their home was without electricity.
"We have no power. At night when we want to sleep, it's the sound of war, of bombs... What did we do to deserve this -- sitting in a car with the whole family at noon instead of sleeping at home? In 41-degree heat, without power, you just boil."
In the oil-rich Khuzestan Province, residents describe rolling blackouts layered onto an already brutal heat wave.
"They're cutting power in this heat," one person said of Abadan, Khorramshahr, and the wider province. "It's unbearable."
Meanwhile, damaged roads and bridges have compounded the crisis, choking off routes in and out of coastal cities, with drivers taking to social media to urge people not to attempt to travel by road.
Long fuel lines have become part of the daily routine, and blackouts have cut into communication networks as well, leaving families anxious for hours, unable to check on relatives in affected areas.
While US strikes have been scattered around the country, the main focus has been on Iran's southern coastline where thousands of vessels have been stranded in the Persian Gulf by the war.
Both sides have pointed fingers at the other for the breakdown of a memorandum of understanding, signed last month, that had halted the fighting to allow for a 60-day period of peace talks to resolve the conflict that broke out on February 28.
The situation has become so severe that tens of thousands of Iranians last week signed an online petition urging the country's hard-line leaders to visit the south and experience conditions firsthand rather than making decisions from afar that put ordinary lives at risk.
"This action can lead to empathy, more effective support, and more realistic decision-making at the national level," the petition says.
Others, frustrated by the return of war, said Washington also bears responsibility for the renewed fighting. One man described what he called a campaign "that won't let us sleep."
The conflict has also taken a heavy toll on tourism -- historic sites in Khuzestan and on Qeshm Island have avoided direct damage, but coastal areas have been folded into security zones, emptying guesthouses and idling tour guides ahead of what was meant to be the region's peak autumn and winter season.
In Qeshm and Sirik, burned wooden boats have taken with them not just fishermen's livelihoods but a fading piece of the south's maritime heritage.
But amid the damage, residents describe a current of solidarity -- Iranians elsewhere opening their homes to those displaced from hard-hit areas.
It is that connection, as much as any hope for an end to the war itself, that people along the Persian Gulf say is keeping them going.
"The first thing we have to check is whether we're alive, whether our neighbor is alive, whether we still have friends and family around," one female resident of the south said.
- By RFE/RL
Middle East Countries On High Alert As US Continues Strikes On Iran
Air raid sirens blared in Bahrain and other Gulf states as the struggle for control of the Strait of Hormuz continued after US forces conducted a ninth day of air strikes on targets around Iran.
Tensions increased over the weekend in the Gulf after the deaths of three US soldiers -- and possibly a fourth -- were announced.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) said the latest wave of strikes was aimed at degrading Iran's ability to threaten vessels transiting the strait, a strategic waterway that usually sees about one-fifth of the world's oil and gas transit.
President Donald Trump said the attacks also honored US service members killed in recent days.
"We hit them very hard again tonight," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, adding the strikes were carried out "in honor of" what he said were "probably three great patriots."
A day earlier, CENTCOM disclosed the first combat losses in the Iran war since March, saying two service members had been killed and another was missing during defensive operations in Jordan.
In its latest statement, the military said that "after a thorough search, US military personnel found unidentified remains at the location earlier today [in Jordan]. An examination process to verify the remains is ongoing," raising the possibility that the remains were of the missing service member.
That statement did not specify where in Jordan the attack occurred. Identification of the victims was not provided pending notification of family members.
The main site of US operations on the territory of the Middle East ally is the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, about 80 kilometers outside Amman. US forces also have operations at the Prince Hassan Air Base and at other military facilities in Jordan.
The Wall Street Journal and others, citing sources, reported that the strike occurred at the Muwaffaq Salti base, which US forces have used to launch air strikes against Iran.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said on July 20 that it had targeted US aircraft at Jordan's Aqaba airport with ballistic missiles. It also claimed it struck out at US military assets and equipment at Kuwait's Al-Adiri camp and Ali Al Salem Air Base, and in Syria.
Bahrain's Interior Ministry also said air raid sirens were activated on its territory. The island kingdom hosts the US Fifth Fleet and has been targeted by Iranian strikes in recent days.
US forces remain operating in Iraq for training and anti-terror purposes, although numbers are down significantly from the 170,000 at the height of the Iraq war. US and Iraqi officials have said the US troops are scheduled to fully depart in September.
The newly reported deaths bring the total of known fatalities among US military personnel since the start of the US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28 to 17, with all but one listed as combat deaths. The total does not include the missing service member in Jordan.
Iran, meanwhile, has said that 50 people were killed in recent attacks on the country, with more than 500 injured. The report could not be independently verified.
Despite the outbreak of fighting after a temporary truce was reached last month to give time for talks on a full peace settlement, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei told a news conference on July 20 that diplomatic "exchanges" have continued between Washington and Tehran.
"We have been informed by mediators, we have received messages -- without going into details -- but the main point is that the diplomatic apparatus has been active in recent days and ideas have been conveyed to us by certain mediators," he said.
With reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Farda, AFP, and Reuters
- By RFE/RL
2 US Service Members Killed, 1 Missing In Jordan As Iran Steps Up Attacks, Threats
The US military suffered its first combat fatalities since March in the Iran war, with the Pentagon saying two service members were killed and another was missing during defensive operations in Jordan, as hostilities ramped up in the region and further endangered a fragile cease-fire.
"On July 17, two US service members in Jordan were killed in action as US Central Command...and partner forces defended against Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks. Additionally, one service member is currently missing in action," CENTCOM said on X on July 18.
Four others service members were injured and evacuated to Jordanian hospitals, CENTCOM added. Two of them have been discharged from the hospital, while several others were evaluated for minor injuries and returned to duty, it added.
