TOP STORIES
This Sprawling Chinese Refinery Is Bankrolling Tehran | Wall Street Journal=
“Chinese leader Xi Jinping last year summoned dozens of leaders from the nation’s top private companies to a rare meeting, calling on them to help China navigate economic difficulties. Sitting with luminaries such as Alibaba’s Jack Ma and DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng, according to state media, was a 55-year-old man named Chen Jianhua, founder of a company called Hengli Group. To the outside world, Hengli—which in Chinese means ‘eternal strength’—may not ring a bell. But inside China, it has become an industrial juggernaut. . . . It has also become a major importer of illicit Iranian crude, according to industry analysts, shipping brokers and the U.S. Treasury, which sanctioned the company’s refinery business earlier this year, saying it bought billions of dollars’ worth of Iranian petroleum. Hengli’s other businesses weren’t sanctioned.”
Iran Attacks Third UAE Tanker Within a Week | The Hill
“The United Arab Emirates accused Iran on Saturday of attacking another vessel belonging to its state oil company while it transited through the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, the third such incident in less than a week.”
“Yemen’s military says the Iranian-backed Houthis attacked a crucial Red Sea port under the control of the internationally recognized government, killing at least one security guard.”
UANI IN THE NEWS
Iran’s Secret Plan to Escalate the War | Wall Street Journal
“After President Trump signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran in mid-June, administration officials fanned out to build support for an agreement they hoped would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and start winding down the war. Iran’s hard-line leaders huddled in Tehran and came up with a different plan, according to Iranian and Arab officials. In their view the pact was likely just an attempt by the U.S. and Israel to take pressure off the global economy and buy time for a bigger attack down the road. Instead of putting faith in talks, they took the past two months to prepare for a bigger fight. Their efforts include giving the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps more control of the country’s regular army, appointing hardened veterans of the war with Iraq and past internal crackdowns to key posts, expanding domestic counterintelligence operations and ramping up production of missiles and drones. The leadership quickly seized the initiative, attacking ships to tighten Iran’s grip on Hormuz and expanding the battlefield to the Red Sea, which Saudi Arabia has used to get around Iran’s chokehold on the Persian Gulf. . . . ‘[New IRGC Commander-in-Chief Ahmad] Vahidi’s elevation is consistent with a leadership preparing the security establishment for a period of sustained confrontation rather than a return to normal peacetime politics,’ said [UANI Senior Advisor] Saeid Golkar, an expert on Iran’s security services at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.”
“United Against Nuclear Iran, citing Joint Maritime Information Center data, has put the decline in tanker transits [through the Bab el-Mandeb] since the July 20 blockade declaration at roughly 40%. UANI also said tankers have been observed broadcasting messages including ‘CHINESE OWNER" and "ARMED GUARD ON BOARD’ through their tracking systems, apparently in an effort to reduce the chance of being targeted.”
“The ascension of Mohsen Rezaei as secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council underscores that there is much political drama beneath the surface of the Islamic Republic’s portrayal of strength as the Trump administration tries to end the war. . . . In the end, Rezaei’s ascension may lead to growing disagreements within the Islamic Republic’s establishment. It also reflects the continued domination—which started before the war—of the IRGC in decision-making.”
Iran’s Rulers Turn Attention to the Threat from Within | Iran International
“Jason Brodsky, policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran, offered a different reading, seeing a diffusion of power in the absence of a visible Supreme Leader capable of imposing decisions across the system.”
Interview with UANI Policy Director Jason M. Brodsky | Al Arabiya English
“The Iranian regime views the Strait of Hormuz as its Trump card, at a time when its nuclear program has been largely degraded, its missile program has been degraded, its drone program has been badly damaged, [and] its terror proxies have also taken a beating.”
Interview with UANI Policy Director Jason M. Brodsky | Iran International
“I think we have some hints here that the system is trying to thread the needle among different camps within the IRGC, to try to hand out different positions to basically allow these different factions to have different aspects of the system under their control.”
DIPLOMACY
U.S. and Iran Blow Through Deadline to Agree to a Broad Deal to End War | New York Times
“The United States and Iran on Monday missed their 60-day deadline to reach a deal to curtail Iran’s nuclear program under the terms of the cease-fire they agreed to in June, underlining the breakdown of a truce that President Trump promised would end the war. . . . The expiration of the deadline is largely symbolic, as both Mr. Trump and Iran’s leaders have said in recent weeks that the deal is basically dead.”
