Paul Smith - Regional Affairs 🇬🇧🇮🇷

Following Iran, Israel and the wider Middle East | Director, Iran Sanctions & Trade Observatory | Still a market junkie | Matthew 25:35–40

[Paul Smith - Regional Affairs 🇬🇧🇮🇷 @paulmeanalysis]

Netanyahu has formally rejected Trump’s 15-point Gaza plan:

No Israeli withdrawal until Hamas is actually disarmed. Not “gradually.” Not weapons handed to another Palestinian body. Not diplomatic theatre.

A ceasefire can be negotiated. Reality cannot.

[Paul Smith - Regional Affairs 🇬🇧🇮🇷 @paulmeanalysis]

Reports say 8–10 small tankers a day, each carrying around 500,000 barrels, are moving oil to Fujairah in the UAE or Sohar in Oman, where it is transferred to larger tankers beyond Hormuz.

That would mean roughly 7.5 million barrels per day still moving through the Strait, while another 4.5 million barrels are exported through Saudi Arabia’s Yanbu pipeline.

[Paul Smith - Regional Affairs 🇬🇧🇮🇷 @paulmeanalysis]

Iran attacks commercial shipping, then demands sanctions relief, reparations, US withdrawal and control of Hormuz before it will stop strangling the waterway.

It’s extortion with a foreign ministry.

And rewarding it would simply teach Tehran that attacking your neighbours is an excellent bargaining strategy.

[Paul Smith - Regional Affairs 🇬🇧🇮🇷 @paulmeanalysis]

@BRICSinfo Trump wants the headline “I ended the war” so badly he doesn’t seem to care what “ending” it actually means. Hamas can stay armed, Israel should leave Gaza, and “help is on the way” somehow became bargaining over Hormuz.

But sure, tell us again how you ended all the wars.

[Paul Smith - Regional Affairs 🇬🇧🇮🇷 @paulmeanalysis]

@i24NEWS_EN The Houthis have now claimed the attack themselves. Saudi military positions were the target.

Riyadh just signed a mutual defence pact with Turkey and Pakistan. What happens next will tell us whether that pact has any real weight behind it.

[Paul Smith - Regional Affairs 🇬🇧🇮🇷 @paulmeanalysis]

Two days ago Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed a defence pact saying an attack on one is an attack on all.

Today the Houthis attacked Aramco in Saudi Arabia.

So I guess we’re about to find out what that pact actually means.

[Paul Smith - Regional Affairs 🇬🇧🇮🇷 @paulmeanalysis]

@Osint613 Another meeting with the invisible Supreme Leader. No photo, no video, no voice. Just another statement from an office telling us he met Pezeshkian. At this point, they could say he met Batman and provide exactly the same amount of evidence.

[Paul Smith - Regional Affairs 🇬🇧🇮🇷 @paulmeanalysis]

@JasonMBrodsky Another meeting. Another statement. Still no photo, no video, no audio.

At this point they’re not providing proof of life, they’re just producing stories about a man nobody has actually seen or heard from in months. Very convenient.

[Paul Smith - Regional Affairs 🇬🇧🇮🇷 @paulmeanalysis]

Iranian women don’t need this regime’s permission to ride a motorcycle, choose what to wear, or live their own lives.

The issue isn’t what the regime will finally “allow.” It has no legitimacy to decide any of this in the first place. It needs to go.

[Iran International English @IranIntl_En]

Iran planned to begin issuing motorcycle licenses to women in the near future, an interior ministry official said on Sunday.

Parvin Dadandish, the ministry’s adviser on women and family affairs, said there was no legal prohibition against granting women such licenses and that government efforts to remove existing obstacles had succeeded.

“If this process is finalized, issuing motorcycle licenses to women will not merely allow them to drive a new type of vehicle, but could also be seen as part of a broader model of equal access to urban transportation,” Dadandish said.

Iran’s political establishment has periodically floated legal changes allowing women to ride motorcycles, while women and girls have spent years riding without waiting for official approval.

Iranian law does not explicitly prohibit women from riding motorcycles, but no licensing system exists for them because the traffic code refers only to male riders.
https://t.co/aOavMJPmRe

[Paul Smith - Regional Affairs 🇬🇧🇮🇷 @paulmeanalysis]

If US stockpiles are really this depleted, why is so much of it public? Militaries don’t advertise vulnerabilities. Either the numbers are exaggerated, or someone inside Washington wants them out. Given the recent leaks, that question matters more than the headline.

[Paul Smith - Regional Affairs 🇬🇧🇮🇷 @paulmeanalysis]

Iran’s Foreign Minister says there will be no negotiations while alleged U.S. “violations” continue.

Tehran escalates, dictates conditions, then refuses talks—while Trump keeps begging for another deal.

How much longer will Trump’s Qatari handlers stop him from doing what actually needs to be done?

[Paul Smith - Regional Affairs 🇬🇧🇮🇷 @paulmeanalysis]

Trump’s silence can mean three things: he won’t risk the talks, Washington has accepted the new balance of leverage, or a response is coming. But if attacking a UAE tanker brings no consequences, Tehran will read that silence as weakness.

[Paul Smith - Regional Affairs 🇬🇧🇮🇷 @paulmeanalysis]

The IRGC says its strategy is “resistance forever, without end” and calls Hormuz a “theater of war.”
Meanwhile, Western diplomats are still searching for the magic combination of concessions that will produce moderation.
Tehran keeps explaining itself. We keep pretending not to understand.

[Paul Smith - Regional Affairs 🇬🇧🇮🇷 @paulmeanalysis]

While the world debates Iran’s missiles, Hormuz and “off-ramps,” the Islamic Republic has been busy at home.
At least 444 executions in 2026. Just 15% officially acknowledged. 24 protesters among those executed on security charges.
Wars make excellent camouflage for dictatorships.

[Paul Smith - Regional Affairs 🇬🇧🇮🇷 @paulmeanalysis]

The cracks inside the regime are getting harder to hide.

Pezeshkian didn’t deny reports that security chief Mohammad-Bagher Zolghadr offered his resignation. His response? “There are some differences that we are trying to resolve.”

Translation: everything is absolutely fine—apart from senior officials trying to quit and the president publicly admitting internal divisions.

A fractured regime pretending to be united.

[Paul Smith - Regional Affairs 🇬🇧🇮🇷 @paulmeanalysis]

@RpsAgainstTrump Their “destroyed military” is attacking tankers and holding the Strait hostage while you talk about building a “better relationship” with the regime.
JD Vance is becoming Tehran’s favourite useful idiot.

[Paul Smith - Regional Affairs 🇬🇧🇮🇷 @paulmeanalysis]

@Osint613 They mined an international waterway and are attacking ships, and JD Vance’s answer is basically: let’s figure out how to drive around the mines.
Pathetic. This isn’t deterrence. It’s accommodation.

[Paul Smith - Regional Affairs 🇬🇧🇮🇷 @paulmeanalysis]

@SundaeDivine @Osint613

[Paul Smith - Regional Affairs 🇬🇧🇮🇷 @paulmeanalysis]

@Osint613 UAE tanker attacked. Ships keep getting targeted. The Strait is being used as leverage.
Meanwhile, not a word from Trump, just more negotiations over the regime’s demands.
So much for “unconditional surrender.”

[Paul Smith - Regional Affairs 🇬🇧🇮🇷 @paulmeanalysis]

@Osint613 So now Araghchi gets to decide the price for reopening an international waterway the regime is holding hostage.
Amazing what endless negotiations can do. You start with terrorists attacking ships and end up negotiating the ransom.