Elijah Magnier

Iran has absorbed a 40-day war plus a renewed 13-day US bombing campaign without breaking; Washington has no coherent strategy, jumping tactic to tactic (mines, sanctions, bombing, now appealing to Iranians to revolt), none of it working, while Iran keeps retaliating and controls the safety of Hormuz navigation even without controlling the strait itself. Says Iran can sustain and escalate the tanker and blockade war, will break any tightened US blockade, and reads its strikes on the US base in Jordan as preparation for a war with Israel he considers inevitable. Now reads Ansarallah’s shootdown of a Saudi F-15 over Marib as a major, unprecedented leap in the movement’s air-defense capability, putting its control at roughly 35 to 38 percent of Yemen’s territory and 70 to 80 percent of its population, and advancing on Marib and Taiz.

Says Russia is benefiting financially from the higher oil prices tied to the Iran conflict and from a Ukraine energy-facilities ceasefire, but notes that like the US, it has failed to stop daily Ukrainian drone strikes even on Moscow, which he reads as a shared limit of great-power air defense rather than a sign of Russian weakness.

A direct Iran-Israel war is eventually inevitable but its timing hinges on Netanyahu’s political calendar; meanwhile Israel uses the nominal Lebanon ceasefire to seize ground it could not take during active war, and an Israeli strike on Beirut would hand Hezbollah and Iran the pretext to fully re-engage. Says Israel is absorbing real damage that its censorship hides, including at the Haifa refinery and at military and intelligence sites, while Netanyahu turns toothless Western sanctions to domestic advantage and Iran holds back its heaviest strikes. Now says Ansarallah strikes only target Saudi- and Israeli-bound shipping, and calls Netanyahu’s strike on the Hodeidah oil depot a failed, theatrical gesture that has not changed the battlefield.

China is the quiet winner of the US-Iran war: still buying roughly 80% of Iranian oil despite sanctions, studying how Iranian missiles beat Patriot/THAAD, and no longer worried by US "we’ll fight China" rhetoric after watching Washington fail to subdue Iran. Now says China is delighted to see Iran fighting America and America bogged down in the Iranian quagmire, because it exposes the real limits of American military power.

US standing is unraveling in real time: NATO, Europe, Japan and Korea declined US requests for help against Iran, Gulf states are hedging via the new Istanbul-based "Mecca" defense pact and SCO/BRICS, and Iran, not Washington, is now redrawing West Asia’s security order. Describes Trump as surrounded by a hollowed-out, sycophantic administration with Rubio sidelined and no one offering an off-ramp, repeating the failed pattern of earlier unilateral campaigns in Yemen. Now says the war exposes clear limits of American power: the US, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt and the Pakistan-Turkey "Mecca pact" have all failed to defeat Ansarallah or deter Iran’s allies.

Yuan settlement, oil-for-goods barter and non-dollar corridors through Turkey, Azerbaijan and the Caspian keep Iran’s economy breathing despite sanctions, though the broader BRICS de-dollarization remains slow-moving. Now points to crude near $100 with US and Chinese strategic reserves drawing down, US sanctions losing international buy-in, and an escalating tanker war risking an uncontrollable price spike. Now says Saudi Arabia has exported no oil via its Red Sea ports since Saturday and has informed several European nations that shipments are cancelled and delayed until at least November.