Iran, Oman Home In on Hormuz Strait Deal as Ship Attacks Mount | Bloomberg
“Iran and Oman appear to be edging closer to a deal on how the Strait of Hormuz should be managed, agreeing on routes through the key waterway that’s proved a major stumbling block in efforts to end almost six months of war between the Islamic Republic and the US. The finalization of a ‘shipping map’ forms part of a broader accord to govern traffic through the strait and constitutes an independent arrangement between the two states that will uphold their sovereignty and ensure the safe transit of vessels, Defa Press cited Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei as saying. The state-run news agency didn’t spell out whether ships will be charged transit fees or what security arrangements would be made for them, saying another phase of talks would be held.”
Inside Trump’s Secret Backchannel to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard | Axios
“In mid-May, U.S. negotiators trying to reach a deal with Iran to end the war ran into a problem: They couldn’t tell if the people across the table actually spoke for the country’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). So Trump administration officials did something unconventional—they went around Iran’s negotiators and reached out directly to IRGC leadership. The person they tapped for the backchannel was Nechirvan Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan region in Iraq, who had something very few others do: the trust of both U.S. and IRGC leaders.”
“Faced with an increasingly bellicose Iran as talks to end the war have stalled, the Trump administration appears to be reaching out to a broader swath of countries that might be able to help pressure Tehran or ease its hardline position where traditional mediators have not succeeded so far. While discussions between Iran and Oman, as well as between Iran and Pakistan, Turkey and Qatar, persist at an uneven and unpredictable pace, the U.S. administration quietly has expanded its outreach to include perhaps unlikely interlocutors in Europe.”
MILITARY MATTERS & SHIPPING
Iran Army Chief Promises $30,000 Bounty for Each US Service Member | Iran International
“Iran’s army commander-in-chief said on Sunday that any Iranian who captures or kills a US service member will receive a $30,000 reward. Amir Hatami said the money would be provided by ‘the Iranian people.’”
Qatar Denies Capturing Three Iranian Pilots After Downing Fighter Jets | BBC News
“Iran has called for the release of three pilots it said were captured by Qatar after two of its fighter jets were hit by air defences during a military operation at the start of the US-Iran war. In a letter to the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Iran's Brig Gen Mohammad Bagherzadeh claimed the pilots—Javad Salehi, Abdul Majid Dashtian and Imran Behroshian—had been held captive for six months. He said the body of a fourth pilot, Majid Kazemi, had been returned after he was killed in the same operation on 2 March 2026—the third day of the war. Qatar ‘categorically denied’ Iran’s claims and said it was ‘surprised by these misleading statements.’”
Iran Tells Trump to ‘Accept the Reality of Defeat’ | Telegraph
“Iran has demanded that Donald Trump accept defeat in the Middle East. Responding to the US president’s assertion that the Strait of Hormuz would soon be declared US territory, Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, said the vital oil-shipping route would remain under Iranian control. . . . Iranian state media carried similar remarks made by Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i, the country’s judiciary chief, who called Mr Trump a ‘full[y] fledged loser in the hard arena of politics and military combat,’ reiterating that the Strait of Hormuz remained ‘an inseparable part’ of Iran.”
“President Donald Trump on Friday downplayed the toll on American sailors enduring nearly nine months at sea on the USS Abraham Lincoln as concerns escalated about mental health and supply issues aboard the aircraft carrier supporting U.S. operations against Iran. In a brief exchange with reporters . . . Trump refuted that family members have raised concerns about the deployment’s length and even said that the deployment—which includes a record-setting uninterrupted time at sea of more than 240 days—is ‘not nearly long enough.’”
Iran War Commander Visits the USS Abraham Lincoln | Wall Street Journal
“The U.S. admiral overseeing the war with Iran visited the USS Abraham Lincoln on Saturday as the aircraft carrier prepares to return home following an extended wartime deployment, according to U.S. Central Command. The visit by Centcom commander Adm. Brad Cooper capped a 10-day trip that also included visits to Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, the command said. The stop on the Lincoln comes amid reports of poor living conditions and some crew members struggling with their mental health following a nine-month deployment without port visits.”