The statement did not specify where in Jordan the attack occurred. Identification of the victims was not provided pending notification of family members.
The main site of US operations on the territory of the Middle East ally is the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, about 80 kilometers outside Amman. US forces also have operations at the Prince Hassan Air Base and at other military facilities in Jordan.
The Wall Street Journal, citing sources, reported that the strike occurred at the Muwaffaq Salti base, which US forces have used to launch air strikes against Iran.
US President Donald Trump told the NewsNation network that the deaths were "very sad. It's a very sad thing."
"We hate to see it happen. It’s in service to our country," he said in a brief interview.
US defense chief Pete Hegseth wrote on X: "Godspeed, heroes. Their sacrifice only stiffens our resolve."
First Combat Fatalities Since Renewed Hostilities
The deaths would bring the total of known fatalities among US service members since the start of the US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28 to 16, with all but one listed as combat deaths.
Six service members were killed on March 1 when a drone hit a command center in Kuwait.
On March 8, a US soldier was killed during an attack on the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
On March 12, six members of a refueling aircraft were killed when their plane crashed in western Iraq.
A Navy pilot was also killed in what was described as a noncombat incident when a helicopter crashed in the Arabian Sea in early July.
Iran Says MOU 'Suspended'
The latest deaths come as Iranian officials said an interim agreement -- the memorandum of understanding (MOU) between Washington and Tehran -- had been "suspended" following the recent wave of US strikes on Iran.
"Unfortunately, the Americans have violated their obligations under the Islamabad declaration of intent through their aggressive measures," Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said in a televised interview, adding Tehran was suspending implementation of its commitments.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baqaei made similar remarks, saying the MOU had "effectively been suspended."
Iran has responded to the US strikes by launching missiles and drones at US Gulf Arab allies, including Kuwait, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia, along with its attacks on Jordan.
Iranian Major General Mohsen Rezaei threatened that Tehran was ready to resume "full-scale offensive operations" if US strikes against were to continue for another two or three days.
The MOU was intended to give the sides 60 days to sign a permanent end to the war, but hostilities -- although not full-out war -- have been reignited over Iran's military actions in the Strait of Hormuz.
A key clause of the MOU was a US demand to open the strait, through which much of the world's oil and gas supplies transited prewar but which Iran had effectively blocked.
Traffic has moved erratically through the waterway, although it is virtually shut again after recent strikes by Iran on vessels it said had not received permission to transit, prompting the latest wave of US strikes on Iranian coastal sites and bridges, tunnels, and railway stations in the south of the country.
Washington has said Tehran's attempt to control the strait is a violation of the MOU. CENTCOM and the White House have said the purpose of the attacks was to degrade Tehran's ability to strike ships in the strait.
Written Supreme Leader Statement
Meanwhile, a statement attributed to Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei on July 18 blasted the United States for what it said were repeated violations of the MOU.
"Now that the American enemy seeks to incite war and bear its most serious consequences, it should know that the dear Iranian nation and the axis of resistance have unforgettable lessons to offer it," said the statement, read by state TV late on July 18.
Khamenei has not been seen in public since February 28, when his father -- the previous supreme leader -- was killed in US-Israeli air strikes.
The 56-year-old Khamenei was reportedly severely injured in the attack, raising questions about his health and his ability to carry out his duties as supreme leader.
There have been no known audio or video recordings of Khamenei since February 28. He was not seen throughout six days of ceremonies and rallies during funeral services for his father in early July.
Experts said his absence from the funeral services inflicted a further blow to Khamenei's legitimacy and intensified questions about who runs the Middle Eastern country of some 90 million people.
According to the authorities, he did not attend his father's funeral because of security concerns.
David Des Roches: Iran Is Losing The Long Game
WASHINGTON -- As Washington debates whether the recent cease-fire with Iran reflects strategic restraint or strategic drift, retired US Colonel David Des Roches says the broader trajectory of the conflict tells a different story.
Des Roches, former director of Arabian Peninsula Policy at the Pentagon and now a professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies in Washington, D.C., argues that Iran is losing the long game and that its decline as a regional power began long before the latest war.
In an interview with RFE/RL, Des Roches said that despite Tehran's efforts to portray the war as a success, the Islamic republic has emerged weaker militarily, more isolated diplomatically, and increasingly vulnerable economically.
RFE/RL: Let's start with the Iran talks. Mediators in Doha described the latest round as "positive," but there was no breakthrough on the bigger strategic issues. Negotiators focused on shipping and financial issues rather than the nuclear file or regional power. Does that suggest both sides have less leverage than many expected?
David Des Roches: Yes, you can make that case. We don't really know what's going on, but there are a couple of problems here for both sides.
First off, both sides are desperate to portray this as a win. Both sides are saying, we won, the other side didn't. That obviously makes it hard to come to an agreement when both are trying to impose conditions the other says it can't accept.
The second problem is we're not really sure who's in charge in Iran. Negotiators will say one thing, and then different IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps] officers or members of parliament will say, no, we can't accept this, we can't accept that.
That was apparent from the start of this process. After the Islamabad talks -- and remember, we sent the vice president to Islamabad, which is a long flight -- almost as soon as the talks were over, Tasnim, the Iranian press agency, said the foreign minister had exceeded his brief and what he said was not Iranian policy. And we see this over and over again.
It's quite possible some of the ship attacks we're seeing may be individual IRGC officers acting without overall command. It's hard to make an agreement when you're really not sure what's going on, when Iranian negotiators have to satisfy hard-liners back home while also trying to make a deal with the Americans. It's just a mess, and I think that's something we should expect for a while.
RFE/RL: The next round of diplomacy has now been delayed until after the funeral ceremony for the late ayatollah. How much uncertainty does this leadership transition create?
