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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   13549 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 28, 2026

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Bloomberg: JPMorgan and Goldman See Mideast Oil Flows Near Pre-War Levels

Crude oil flows from the Middle East are returning toward pre-war levels despite continued risks to shipping, according to separate estimates from JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

“The Middle East’s oil export arteries are flowing again,” JPMorgan analysts including Natasha Kaneva said in a Sept. 29 note. That’s “a remarkable recovery for a region still at war,” although it’s been uneven, they said.

Shipments of crude oil have rebounded to 17.5 million barrels a day, or 98% of pre-war levels, while flows of products such as diesel and gasoline were at 3 million barrels a day, or 58%, according to JPMorgan.

Oil is passing coming through the Middle East again, at essentially pre-war levels. Some of this is from oil bypassing the Strait of Hormuz, and some of this is from oil transiting the Strait under American protection.

Flows through Hormuz have almost “returned to late-June highs of nearly 13 million barrels a day, led primarily by Saudi Arabia,” JPMorgan said. “But higher crossings should not be mistaken for improved safety — rather, they reflect the industry’s increasing ability to operate under sustained risk.”

Goldman Sachs, meanwhile, said oil exports from the Persian Gulf — including so-called dark flows moved clandestinely — had recovered to 23.3 million barrels a day over the last week, a level in line with the 2025 average.

Diesel and gasoline are still stymied, but, mostly, because Iranian exports are being blockaded by the US.

“We note a divergence between the fall of Iranian exports and the rise of exports of other Persian Gulf producers,” Goldman said. “Saudi estimated exports more than doubled in September and rose above their 2025 average.”

But other Gulf States are increasing their own exports to compensate for the missing Iranian piece.

It appears that the Iranians are not capable of stopping exports from flowing through the Straits, and so oil exports are returning to normal.

Meanwhile, Iran seemingly wants to end the war, although none dare call it "surrender":

New York Times: Iran Proposes 7-Day Plan to End War

Iran’s foreign minister said Thursday that Tehran had proposed to Washington a seven-day plan to cease hostilities, reopen the Strait of Hormuz and then begin comprehensive talks on his country’s nuclear program.

Abbas Araghchi, the foreign minister, told reporters at a press briefing at the United Nations General Assembly that the proposal closely mirrored the commitments laid out in a so-called memorandum of understanding that was struck between the United States and Iran in June but quickly unraveled.

He said Iran was ready to begin putting the plan into effect as soon as Washington agreed to it.

“We have introduced a plan to the United States through the intermediators that if certain conditions are met, the Strait of Hormuz would be open on the end of the seventh day and talks would restart,” Mr. Araghchi said.

He said “it would be better,” if a deal was reached before the U.S. midterm elections.

Iran wants, essentially, to return to something close to June's MOU, except on a faster timetable. Iran agrees to "reopen" the Straits in exchange for getting its confiscated $12 Billion, an end of the sanctions and blockade, and then to open discussions as to the future of its nuclear program.

Contrary to expectations that Iran is biding its time in hopes that Democrats will retake Congress, Iran says that it would prefer to reach a deal before the midterms.

Trump, however, is not interested:

AP: Iran indicates it’s received an official US response to its latest offer on ending the war

Trump swiftly rejected the proposal, saying Iran wanted to make a deal because it was “losing so badly” but that its offer “would not be acceptable.” Despite Trump’s public rebuffing, mediators continued working with Iran and the U.S. to try to broker a deal to end the fighting and open the strait, according to officials who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury Department unveiled new sanctions on Tuesday targeting people and companies around the globe that it accuses of being financial facilitators or enablers of Iran’s military supply chain.

Iran prefers to call it a "win-win":

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi presented the U.S. response to President Masoud Pezeshkian at a Cabinet meeting, government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani told the state-run IRNA news agency.

“We will make every effort to bring the agreement to fruition and will firmly stand up for the rights of the Iranian people,” Pezeshkian said. “The agreement must now be based on a win-win strategy.”

So, here's the current state of the war:

  • Shipping is moving through Hormuz and is increasing week-to-week. Total traffic out of the Gulf is approaching pre-war levels.

  • Iran has no ability to seriously threaten shipping in the Straits.