Trump Threatens to Bomb Oman If It ‘Gets in the Way’ of US-Iran Negotiations | Financial Times
“Trey Yingst, a Fox reporter, said: ‘I asked the president about . . . parallel talks that are taking place between Iran and Oman about control of the Strait of Hormuz.’ He said that Trump responded: ‘If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the s*** out of them.’”
“I’ll Never Apologize,” Trump Says About War That’s Resulted in Higher Gas Prices | CNN
“President Donald Trump said he would ‘never apologize’ for taking military action against Iran, arguing that higher gas prices have been worth it in his pursuit of preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon. ‘For you to pay a tiny little bit more for your gasoline, just remember you’re doing it so that a very evil country cannot have—a country, really, it’s the number one state sponsor of terror in the world—we don’t want to have them have a nuclear weapon. So remember that when you have to pay a little bit more,” Trump said . . .”
US Energy Secretary: Iran Attempting to Hold World Economy Hostage | IranWire
“US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright stated in an interview with Fox News that the Islamic Republic’s capacity to cause regional disruption is diminishing, while the United States’ ability to escort and transport maritime cargo out of the region has grown.”
PROXY WARS
Israel Seizes Vast Iran Terror Axis Arsenal with Surprising Foreign Origins | Fox News
“Fox News Digital gained rare access to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Tzrifin Base in Central Israel, where a vast number of confiscated rockets, grenades, drones, sniper rifles, automated weapons, anti-tank rocket launchers, mortars and other military firepower used by Hezbollah and Hamas are stored. The seized arsenal of weapons, ranging in manufacturers from the Islamic Republic of Iran to Russia, China to homegrown producers in Lebanon and Gaza and even a Nazi-era gun, were part of the war machinery used by Hamas and Hezbollah against Israeli civilians and the IDF since Hamas terrorists attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.”
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
Iranian Man Executed for His Participation in the January Protests | i24 News
“A man was executed on Sunday in Iran after being sentenced to death for running over several police officers with his car during the widespread anti-government protests in January, the Iranian judiciary announced. According to the Mizan agency, the judiciary’s official news outlet, Shahram Sadeghi had struck several police officers on January 8 in Karaj, west of Tehran, injuring seven of them.”
Iran Lawmaker Played Direct Role in Deadly Protest Crackdown, Witnesses Say | Iran International
“Jafar Pourkabgani, a lawmaker representing the southern Iranian province of Bushehr and a former longtime member of the IRGC and Basij, personally fired at protesters during nationwide demonstrations in January, witnesses told Iran International. . . . Accounts collected by Iran International attributed the shooting of at least 19 people to Pourkabgani. Witnesses said at least two of those struck by his gunfire have died.”
Iranian Parliament Advances Bill to Curb Foreign Influence | Reuters
“Iran’s parliament approved on Sunday the general principles of a bill that would criminalise interviews and other communications with media deemed hostile to the Islamic Republic, including U.S. or Israeli media and outlets financed by either country, Iran's Shargh newspaper reported. . . . The proposed legislation would also harden penalties for economic crimes committed under the direction or supervision of foreigners, ban providing information to foreigners without intelligence ministry approval and restrict scientific cooperation with foreign institutions outside an approved list.”
Detained Iranian Artists Denied Independent Lawyers One Month After Arrest | IranWire
“Nearly one month after the arrest of graphic designers Arya Kasaei and Elaheh Naghilou, their friends and close associates have issued a statement demanding the public disclosure of their formal charges and immediate access to independent legal representation.”
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS & OTHER ECONOMIC NEWS
Iran Lawmaker Says Gasoline Imports Halted Under the US Naval Blockade | Iran International
“Iran has effectively stopped importing gasoline because of the US naval blockade, parliament Energy Committee spokesperson Reza Sepahvand told ILNA on Saturday.”
Iran Weighs Gasoline Rationing as Fuel Deficit Widens | Iran International
“Iran’s government is considering three proposals to curb gasoline consumption as war damage, import difficulties and a widening gap between domestic production and demand put growing pressure on fuel supplies. The options include imposing a daily cap on supplies to filling stations, tightening vehicle quotas and allowing additional gasoline to be sold at market rates, or transferring fuel allocations from vehicles to individuals and permitting citizens to trade them.”