Des Roches: We don't even know if the current ayatollah is alive. There's no evidence. We haven't heard his voice. We haven't seen a picture of him. This could be a hard-line faction ginning up its own message and saying, this is what the supreme leader says. There's a lot of uncertainty here, and frankly, the position we're in right now is where we're going to be for a while.
Both sides are at risk of overplaying their hand. It's clear to me the thing motivating [US] President [Donald] Trump is the price of oil, because that has domestic impacts in the United States and affects the midterm elections.
Right now, oil prices have dropped, and there has been so much destruction of the Iranian Navy that their ability to disrupt neutral civilian shipping has diminished. And it's important to note: Iran has not projected power against the US Navy. It has projected power against Indian cargo ships. Oil is still getting through. If the talks drag on past the elections, it's quite possible Trump says, "We gave this a shot," and returns to combat operations.
It's in both sides' interest to get an agreement. But Iran's position is far more tenuous than people think.
The Strait Of Hormuz And The 'Insurance War'
RFE/RL: Iran's joint military command has warned that all oil tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz must follow Iranian-approved routes. Is that a sign of naval dominance or defensive posturing from a weakened regime?
Des Roches: It's important to note Iran's target audience here is not military -- it's the commercial insurance market in London. Basically, they're trying to create uncertainty so maritime insurance underwriters charge prohibitively high rates. That discourages neutral commercial shipping from transiting the strait.
Right now, maritime insurance is around 8 percent of insured value. That's too high for most businesses. That's what they're trying to do.
Meanwhile, state-owned tankers and US warships are still transiting. They're operating in Omani territorial waters. And whenever an Iranian attack is directed against one of these ships, there's an immediate response against the point of launch and associated command-and-control systems. So, militarily, it's not really a threat.
What Iran is doing here is commercial extortion. It's like someone telling a pharmaceutical company with 4 million bottles of paracetamol on the market: We're going to poison two of them somewhere. That's the equivalent.
RFE/RL: Iranian officials keep warning of immediate retaliation if threatened. Does Tehran still have the conventional capacity for sustained military escalation?
Des Roches: No. Iran's capability is not militarily significant, and it hasn't been throughout this war. If Iran had wanted to fight this as a real war and inflict serious damage on the United States, then on day one it would have launched hundreds of missiles at US air bases in the Levant.
If they had 600 missiles and launched 400 effectively, maybe some would get through. Maybe you'd see satellite imagery showing Joint Strike Fighters destroyed on the ground.
That would have been catastrophic. But they couldn't do that. Instead, they've launched scattered attacks, not concentrated volleys, against civilian infrastructure in the Gulf and some US facilities. This is not militarily significant. It's harassment.
They haven't sunk a US Navy ship. They're attacking neutral civilian cargo ships. None of that is permissible under the law of land warfare. This is the behavior of a dying regime trying to make its own crisis into a global crisis by attacking people who can't fight back.
Wake-Up Call In The Gulf
RFE/RL: You've argued that Gulf states have had a strategic wake-up call. Has Iran's attempt to pressure them away from Washington actually backfired?
Des Roches: Absolutely. Before these attacks, there was a new generation in the Gulf that looked at Iran the way some West German politicians in the 1960s and 1970s looked at East Germany: It's a problem, we don't like it, but it's our neighbor. We have to find a way to live with it.
There was a belief commercial ties and cultural links would provide insulation. That illusion is gone. The Gulf states denied the US and Israel access and overflight rights for these operations. They stayed out of it. And they still got attacked. That changes everything.
It's going to take regime change and probably a generation for Iran to be viewed as anything other than a permanent threat. Future Gulf-Iran relations will be understood through coercion -- almost extortion -- not engagement.
RFE/RL: Is Iran still holding its regional proxy network together or are we seeing the axis of resistance start to fracture?
Des Roches: Iran still retains influence, but it's obvious they've betrayed Lebanese Hezbollah. The whole negotiation process has been about Iran getting money.
And when this started, if there were an honest conversation, they'd admit they couldn't take any more economic suffering for Hezbollah's sake. Only after the Axios report -- where President Trump was quoted saying he would make maximalist demands -- did Iranian leaders try to push Lebanon to the front of negotiations. That was for appearances. They couldn't admit publicly they were abandoning Hezbollah. But they've done almost nothing to help. And they knew full well when they ordered Hezbollah into action that Israel would welcome that as an opportunity to eliminate them.
What we're seeing is Iranian leadership prioritizing Iranian interests. That's economic. The so-called axis of resistance isn't an alliance of equals. It's a wheel.
Iran is the hub. Hezbollah, Iraqi militias, Assad -- they're the spokes. And spokes are expendable. You can ride a bicycle with two missing.
Iran's Strategic Decline
RFE/RL: Looking beyond the battlefield, what should policymakers watch to judge whether this war has truly changed the strategic balance?
Des Roches: The key point is the relationship between politics and the military. What you see in Iran is a military branch, the IRGC, that has become the center of political power.
Since 2009, it has been mounting a slow-motion coup. Its goal is to keep Iran focused narrowly on dominating its near neighbors. That has consumed immense wealth. Iran is a country of untapped commercial potential and intellectual genius, and all of that has been flushed away.
If conflict resumes, what has been most effective has been targeted assassinations of Revolutionary Guardsmen and increasing the isolation of the Guards and their families. That's what really pressures the system. They will not give up power voluntarily. That's the reality.
RFE/RL: Based on everything you've said -- limited diplomacy, constrained military options, and economic pressure -- is Iran entering a period of long-term strategic decline?