  • Iran is seemingly unable or unwilling to continue striking other American targets and assets in the Gulf

  • Iran remains blockaded and unable to export its own products, contributing to severe stress on the Iranian economy.

  • Iran is more interested in negotiating peace than Trump is.

Forgive me for repeating old arguments but I need to be clear about this: Trump was right about Iran and America is winning.

Let’s be honest, there are a lot of people (not limited to a political ideology, although concentrated on the far left and right, with a large number of more centrist doomers and preppers in between) who just want some major blow to happen to American hegemony so that something interesting might happen, domestic politics might be radically shook, etc etc.

Semi-astute political observers will note this is just a cross-party variant of the ‘heighten the contradictions of capitalism’ thesis beloved of lazy communists, namely that surely at some point everything has to blow up and then we can come to power. Who knows, maybe it will.

So no, America hasn’t suffered some devastating end of an imperial age blow (yet) in this conflict.

Nevertheless, as everyone keeps (correctly) telling you, simply restoring the prewar status quo but slightly worse (eg the Houthis are now emboldened and the Saudi-Emirati split doesn’t seem to be repaired even though that would be in America’s best interests, Iraq is still struggling to keep control of Shia militias etc etc) is not a successful outcome for a special military operation.

For example, if Putin agreed tomorrow to retreat to early-2022 lines of control in Ukraine, this would be transparently seen as an immense Ukrainian victory.

Let’s be honest, there are a lot of people (not limited to a political ideology, although concentrated on the far left and right, with a large number of more centrist doomers and preppers in between) who just want some major blow to happen to American hegemony so that something interesting might happen, domestic politics might be radically shook, etc etc.

I think that in addition, there are a lot of people who don't want Trump to have a win. And a lot of people who don't want Israel to have a win.

simply restoring the prewar status quo but slightly worse

I haven't been following the war super closely but it seems like Iran's nuclear program has been set back quite a bit and well as Iran's general military capabilities and ability to interfere with Persian gulf shipping.

Nevertheless, as everyone keeps (correctly) telling you, simply restoring the prewar status quo but slightly worse

Iran is a defeated power with no ability to contest the Gulf let alone build nuclear weapons: that is simply not the status quo.

Before the war broke out, if we had predicted the above, everyone would have called it a crazy impossibility. It would take boots on the ground, war with Iran would consume thousands of American lives or crash the economy. There was a lot of discussion about how the CIA knew Iran would take the gulf and we couldn’t stop Iran and everybody knew that and this is proof that Trump didn’t have a plan.

Now that that’s over I hear about how this is just pre-war status quo.

No, I feel quite confident that this is better than status quo. America dismantled one of its greatest enemies anywhere on the planet in exchange for some temporarily-raised gas prices.

Not only that. The "pre-war status quo" was never an option to begin with.

The choices were these

  1. Do something

  2. Iran continues to trade cheap oil for Chinese weapons, builds out its ballistic missile program, and within 5 years has a nuke capable of reaching Europe

The idea that we could do nothing and there would be no consequences is just wrong.

There's actually a term for this. It's called "omission bias", treating the consequences of inaction as less blameworthy than the consequences of action.

Iran is a defeated power with no ability to contest the Gulf let alone build nuclear weapons: that is simply not the status quo.

Before the war broke out, if we had predicted the above,

On 1st January 2026, the United States operated a naval base in Bahrain. As long as they remain unable to do so, the Gulf is contested.

On 1st January 2026, the public position of the government of the United States was that the Iran no longer had a functioning nuclear programme - Trump claimed to have destroyed it in 2025. Before Trump started escalating against Iran back in his first term, the agreed position of Iran, the United States, Russia and China was that Iran would not enrich uranium beyond reactor grade, with a verification process in place. I think a non-nuclear-for-now Iran is entirely consistent with status quo ante for various values of status quo ante.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. America has not lost. America has not won. Iran has not lost. Iran has not won. This is what a draw looks like. It is the nature of a drawn war that under all likely scenarios for a negotiated peace before the midterms, both America and Iran are worse off than they would be if they had not fought. This is not a tabletop wargame where you can work out who "won" an indecisive battle by counting up the point values of the destroyed units.

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