The Red-Green Alliance Takes Another Blow as Oil Traffic Through the Strait of Hormuz Rebounds to 98% of the Pre-War Level

Iran recently pleaded for another seven-day ceasefire.

When America rejected that -- actually, the "negotiators" were told to leave -- Iran published its letter urging Democrats to side with Iran as usual and vote against the GOP.

This is why: the world is getting most of its oil through the Strait, protected by the US military, and Iran is getting zero barrels through, stopped by the blockade.

Literally all we now have to do is maintain the blockade, keep the west-side of the Straight clear, and wait for Iran to collapse.

Even the NYT admits Iran is losing the War of the Strait.

Mideast Oil Exports Rebound Even as Prices Remain Elevated

More tankers are moving through the Strait of Hormuz as shippers gain confidence, but the global supply of oil is still below demand.

By Peter Eavis
Sept. 29, 2026

Oil exports from the Middle East have risen sharply this month, some oil analysts say, taking them closer to the level they were at before Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz in March, a rebound that could ease some pressure on global energy prices.

In September, an average of 10 million barrels of oil has gone through the waterway daily, according to Kpler, a firm that tracks oil tankers. Separately, six million barrels of crude a day has left the Persian Gulf states this month through pipelines and ports that bypass the strait, Kpler's data shows.

That's a grudging estimate. Most other say 12-13 million barrels per day, plus another 6-8 million through Saudi Arabia's East-to-West oil pipeline, meaning the we're now seeing about 20 million barrels per day again, or close enough to make no difference.

Before the war with Iran began at the end of February, around 19 million barrels of crude left the region daily through the waterway and other routes. Because of the difficulty in tracking tankers, export totals supplied by analysts might not reflect the true flow of oil, but most experts say volumes rose significantly this month.

The turnaround has most noticeably occurred in the strait, even though Iran continues to attack tankers. A U.S. military operation aimed at protecting the vessels from the attacks appears to have encouraged more shipments by big exporting countries, like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

"They are getting a substantial amount of oil out, and it is increasing over time as shippers' confidence goes up," said Eugene Gholz, an associate professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame and an expert on conflict in the strait.

President Trump, members of his administration and U.S. military officials have said for weeks that the Strait of Hormuz is open, and that tankers are moving oil through the strait.

Here's the other side of the balance sheet: While we're getting most of the non-Iranian oil through the Strait, Iran is getting none through.

Scott Bessent reports that Iran got zero barrels of oil out in tankers in September.

In a post on the social media platform X on Thursday, Bessent said that "Iran loaded ZERO crude oil onto tankers in September," adding that the restrictions imposed by Trump were "cutting off the Iranian regime's most critical source of revenue."

The Treasury Secretary hailed the Operation Economic Outcast, saying that the move was "severing the economic lifelines that have allowed Tehran to finance its terrorist agenda."

There may be a small amount of oil getting out in tanker trucks, but that's no way to move a lot of oil.

Visual proof of Bessent's claim:About 20 empty Iranian tankers are now stranded off the coast of Sri Lanka. They cannot go back to Iran because of the blockade.

And the US is pressuring Sri Lanka not to allow them to refuel and resupply.

The ships are empty, having dumped their oil off in China and India, and now languishing with no cargo.

The NY Post says trust the blockade.

Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has moved back toward pre-war levels -- and Iran's domestic deterioration is increasingly difficult to dismiss.

Iran's rial fell to roughly 2.2 million to the dollar in September, from about 958,000 a year earlier.

Inflation is nearing 70%, food prices have more than doubled, and unemployment is above 9%.

The latest official figure put youth unemployment at 20.1%.

Oil exports have also collapsed, falling to roughly 260,000 barrels a day from 1.7 million a year earlier.

The bigger story is what those numbers mean for the IRGC's power.

The IRGC still must pay its own forces while financing allies and militias across Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen.

Washington has been squeezing that network's financial lifelines by targeting oil exports, shadow fleets, exchange houses, front companies and the foreign buyers willing to take sanctioned Iranian crude.

China matters most here: Treasury estimates that China buys about 90% of Iran's oil exports.

In April, Washington sanctioned Hengli Petrochemical's Dalian refinery after it bought billions of dollars of Iranian petroleum, including crude linked to Iran's armed forces.

That is the difference between sanctions on paper and sanctions that bite.

...

China's political strategy has come under strain, too.

Beijing celebrated the 2023 Saudi-Iran agreement as proof that China could stabilize the region.

Three years later, however, Saudi Arabia is again confronting Iranian and Iran-backed threats around Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab, while Beijing has had to press Tehran to rein in the Houthis after Saudi appeals with no success.

...

The IRGC has also lost much of the leverage it once derived from threatening Gulf energy flows.

Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline can carry up to 7 million barrels a day toward the Red Sea, with roughly 5 million available for export.

The UAE has gone further: It left OPEC on May 1, freeing itself from production quotas, and pushed crude output above 3.8 million barrels a day in June.

...

Trump is doing something Washington has rarely attempted with this breadth: going after not only the IRGC itself, but the entire system that kept it funded, supplied and able to project power across the region.

That is precisely why his pressure should continue -- whatever the domestic political consequences.

And oil prices should start falling quickly.

And then what will the Democrats say?

Dubai is also building an alternate port on its southern coast to bypass the Strait completely. It won't be finished for another two years, but after that, Iran will never be able to hold the world to ransom again, even if the IRGC is still in charge.

Which I don't think they will be.

I was alerted to this by this video by Max Afterburner. He's an Air Force pilot and generally rah-rah and go USA, so you can discount his predictions a bit, but he thinks Iran is now begging for a "deal" -- one which they'll never honor, of course -- because they are now on the brink of collapse but are no longer inflicting reciprocal pain on Trump or the rest of the world. Their plan was to absorb the pain while inflicting pain on Trump to make him break, but now all the pain is on their side.

Worth the watch.

He also mentioned Boeing's boating about the upcoming F/A XX 6th-generation fighter.

That won't be available for a while, of course.

Not until the 2030s, and that assumes no delays.

Boeing has been selected to build the Navy's sixth-generation carrier-based strike fighter, dubbed F/A-XX, icing out what was considered to be its biggest competitor in late-stage negotiations, Northrop Grumman.

Inked at $20 billion for the full-scale development phase, the contract, according to a Pentagon release, "procures multiple test aircraft for ground, airworthiness, systems, and weapons integration testing."

...

Equipped with an extended range to provide power projection from U.S. carriers, Boeing has promised that the F/A-XX will, crucially, be interoperable with both manned and unmanned platforms such as Collaborative Combat Aircraft.

...

Boeing's contract award marks another milestone victory for the company, which has now all but guaranteed its monopoly on sixth-generation fighters across the services.

Boeing also won the contract to build the next-gen Air Force fighter, the F-47.

In 2025, Boeing beat out Lockheed Martin for the contract to build the U.S. Air Force's sixth-generation fighter under the Next Generation Air Dominance program, or NGAD.

That aircraft, since dubbed the F-47, has entered its engineering and manufacturing development phase, one service official announced in July, with first flights expected as early as 2028.

The Air Force at the time announced plans to purchase at least 185 of the next-gen fighters, a number designed to replace the F-22 Raptor fleet.

A mocked-up image:

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 12:02 PM

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