Des Roches: Iran has been in strategic decline since the fall of [former Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad. When the archives open, we'll discover the Syrian war drained Iran of enormous resources -- manpower and money. They tried to sustain it by importing fighters from Iraqi militias, Pakistani militias, and Afghan militias.
But the core cadre -- the IRGC officers -- suffered major losses. And the money spent was insane. That was the inflection point. Then when Assad fled to Moscow, Hezbollah's logistical pipeline was disrupted in a way that made Hezbollah vulnerable. That's where the decline really accelerated.
But if you go back even further, to 2009, when the IRGC decided to dominate Iranian politics during the Green Movement, that may prove to be the deeper turning point. When a security state starts running a country, the individuals inside it start making decisions that benefit themselves rather than the nation. And that's when national decline begins. In Iran's case, that process started a long time ago.
US Keeps Military Option Alive As Iran Talks Near A Critical Test
WASHINGTON -- US Vice President JD Vance has again signaled that the White House is prepared to use force against Iran if diplomacy fails, raising the stakes around a 60-day memorandum of understanding (MOU) that has halted open hostilities but left the core disputes unresolved.
In an interview on The Michael Knowles Show released on June 30, Vance cast the US approach toward Iran as a stark choice: a longer-term agreement anchored in permanent, verifiable nuclear inspections, or renewed military action to preserve what Washington sees as gains already secured. He said President Donald Trump wants diplomacy to continue but only if Tehran accepts enforceable limits on its nuclear program.
Vance described Iran's public messaging as contradictory, pointing to what he said was a gap between Tehran's public denial of peace talks and its acknowledgment of ongoing technical discussions.
"They'll say, 'No, no, there aren't peace talks ongoing, but there are technical talks between the United States and Iran about the peace deal,'" Vance said. "It's a Persian negotiating tactic and a Persian rhetorical device that I don't understand."
Responding to critics who have urged a harder military line, Vance defended Trump's approach as one of calibrated coercion rather than open-ended escalation. "The president is saying, 'I'm willing to drop bombs,' and he's clearly shown that he's willing to drop bombs, but only if it serves an objective," he said.
In a separate interview with Fox News, Vance said Washington was focused less on rhetoric than on whether Tehran was prepared to make "real concessions."
"We care a lot less about what the Iranians say. We care a lot more about what they do," he said.
The remarks come as uncertainty hangs over the next phase of negotiations. Iranian negotiators did not meet US envoys in Doha on June 30 as expected, clouding hopes that the current cease-fire framework could quickly evolve into a broader settlement.
Back in Washington, analysts warn the current arrangement amounts less to a peace agreement than a temporary pause in fighting. That tension between diplomacy and deterrence was at the center of a discussion at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) on June 30.
A Military Posture That Can Hold, For Now
Speaking at the CFR panel, retired General Joseph L. Votel -- former Commander of US Central Command (2016–2019) -- said US forces remain capable of sustaining deterrence through the current 60-day negotiation period. This comes even as Washington reassesses the vulnerabilities exposed by the recent conflict.
Votel noted that Washington retains significant operational flexibility because of its naval presence, particularly through two carrier strike groups operating in regional waters.
"Right now we are sustainable from a military standpoint," Votel said, while cautioning that maintaining such a posture becomes harder "after several months."
While Votel noted that official details regarding damage to US security infrastructure have been closely held by the military, he characterized the damage to the US regional basing network as "widespread" and "operationally relevant."
Open-source reporting indicates that since the war began on February 28, 16 to 20 regional sites were struck. These included major installations such as the Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, and the forward CENTCOM headquarters at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.
Votel noted the conflict had definitively exposed the vulnerability of fixed military infrastructure across the Gulf against sustained attacks, triggering an active review of Washington's regional basing strategy.
Potential adjustments being weighed by planners include hardening core hub facilities, reducing exposure in vulnerable areas like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, shifting assets westward into the Levant, or moving toward a more resilient distributed network model.
Gulf States Still Caught Between War And Diplomacy
For Elisa Catalano Ewers, senior fellow for Middle East Studies at the CFR, the larger challenge is fundamentally political. She noted that while the Gulf states bore the brunt of Iran's attacks during six to seven weeks of hot conflict, the subsequent pause in fighting has done little to resolve the "core issues" driving regional instability, specifically Iran's ballistic missile capabilities, drone networks, and proxy forces, which were left out of the current MOU.
Ewers, who previously served on the National Security Council under the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, observed that the MOU does not look like a strategic victory for the Gulf. Instead of permanently degrading Iran's leverage, the current framework has left Tehran with newfound leverage over the Strait of Hormuz and a resumption of oil sales via US sanctions waivers.
Consequently, Ewers described the MOU as "the best of bad options," leaving regional governments to hedge their bets by aggressively pursuing diplomatic de-escalation with Tehran while simultaneously trying to shore up their security coordination with Washington.
She remained highly skeptical that the 60-day negotiation window would yield a comprehensive breakthrough.
"The can gets kicked down the road," Ewers said, suggesting an extension of the current temporary arrangement remains the most likely outcome.
This assessment was strongly echoed by Robert Mogielnicki, nonresident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute and Middle East Advisor at Teneo. He stated that his "base case" remains a continuation of the status quo interim agreement, likely extended multiple times, rather than a final, comprehensive deal.
Oil And Shipping Remain Central
The economic pressure behind the diplomacy remains significant. Vance has repeatedly linked the talks to stabilizing global oil supplies, and recovering shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is central to that effort.
At the CFR panel, Mogielnicki noted that maritime traffic through the Strait has dropped to roughly a third of pre-war levels. He warned that the economic disruptions across the Gulf remain deeply uneven.
Larger economies with diverse export routes and pipelines such as Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the UAE are better positioned to manage the headwinds. In contrast, countries like Qatar (which has suffered energy infrastructure damage), Bahrain, and Kuwait lack alternative export routes and remain highly vulnerable.
