Oman, Iran Reach Agreement to Reopen Strait of Hormuz

A familiar pattern emerged this week in Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s Iran. Mohammad Bagher Kharrazi, brother of the wife of Mojtaba’s brother Masoud, claimed in a revealing interview that President Masoud Pezeshkian had offered to resign 28 times. 

The situation, according to Kharrazi, has become so fraught that Mojtaba lashed out at Pezeshkian, saying, “[I]f he resigns one more time, I will approve it. I will write ‘approved’ underneath it, and that will be the end of it.” 

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Philip Gordon, former national security adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris, wrote July 23 in Foreign Policy that the U.S. war against Iran has “failed.” He believes that the U.S. “is unlikely to solve the problem with more bombing” and that there are no good options at Washington’s disposal. The least bad alternative, he says, is to “pay Iran off to end the conflict and open the strait now while accelerating efforts to reduce reliance on it and bolstering U.S. leverage for future negotiations down the road.” Gordon is right that America finds itself in a tight spot regarding Iran, but his suggested path has been tried and did not succeed.

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