Originally posted at Naked Capitalism.
Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at the UN, bragging about the ease of his decision to attack Iran, denying accusations of genocide in Gaza, and waving his trademark terrorist beeper to a nearly empty General Assembly Hall. The White House claimed 22 million barrels got through the Straits of Hormuz yesterday and Iran’s Foreign Minister met with Britain’s.
Meanwhile things got very kino in Saudi Arabia as Ansar Allah’s missiles and drones hit pipelines, air fields, and concentrations of troops across the country. Oh yea, and Emmanuel Macron promised the Saudis that French forces will come to Muhammad bin Salman’s rescue.
Oh boy, what a day, let’s get to it.
Bibi Behaving Badly on the World Stage
Not trying to ruin anyone’s breakfast, but, well it is what it is. Full text is at JNS, some lowlights:
Do you know any other country the size of New Jersey capable of fighting a seven-front war? And for three years?
Seven fronts: Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iran, militias in Iraq, militias in Syria, Palestinian terrorists in Judea Samaria. They all ganged up on us to wipe us off the face of the Earth.
They failed.
Because instead of collapsing, we delivered crippling blows to all of them.
With our great American friends, we crushed Iran’s army, navy, air force and nuclear facilities.
Israel hammered Hamas. We pummeled Hezbollah.
Remember the beepers? Well, I can tell you this: Hezbollah certainly remembers them.
Guess what happened to the bulk of Hezbollah’s vast arsenal of 150,000 ballistic missiles and rockets, all aimed at our civilians?
They’re gone.
Hezbollah’s leaders—dead. Their spirit—broken.
…
For three years, they have been valiantly fighting a seven-front war.But there is an eighth front to this war. It’s the war for truth.
It is waged in the world’s media, and most perniciously, in social media.
Several foreign countries have spent untold billions to spread lies about my country.
The first to do so was Qatar.
Decades ago, it started massively funding American universities and toxic media outlets like Al Jazeera. They did the same in Europe, by the way.
Their goal was clear. Brainwash young minds to hate Israel, hate America and hate the West.
This is the same Qatar that hosts the Hamas butchers of Oct. 7.
The latest country to become a super-spreader of antisemitic lies is Turkey. (Recep Tayyip) Erdoğan is a tyrant who also hosts the Hamas terror chiefs.
He has murdered thousands of Kurdish civilians. He denies the Armenian genocide. He jails journalists and opposition leaders. In fact, I think he holds the world record on this, and that’s a tough call. But I think he’s number one.
He illegally occupies Northern Cyprus, an EU member, and he regularly transgresses against Greece, a NATO member.
Now he wants to take over Syria.
That’s not surprising, because he calls for Israel’s destruction almost every single day. He says he’s going to be the ruler of Jerusalem.
No, Sir. You won’t. This is our country, our city, our eternal capital.
Tyrants the world over seek to threaten us; they seek to undermine our resolve with their campaign of lies.
But ultimately, as on the military battlefield, the Jewish People will prevail.
And that’s enough of that. I’ll let you parse the lies for yourself. It’s enough for me to cut and paste this crap.
I do want to remind everyone that Israeli war crimes continue in Lebanon:
While we’re on a roll repeating (possibly) specious claims, CNN quoted an unnamed White House official claiming, in response to Iranian conditions for talks to reopen the Straits, that “The United States is in a very strong position with control of the Strait of Hormuz, so we are not in a rush. Nearly 22 million barrels of oil left the strait last night.”
Once again, rumors of peace were enough to spook oil bulls and bring prices down a tad from session highs.
Oh yea, about those talks or conditions for same.
Iran’s Demands, Conditions, Threats
Mohsen Rezaee, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, spoke to Iran’s rolling-news channel, Shabakeh Khabar (IRINN) (apologies for not including his remarks in yesterday’s Iran War update) and the headline takeaway was “If the US does not comply with Iran’s seven conditions, the Strait of Hormuz will not open, nor will we negotiate.”
Other quotes:
“If America does not fulfill the conditions, we will neither open the Strait of Hormuz nor is there any negotiation on the table.”
Rezaei says the conditions must be implemented “completely and all at once,” and says the US has been given only “four or five days” to do so. After that, he says, Iran will determine its “next step,” without specifying what that would entail.
Most revealingly, he explicitly describes Iran’s leverage over Hormuz as the guarantee behind this new diplomacy.
“In Islamabad, they had imposed a naval blockade; we had not closed the Strait of Hormuz in this manner at the start of the negotiations. But now, in the new diplomacy, we have a leverage called the Strait of Hormuz. This is the guarantee of the negotiations itself.”
“The Strait of Hormuz is our dignity. The Strait of Hormuz is our authority. The Strait of Hormuz is the tool to reclaim the rights of the Iranian nation.”
He also issued a warning to neighboring states against joining US efforts to restrict Iranian aviation: if they cooperate in preventing Iranian flights, “their airports won’t be able to have flights either.”
As of yesterday, those neighboring states include (per The New Arab): The United Arab Emirates, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Oman, Iraq (flights to Baghdad only), and Turkey (“although the measure reported so far is narrower. Iranian carrier Mahan Air said it had suspended its flights to Turkey at Ankara’s request. Iran’s Civil Aviation Organisation said on Wednesday that other international services, including flights to Istanbul, were continuing according to schedule, suggesting the Turkish restrictions do not currently amount to a blanket ban on all Iranian carriers).
The seven conditions offered to the US remain mysterious, but have been passed along to Qatar and Pakistan and include:
1. An end to the war on all fronts
2. Release of frozen funds
3. An end to the naval blockade
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has also been reported to have passed on the big seven to the US.