Mogielnicki also highlighted a cruel twist in the conflict's economic fallout: economic diversification programs have not served as a safety net. Core non-oil sectors like tourism, aviation, and logistics hubs such as Dubai's Jebel Ali port have suffered severe operational disruptions and higher costs directly because of their proximity to the conflict zone.
Furthermore, the fiscal juggle to fund these diversification initiatives has grown increasingly strained. Mogielnicki pointed out that Saudi Arabia's recent budget revealed an unprecedented quarterly deficit of $34 billion due to rising investment spending and falling oil revenues, which recently tumbled from near triple digits down to around $70 per barrel.
A Temporary Framework, Not A Settlement
The broad consensus emerging from Washington is that the 60-day framework is highly unlikely to produce a final, comprehensive settlement. Instead, it is being utilized as a fragile mechanism for managing escalation while deeper structural disputes remain unresolved.
The most probable outcome remains a series of extensions to the interim arrangement. However, panelists at CFR emphasized that this creates a highly volatile landscape.
A return to open military confrontation remains a live possibility, whether triggered by a diplomatic collapse, regional proxy miscalculations, or unilateral military actions by Israel.
Ultimately, Votel warned that absent a fundamental and broader strategic understanding, the region's security landscape is poised to look exactly the same when the 60 days expire as it does today.
For Washington, the immediate hurdle is no longer ending an active war but preventing this diplomatic pause from becoming the mere prelude to the next conflict.
- By RFE/RL
Qatar Says No High-Level US-Iran Talks Scheduled In Doha Despite Trump Claim
Qatar's Foreign Ministry said no high-level meeting between US and Iranian officials is scheduled in Doha in the coming days, after US President Donald Trump said Iran had requested talks and the White House announced senior US envoys would travel to Qatar for negotiations.
"To the best of my knowledge, there are no direct meetings scheduled between the two parties in the coming days," Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari told reporters on June 30, adding that the American delegation would meet with Qatari mediators.
The comments came after the White House announced that US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner would travel to Qatar for top-level talks. US President Donald Trump said on June 29 Iran had "requested a meeting" that would take place in Doha the following day.
Iran has also said no talks are scheduled with the United States this week.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baqaei said on June 30 that the Iranians would not be prepared to meet for negotiations on ending the war, nearing its fifth month, until certain criteria are met. He said such talks are subject to the "implementation of the clauses of the memorandum of understanding" (MOU) by the United States, specifically regarding the conflict in Lebanon.
"We must evaluate the current process in the coming days and decide based on that how and when to begin negotiations for a final agreement," Baqaei said at a press conference.
He referred to the first paragraph of the MOU signed between Iran and the United States on June 17 and announced that the "main criterion" for Tehran is that Washington "force" Israel to stop its attacks on Lebanon.
The interim agreement was intended to halt fighting that erupted after US and Israeli strikes on Iran at the end of February and to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial traffic while broader negotiations continued.
Baqaei said the US has pledged to end the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, and added: "For us, the main criterion is America's adherence to these commitments and America's forcing the Zionist regime to implement these commitments."
The day before, he said an Iranian technical team would visit Doha this week but that it had no relation to US officials visiting the Arab country.
"We will not have any negotiations at any level with the American side in the coming days, and the fact that American representatives are traveling to Qatar has nothing to do with the Iranian delegation's trip," Baqaei said on June 29.
Qatar, along with Pakistan, has been acting as a mediator between Washington and Tehran.
The conflicting statements come after the United States and Iran traded tit-for-tat strikes over the weekend, further straining the fragile cease-fire and casting doubt on efforts to resume negotiations.
Iran, citing US attacks on the country and what it said were violations of the recently agreed MOU, refused to meet with US negotiators as scheduled on June 28.
"One of the reasons is checking if we have access to the unfrozen funds. If there is no access, then this condition has not been fulfilled," said Mehdi Fazaeli of the Iranian supreme leader's office.
The release of the funds is part of the MOU.
Baqaei said on June 29 the Iranian technical team would be in Doha to discuss the release of around $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets held in Qatar. US officials say no frozen Iranian assets have been released to date.
Meanwhile, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said on June 29 that Witkoff and Kushner would be attending talks with Iran in Doha.
"Special Envoy Witkoff and Jared Kushner will be flying to Doha for high-level meetings this week, as we continue to discuss the memorandum of understanding. On the sidelines of those high-level talks, there will be the technical talks," she said in an interview with Fox News.
Iran fired on commercial vessels in the strait over the weekend, leading US forces to strike Iranian coastal radar and military sites in an effort to protect shipping.
On June 28, Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi claimed Tehran had regained sole control over shipping in the Strait of Hormuz for the next 30 days, warning against any attempt to bypass Iranian-approved routes.
Earlier that day, Iran launched missiles and drones targeting US military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain shortly after Trump warned Washington could escalate its military campaign if Tehran failed to abide by the cease-fire.
The escalation followed US strikes on Iranian military sites hours earlier, which Washington said were carried out in response to Iranian attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
US Central Command said its forces targeted Iranian drone storage facilities, radar installations, and coastal surveillance infrastructure after a tanker was hit by an Iranian drone on June 27.
With reporting by RFE/RL senior correspondent Alex Raufoglu, Axios, AFP, and dpa
- By Kian Sharifi
Skepticism In Iran Over Israel-Lebanon Framework Agreement
When the United States, Israel, and Lebanon signed their trilateral framework agreement in Washington, the reaction in Tehran was swift -- and, across the political spectrum of Iranian state-aligned media -- almost uniformly hostile.