Crypto Giant Accused of Moving Money for Iran Seeks UK Comeback | Telegraph
“A giant cryptocurrency exchange accused of allowing Iran to move billions of dollars is planning a UK comeback years after a ban. Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, is preparing to apply to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for a cryptocurrency licence under new rules coming into force next year. Winning approval to launch in the UK would mark a stark reversal of fortunes for the company, which has previously been hit by a series of FCA crackdowns hampering its attempts to operate in Britain. The company has also faced a series of regulatory hurdles overseas and is reportedly being investigated by US authorities over claims it allowed Iran to evade sanctions and transfer billions to finance the country’s revolutionary guard.”
Canada Sanctions Five Iranian Officials over Blockade of Strait of Hormuz | Canadian Press
“Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand announced new sanctions today on five Iranian officials for undermining ‘international peace, security and stability’ with the blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. The sanctioned individuals include a senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps official, the head of Iran’s foreign policy and national security committee, a naval commander and chair of the Iranian energy exporters union.”
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
Mohsen Rezaei’s Son Among Nine Identified in $11-Billion Iran Oil Network | Iran International
“Relatives of some of Iran’s most powerful security figures, including Mohsen Rezaei’s son, were among nine people tied to an oil-sales network that sources say failed to return about $11 billion in proceeds, an Iran International investigation found. The major corruption network involved in the sale of Iranian oil has been operating within the Islamic Republic’s Intelligence Ministry, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. The network was built around trusted intermediaries, known in Iran as ‘trustees,’ who were given oil to sell as part of efforts to circumvent sanctions and were expected to return the proceeds to the state.”
‘Revenge Is Inevitable’: Iran Ramps up Propaganda War with Violent Billboards | NBC News
“The billboards are state-sponsored, plastered across Iran’s capital and far from subtle. One features an image of President Donald Trump lying in a casket; another shows the White House on fire; a third is a parody of the American flag with skulls in place of the stars and bombs dropping from the stripes. Alongside ads for a multitude of products such as cars and shampoo, the giant billboards have become familiar sights to the people of Tehran in recent years. But since the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in an airstrike on the first day of the war launched by the United States and Israel, the messaging has become bolder and the tone more violent during the almost six-month conflict.”
“Iran’s government will have six weeks from August 20 to nominate new intelligence and defense ministers for parliamentary approval, the parliament presiding board spokesman said on Sunday.”
CONGRESS & IRAN
“Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego (Ariz.) on Sunday expressed strong opposition to Congress giving the Pentagon more funding amid the Iran war. . . . ‘We are more focused on making sure that we are supporting the American warfighter and trying to . . . get us out of this war,’ said the Arizona Democrat, who sits on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee.”
EUROPE & IRAN
Iran Accuses French Diplomats of Covert Activity in Tehran | Iran International
“Iran’s Intelligence Ministry accused two French diplomats previously detained in Tehran of involvement in covert contacts with Iranians and said documents seized in the case pointed to a broader French effort to build a network inside and outside the country.”
Iran Says Two French Embassy Employees Barred from Returning | Reuters
“Iran said on Monday that two French embassy employees involved in a diplomatic dispute last month would not be allowed to return to Iran. Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said the two had violated the Vienna Convention—which defines the rules and privileges of diplomatic missions—engaging in activities supporting Iranian civil society. . . . French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, in an interview with France Inter last month, said the mission of the two embassy employees concerned was to ‘develop programmes supporting Iranian civil society, students, and artists . . . France is one of the countries in the world that does the most for Iranian civil society, and we have paid the price for it.’”
GULF STATES & IRAN
Frustration with Trump Grows Among U.S.’s Persian Gulf Allies, Officials Say | Washington Post
“Frustration with Washington is growing in the Persian Gulf region, where U.S. allies are increasingly concerned that President Donald Trump is unable to manage the diplomacy necessary to secure peace with Iran, Arab and Western officials say. . . . After months of conflict, and continuing missile and drone strikes by Iran and its proxies, three officials and a former U.S. diplomat told The Washington Post, the governments of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain are now united in their aggravation with the administration. Some have begun to debate the utility of continuing to host large U.S. military installations on their territory.”