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Notes -
Donald Trump Won the Iran War
From an essay endorsed by Pete Hegseth on twitter:
Critics say that Iran is winning because they now control the Straits of Hormuz. In reality it appears that trade in the Gulf is returning to pre-war levels as it risks the Straits or bypasses them entirely:
Critics say that the Iran War has driven America's allies to shake off American leadership. In fact we see the opposite:
America recently carried out strikes in Iraq, working with the Saudi military, to push out Iranian militias, and is now concluding multi-billion dollar business deals:
Meanwhile, how's America's blockade going?
Iran’s oil exports stall and Kharg Island idles under US blockade
It's possible that Iran has been unable to successfully sell it's oil for even longer:
Iran is still able to make money from oil tankers that left the Gulf during the last ceasefire and are currently in Asia, but that crude will all be sold soon and Iran will start to be squeezed even more, unless they come to a deal with the US or somehow engineer a military miracle.
Iran is facing inflation of ~87.9%, which is to say, the average Iranian has lost almost half of their wealth compared to this point last year:
How's Iran's Nuclear Program doing? The New York Times put out this report today concluding that Iran's program is "slowed but not stopped":
[https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/07/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-program.html](Trump Vowed to Thwart Iran’s Nuclear Program. Here’s Where That Stands.)
However, under the headline, here's where things stand:
Iran has enough nuclear material to manufacture 10 nuclear bombs? Wow, what are they going to do with it?
America destroyed Iran's capability to "convert or enrich" that uranium, and then locked the uranium that remains deep under collapsed tunnels that can be bombed again as soon as Iran tries to retrieve it.
The sites that were bombed last year appear to remain inoperable, which is to say that, after America bombed them, they have not been used.
(The New York Times then concludes that this is both a significant setback and also doesn't actually matter at all. Well, that's what I heard three months ago. I'm sure that three months from now, people will still be saying that Iran can build a nuke anytime it wants to, it just doesn't want to.)
So here's where we're at now:
Trump, Iran, and Oman are apparently on the cusp of announcing another deal to reopen the Strait. But it increasingly doesn't matter: Iran needs to make a deal because their economic crisis is so acute, while America and the rest of the Gulf can shrug it all off as increasingly a minor inconvenience.
Trump won. Trump was right from the beginning. The Iran war is below-the-fold news now.
Iran will never toll the strait, Iran will never bring the global economy to its knees, Iran will never have nuclear weapons. Iran cannot defeat America militarily or overcome the blockade. The Iranian regime will eventually fall, or make significant concessions, or surrender, or continue to limp along losing strength and relevance -- it doesn't matter which. Either way, Iran loses, America wins, the writing is on the wall.
Trump won. Iran lost.
The UAE paid Iran $10-20bil to stop its attacks, according to Reuters, which probably accounts for their 85% return to oil shipping prior to the signing of the MOU, if that figure is accurate. As this is very embarrassing to everyone but Iran, I doubt we will be hearing much about it. Just this week, Iran struck three UAE oil vessels, and UAE (along with Qatar and KSA) petitioned Trump to stay his attack on Iran because they can’t afford the blowback on their infrastructure. This reads to me like Iran retains a robust ability to influence the region. If Trump flees from the war, then Iran will have more regional influence than it started with, as Iran would have proof that they can sustain attacks from a hawkish American military (imagine if it’s a Dem!) and continue pressuring the region for their own purposes.
Iran is only 9mo away from nukes, per a May Reuters report, whereas before the war they were six months away from nukes. This doesn’t seem like a big deal. I imagine the killing of Khamenei and his family will persuade the Iranians that a nuke is more desirable, and they now have information about what American buster bunkers are actually able to accomplish. It’s quite possible that Iran is now closer to a nuke than ever before, given the aforementioned, because the limiting factor on a nuke was the fatwah of the ayatollah whose family was killed during negotiations by Israel. Oops.
Are the other points you mention serious? You don’t mention the Houthis closing Bab al-Mandab Strait, but you mention random strikes on Shia militants in Iraq. But those strikes didn’t actually succeed in “pushing out” Iranian-backed forces, right? Isn’t the fact that there are still Iranian militias in Iraq embarrassing to us? And Iran’s economy is hurting, but we’re not at war with the Iranian people, so this doesn’t really matter. Their leverage over the strait remains. Trade is interrupted and tankers are being struck. Trump causing America to lose the Iran war — succeeding in none of the original mission objectives while cementing Iran’s influence over the strait — will certainly have repurcussions for Republicans in elections. Americans are worse off, in every way, and the legacy of the children we killed may inspire attacks on us decades hence, making us all less safe. Our international reputation is worse off, we have less money, our soldiers were wounded and killed, and we may lose Arab partners in the future.
Read the article again please.
Sources can say a lot of things, but they do seem to be saying the thing. Is the issue here with the word 'paid' rather than 'released'?
I think that's a pretty crucial difference, yeah.
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That means they didn't release it yet. And given that Iran kept blowing stuff up, I think it's highly likely that Iran never got to smell it at all.
This is deliberately vague but the most straightforward interpretation is that these accounts were unfrozen, giving Iran the on-paper ability to spend those funds, but they would still remain within the UAE banking system. Hard to say though, as the other source says "delivered".
If the UAE already sent/released 3bn, like is alleged in the article, I'd consider it safe to presume that they intend to follow through with the rest.
I'm not sure on the timeline here. According to the article Iran has not attacked the UAE since May 4th. Talks allegedly began in June. The only attacks my google and AI can find are the recent strikes from last week on ships belonging to Abu Dhabi National Oil Company in the SoH. Maybe that's enough for the UAE to pull the cord, but maybe not, as the focus of this deal might be to guarantee that Iran will not strike the mainland.
If we were trying to tighten our language down to be more accurate then the UAE intends to release up to 10-20bn Iranian assets to Iran in deal designed to 'ease regional tensions'. 3bn has already been released, according to sources. They also intend to 'revive economic ties'.
Whilst that might not be as sensational as 'paid 10-20 billion' I'd argue it's undeniably on that side of the equation.
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