The deal, which commits Lebanon to the verified disarmament of Hezbollah as a precondition for the progressive withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon, was variously described as a "document of shame," a "strategic error," and "humiliating" by Iranian outlets ranging from the state broadcaster's newspaper to outlets with close ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
The consensus critique was less about the deal's existence than its sequencing.
Every major outlet focused on the same structural point: that Israeli withdrawal is conditioned on Hezbollah disarmament, not the reverse -- a formulation Iranian commentators portrayed as proof the agreement was dictated by Israel and rubber-stamped by a Lebanese government they described as "pro-West" and subservient.
Hezbollah is both a militant group and a political party that controls much of southern Lebanon. It is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, while the European Union has only blacklisted its armed wing.
What is largely absent from the Iranian media coverage is any serious engagement with the Lebanese government's own position -- that it had limited leverage in a war where Israel holds decisive military superiority and unconditional US backing.
Lebanon’s government has looked to distance itself from Tehran, which has used the establishment and funding of Hezbollah in Lebanon to make it a strategic linchpin to project regional power. But some in Iran said it may have gone too far in the other direction with this agreement.
The government-run Iran newspaper called it the "great gamble of Aoun and Salam," a framing that placed blame squarely on Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam personally, rather than on Lebanon as a state.
Iran's official IRNA news agency described the agreement as an "accommodationist agreement," a loaded phrase in Iranian political discourse that carries strong connotations of capitulation.
Hezbollah’s October 8, 2023 rocket attack on Israel, launched in solidarity with the devastating Hamas attack a day earlier, ignited a year-long cross-border conflict that escalated into the killing of Hezbollah’s top leaders, a ground invasion of southern Lebanon, and widespread destruction.
Israel has occupied a swathe of land in southern Lebanon during renewed fighting with Hezbollah that began on March 2, when the Tehran-backed proxy opened fire at Israel after Iran came under attack from US and Israeli air strikes.
Solving the Lebanon-Israel question has been at the heart of diplomatic efforts to end the broader conflict between Iran and the United States. Tehran has been steadfast in insisting that a peace deal includes Lebanon.
Washington, meanwhile, has helped facilitate the dialogue between Beirut and Israel even though Hezbollah leadership has been against the move.
Jaam-e Jam, the newspaper of Iran's state broadcaster IRIB, framed the deal as a violation of Lebanese law, citing a 1955 Lebanese statute prohibiting direct negotiations with Israel.
The paper argued that Beirut had accepted Hezbollah's disarmament "against the national interest" while Israeli forces remain on Lebanese soil, and went further, suggesting Israel was using the diplomatic process to achieve territorial expansion it had failed to secure militarily since 2000 -- a reference to Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon that year after 18 years of occupation.
The Tasnim News Agency, linked to the powerful IRGC, also drew historical parallels, noting when Syria tried to present a moderate face to Washington and Israel last year, only for Israeli jets to bomb the presidential palace in Damascus and Israeli tanks to advance into Syrian villages to protect the Druze religious minority following days of deadly sectarian violence.
The lesson drawn: Accommodation and resistance produce the same result from Israel, so Lebanon should expect no different.
Tasnim also published Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem's statement calling the deal "null and void" and "humiliating," and notably reproduced his demand that the terms of the Iran-US memorandum of understanding on Lebanon be implemented instead -- directly asserting that the Iran-US framework should supersede what Washington brokered between Israel and Lebanon.
In announcing the trilateral framework agreement on June 26, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the deal a "first step" in the process, adding "there's a lot of work ahead."
"We don’t in any way underestimate the difficulty of the task ahead, but we understand the importance of it, how vital it is,” Rubio said.
The conservative Agaah newspaper saw the agreement, as expected, quite differently, calling it a "document of shame" while singling out Aoun, a former military commander, for particular condemnation, arguing that a soldier had signed away Lebanese sovereignty.
The paper also warned that US funding to strengthen the Lebanese Armed Forces was designed to provoke internal conflict between the army and Hezbollah, predicting that any such clash would draw in what it called "Takfiri Syria" -- a reference to the government in Damascus, led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, as a further destabilizing factor.
- By RFE/RL
Iran Says No Talks With US Despite Trump Claim
Iran has claimed no talks are scheduled with the United States in the coming days, despite US President Donald Trump saying that Tehran had "requested a meeting" and that negotiations would take place on June 30 in the Gulf state of Qatar.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baqaei said an Iranian technical team would visit Qatar's capital, Doha, this week, but that it had no relation to US officials visiting the Arab country.
"We will not have any negotiations at any level with the American side in the coming days, and the fact that American representatives are traveling to Qatar has nothing to do with the Iranian delegation's trip," Baqaei said in a statement.
His comments came after the United States and Iran traded tit-for-tat strikes over the weekend in a reescalation of tensions.
Earlier on June 29, Trump wrote on Truth Social: "Iran has requested a meeting. It will take place tomorrow in Doha!"
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner would attend talks with Iran in Doha.
"Special Envoy Witkoff and Jared Kushner will be flying to Doha for high-level meetings this week, as we continue to discuss the memorandum of understanding. On the sidelines of those high-level talks, there will be the technical talks," she said in an interview with Fox News on June 29.
Baqaei said the Iranian technical team was traveling to Doha to discuss the release of around $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets held in Qatar.
The release of the funds is part of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed by Tehran and Washington on June 17 aimed at ending the monthslong war.
Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said earlier on June 29 that the technical working group was not scheduled to meet this week.
"Although consultations with Qatar, including regarding the follow-up on the implementation of the other party's commitments, are ongoing as usual, the news from some media outlets that technical talks by working groups are being held in Doha cannot be confirmed," Gharibabadi told Iran's Tasnim news agency.
He added that the first round of technical talks would be held within the framework of the designated working groups once conditions are in place and after an agreement is reached on the date and location, and that consultations in this regard are continuing through intermediary countries.
The remarks come after Iran, citing US attacks on the country and what it said were violations of the recently agreed MOU, refused to meet with US negotiators as scheduled on June 28.
"One of the reasons is checking if we have access to the unfrozen funds. If there is no access, then this condition has not been fulfilled," said Mehdi Fazaeli of the Iranian supreme leader's office.
Iranian President Masud Pezeshkian announced on June 29 that Iranian assets currently being held in Qatar will be returned to Tehran, but US officials say no frozen Iranian assets have been released to date.
Tit-For-Tat Strikes
Iran fired on commercial vessels in the strait over the weekend, leading US forces to strike Iranian coastal radar and military sites in an effort to protect shipping.
On June 28, Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi claimed Tehran had regained sole control over shipping in the Strait of Hormuz for the next 30 days, warning against any attempt to bypass Iranian-approved routes.
"Any interference or attempt to create parallel structures would further complicate the situation, generate additional tensions, and delay the reopening of this strategically vital waterway," Araqchi said, reiterating the claim that responsibility for the strait lies solely with Iran.
Earlier that day, Iran launched missiles and drones targeting US military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain shortly after Trump warned Washington could escalate its military campaign if Tehran failed to abide by the cease-fire.
"There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable," Trump said in a social media post, adding that the United States could "militarily complete the job" it began on February 28.
The escalation followed US strikes on Iranian military sites hours earlier, which Washington said were carried out in response to Iranian attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
US Central Command said its forces targeted Iranian drone storage facilities, radar installations, and coastal surveillance infrastructure after a tanker was hit by an Iranian drone on June 27.
Trump and Pezeshkian signed a 14-point MOU that gives the sides 60 days to negotiate a final agreement seeking to end the war.
Qatar, along with Pakistan, has been acting as a mediator between Washington and Tehran in the current round of talks.
The interim agreement was intended to halt fighting that erupted after US and Israeli strikes on Iran at the end of February and to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial traffic while broader negotiations continued.
With reporting by RFE/RL senior correspondent Alex Raufoglu, Axios, and dpa
- By RFE/RL
Iran Claims Sole Control Of Hormuz Strait As Truce Frays
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi claimed Tehran had regained sole control over shipping in the Strait of Hormuz for the next 30 days, warning against any attempt to bypass Iranian-approved routes, as a fragile US truce looked increasingly shaky amid renewed missile, drone and air strikes across the Persian Gulf on June 28.
Speaking at a press conference during a visit to Baghdad, Araqchi said the waterway would be “once again placed entirely under Iranian administration.”
“Any interference or attempt to create parallel structures would further complicate the situation, generate additional tensions and delay the reopening of this strategically vital waterway,” Araghchi said, reiterating the claim that responsibility for the strait lies solely with Iran.
Araqchi’s comments came as the tenuous truce between Iran and the United States appeared to be fraying early on June 28, with both sides accusing each other of violating an interim agreement aimed at ending months of fighting.
Iran launched missiles and drones targeting US military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain shortly after US President Donald Trump warned Washington could escalate its military campaign if Tehran failed to abide by the cease-fire.
“There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable,” Trump said in a social media post, adding that the United States could “militarily complete the job” it began earlier this year.
Within hours, Kuwaiti and Bahraini authorities reported that their air defenses were responding to incoming projectiles.
Kuwait’s armed forces said two hostile ballistic missiles were intercepted in its airspace with no reported damage or casualties.
Bahrain’s military said it intercepted and destroyed several missiles and drones, while sirens sounded across the Gulf country. Bahrain’s Interior Ministry reported damage to a residential building but said no one was injured.
Regional reactions to Iran’s strikes were swift. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Jordan all condemned the missile and drone attacks on Kuwait and Bahrain, calling them violations of international law and threats to regional stability.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said it carried out the attacks in retaliation for fresh US strikes on Iranian territory.
In a statement carried by Iranian state media, the IRGC said that US military infrastructure in Bahrain and Kuwait had been targeted, including facilities linked to the United States Fifth Fleet.
In a comment to Reuters, a US official confirmed attacks on American facilities but said there were no reported US casualties or major damage. The official added that the situation remained under review.
The overnight escalation followed US strikes on Iranian military sites hours earlier, which Washington said were carried out in response to Iranian attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global energy corridor.
United States Central Command, said its forces targeted Iranian drone storage facilities, radar installations, and coastal surveillance infrastructure after a tanker was hit by an Iranian drone on June 27.
"Iran was given a chance to honor the ceasefire agreement but elected not to," Central Command said in a statement. It said the strikes were "in direct response to continued Iranian aggression against commercial shipping.”
Iran denied responsibility for endangering shipping and accused Washington of violating the truce.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry said that US air strikes on surveillance facilities along Iran’s southern coast were “terrorist acts” and vowed to defend the country’s sovereignty. The ministry warned that continued US attacks could derail ongoing diplomatic efforts.
The interim agreement, signed earlier this month, was intended to halt fighting that erupted after US and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28 and to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial traffic while broader negotiations continued.
The accord bars Iran from charging fees for ships transiting the waterway during the 60-day negotiations.
One round of mediated talks was held in Switzerland last week, and Washington later temporarily waived some sanctions on Tehran.
Araqchi told reporters in Baghdad that Iran would hold talks with Oman on how to proceed in accordance with international law and in coordination with neighboring states, though analysts have warned the question of potential transit fees could become a sticking point.
Araqchi also called for the establishment of a regional security framework involving Gulf states, Iran, and Iraq, without the presence or interference of countries from outside the region. He welcomed Iraq’s proposal to host a regional meeting.
Persistent Violence
Despite the deal, violence has persisted. Iran and the United States have repeatedly accused each other of undermining the truce, while attacks on shipping and military assets have continued.
Beyond the Gulf, tensions also flared along Israel’s northern border. The Israeli military said on June 28 that it killed several fighters from the Iran-backed Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, despite a separate cease-fire framework between Israel and Lebanon.
The Israeli military said the militants were armed with anti-tank weapons and operating near a self-declared security zone.
Hezbollah is both a militant group and political party that controls much of southern Lebanon. It is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, while the European Union has blacklisted its armed wing.
Hezbollah has rejected the Israel-Lebanon framework agreement, calling it a surrender of Lebanese sovereignty and refusing to disarm while Israeli troops remain on Lebanese territory.
With reporting by AFP, dpa, and Reuters
- By Ray Furlong
Iran's Nuclear Deal Faces Its Toughest Test: Verification
Amid an ongoing row between Washington and Tehran over whether international monitors can verify Iranian compliance with its nuclear nonproliferation commitments, former officials have told RFE/RL that the scale, scope, and degree of access are crucial to the success of inspections.
Details on those have yet to be determined, though Raffael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the UN body "will be working on the modalities -- dates, procedures, places -- very soon."
That doesn't mean, according to experts, that the organization hasn't already drawn up a wish list for any eventual inspections.
"They almost certainly have a plan for when they go back in, what the priorities are, where they would want to go first, second, third," Laura Rockwood, a former IAEA negotiator on Iran, told RFE/RL.
"The key thing is to find out where in particular the enriched uranium is.... I'd be willing to bet you that they have in place a plan for the day they need to go back in," added Rockwood, who took part in high-level negotiations on Iran during a 28-year career at the IAEA before retiring in 2013.
Downblending Uranium
While US President Donald Trump has said that Iran has agreed to the highest level of nuclear inspections and Iran says it has no plans to allow the inspections, point No. 8 of the US-Iranian memorandum of understanding (MOU) states the two sides have agreed on a "minimum methodology" that Iran's stocks of highly enriched uranium (HEU) will be "downblended on site under the supervision of the IAEA."
But the details of this could also prove contentious.
"If IAEA inspectors were able to measure and characterize both the high and low enriched material before the downblending, then simple arithmetic gives a good sense of what the product is. They'd then want to measure to confirm, and seal that product for future accountability," Matthew Sharp, who served as director for Iran nuclear issues on the US National Security Council (NSC) from 2021-2022, told RFE/RL.
"If, on the other hand, Iran does the downblending itself and then provides the product to inspectors, it would be much more difficult to know how much HEU Iran started with, which could create uncertainties as to whether all of the 60 percent or other enriched material had been downblended or if some remained out of our awareness," said Sharp, now a senior nuclear fellow at the MIT Center for International Studies.
Right now, the location of Iran's roughly 450 kilograms of HEU is unclear. After the US and Israeli air strikes, it could be buried under rubble in a bunker beneath a mountain, or the Iranian authorities may have moved some or all of it elsewhere to hide it.
But if it can be successfully located and downblended, the next step is stopping Iran from re-enriching it again at a later date.
Monitoring Enrichment
The MOU says the two parties agreed "to discuss the issue of enrichment and other mutually agreed matters related to the Islamic Republic of Iran's nuclear needs, based on a satisfactory framework being agreed upon in the final deal."
Experts told RFE/RL that verifying this must include a role for the IAEA.
"Any suspension on uranium enrichment is relatively meaningless if it cannot be verified and if the IAEA does not have the access to ensure that there are no covert nuclear activities related to enrichment going on elsewhere in the country," said Kelsey Davenport, director of nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association.
"The level of access, the provision of information to the International Atomic Energy Agency, how quickly Iran has to comply with IAEA requests for access -- all of that is going to be crucial," she told RFE/RL.
"Once the enrichment level is low, below 5 percent, it's much safer to ship out that material. It could be stored under an international fuel bank in Kazakhstan," Davenport added.
The idea of shipping the downblended uranium out of Iran is something US officials appear keen on. At a recent background call with reporters, one official said dilution within Iran was "the floor" but that "we will push for more than that."
A senior US official said Washington would rely heavily on the UN nuclear watchdog and US technical teams for verification. "We're not in the trusting business," the official said.
The IAEA has previously verified Iran's compliance with its commitments to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which it ratified in 1970, and the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Lessons From The Past
Experts say many lessons have been learned from these experiences. They point to the importance of the IAEA's Model Additional Protocol, which provides additional tools for verification.
Rockwood, now a senior fellow at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, was the principal author of the protocol.
"Under the additional protocol, instead of just routinely being limited to nuclear material, nuclear facilities, we have access to information and locations concerning the entire nuclear fuel cycle including the production of centrifuges," she said. "So, if you know roughly how many centrifuges they are capable of making, you want to know where they are, and we can ask for that kind of access with an additional protocol."
Iran signed the additional protocol in 2003 but has not sent an official letter to the IAEA that would bring it into force.
Iran has provisionally implemented its provisions, between 2003-2006 and for a period under the JCPOA. However, noted Rockwood, "there were lots of indications of noncompliance by Iran" during this time.
This, she said, could be expected to continue -- with added complications.
Iran stopped granting the IAEA access to sites hit by US and Israeli strikes on its nuclear facilities in June last year. This has disrupted what Rockwood calls the "continuity of knowledge." In other words, the IAEA has lost track of what Iran has and where it is. Also, the extent of damage is unclear, potentially complicating access, and there may also be unexploded ordinance onsite.
"There will be uncertainties, and there may be more uncertainties than there were before. In fact. I would expect that to be the case. Yeah, really, a heavy slog," Rockwood said.