تابع رؤية 2030
بذكاء سياقي

As with all wars, particularly in the world’s main oil and gas repository of the Middle East, the U.S./Israel-Iran conflict has long threatened to widen out to include other interested parties aside from the main protagonists. The involvement of Washington’s and Tel Aviv’s allies so far has been limited to intelligence sharing and strictly defensive air support, rather than participating in offensive bombardments. For Tehran and its proxies, support from its key longtime sponsors China and Russia has been largely focused on diplomatic cover and economic lifelines, together with some deniable hardware for the war being supplied to Iran by Russia and China, including microelectronics and materials required to manufacture missiles and drones. All this helped keep the global oil markets under the ‘total panic point’ that might otherwise have been expected from such a conflict. However, dangerous new developments indicate that this covert war involving Russia and China might be stepping out of the shadows and into plain sight. In Russia’s case, U.S. intelligence reports now indicate that Moscow is actively providing real-time satellite feeds and intelligence tracking on U.S. targets to Iran. This data on American warships and aircraft movements has enabled Iran to conduct far more precise retaliatory missile strikes. Moscow has also integrated its GLONASS satellite navigation system into Iranian drones, according to the same sources, allowing Tehran’s long-range projectiles to bypass allied electronic jamming more effectively. Widening out the loop even further, Iran’s newest drones and missiles also benefit from being able to track Chinese BeiDou-3 systems at the same time as Russia’s GLONASS. By merging Russia’s Ukraine-era upgrades with China’s tech, standard Western jamming systems cannot block both at once, as each system operates on entirely different radio frequencies. This gives the new drones that Iran is using against the U.S. unprecedented precision against its bases, as well as those of its allies. Related: Trump's Iran Reversal Sends European Gas Prices Tumbling In China’s case, news emerged last week from various intelligence sources that Iran is acquiring up to 400 Chinese-made Man-Portable Air-Defence Systems (MANPADS). These are highly accurate against helicopters, drones, and low-flying jets, utilising sensitive infrared and ultraviolet seekers that lock directly onto the heat signature of an aircraft’s engine, and are immune to countermeasures. They are also easy to deploy, weighing only between 15 and 20 kilograms, and basic operational training for a MANPADS launcher can be completed in less than a week. They are also impossible to locate, emitting zero electronic signature while tracking. In short, they aim to try to deny the U.S. low-altitude air superiority. As effective as these pieces of kit are, they become even more potent in the broader geopolitical context that China (and Russia) want to halt what had been, until the Iran War, a successful push by President Donald Trump to reassert U.S. influence across the Middle East. The foundation stone for this was to have been the rolling out of further ‘relationship normalisation’ deals (‘Abraham Accords’) between Israel and other Middle Eastern countries, brokered by Washington, as analysed in full in my latest book on the new global oil market order. The UAE had been the first major Middle Eastern signatory to such a deal back in 2020, and Trump had been confident that he had shifted the backdrop across the region sufficiently to pave the way for several new deals. His bullishness was based on the U.S./U.K.-led removal of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria in December 2024, which removed Russia’s key Middle Eastern power hub at a stroke, a massive surge of U.S. investment in Iraq that saw multiple new oil and gas projects awarded to American firms rather than Chinese ones, as had been the previous trend. And Trump had ensured major new investment for Saudi Arabia too, while all the time tightening the sanctions noose around its principal regional nemesis, Iran. Had Trump continued along this tack, the final obstacle to his vision of the Middle East returning to the U.S.’s sphere of influence, and away from that of China and Russia, may well have been realised. However, with direct attacks on Iran, he opened a Pandora’s Box, with the first problem flying out of it being Iran’s predictable closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which flows up to 30% of the globe’s oil and around 10% of its liquefied natural gas (LNG). Worse still, is that the Iran-backed Houthis could widen their current blockade of Saudi Arabian ports and ships sailing through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait any time they wanted to. This would lock out another 12% of the world’s crude oil flows and 8% of its LNG from the global supply chain. Added to this economic disaster for the Middle East’s energy suppliers is the daily threat from Iranian drones and missiles that target their key energy installations and vital infrastructure related to their other financial mainstay, the tourist sector. The geopolitical fallout here for the U.S. is no less catastrophic, as many of these countries are now questioning their rationale for buying hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of U.S. defence equipment and relying on Washington as their protector against Iran. It is not at all accidental that both problems could be solved very quickly -- by China. As first revealed anywhere in the world in my 3 September 2019 article and analysed in full in my latest book on the new global oil market order, under the full terms of the ‘Iran-China 25-Year Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement’, China controls much of Iran’s oil and gas resources. The deal crucially also gives Beijing enormous power over the vital oil and LNG transit routes of the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. This 16-mile-wide waterway flows between the west coast of Yemen on the one side, and the east coasts initially of Djibouti and then of Eritrea on the other, before it joins the Red Sea. The 25-year deal with Iran not only gives Beijing power over all Iran’s proxies, including the Yemeni Houthis, but China also holds huge sway over Djibouti and Eritrea through predatory loans-for-infrastructure deals given to them under its ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ programme. Put simply, China could directly affect Iran’s willingness to keep the Strait of Hormuz blockaded, and the Houthis’ appetite to do the same for the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, by simply telling Tehran to stop, and, if necessary, adding that it would halt all imports of its oil if it did not. China remains Iran’s biggest buyer of oil and Chinese ships still enjoy safe passage through both Straits. Moreover, Chinese-flagged and Chinese-operated supertankers (such as the Cosnew Lake and Xin Long Yang) have also been allowed by the Houthis to freely carry millions of barrels of Saudi and Emirati crude directly through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait without a single scratch. When it comes to a direct military confrontation with the U.S., China knows it is outmatched, and in any event this is rarely the Chinese way. As laid out in The Art of War by China’s great fifth-century military strategist Sun Tzu, ‘the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting’. This seems to be exactly the approach China is taking in the context of the current events in the Middle East. Beijing is allowing the U.S. to deplete its resources of missiles and other crucial war materiel in fighting an unwinnable hot war, while it quietly wins the strategic peace. The strategy also places China in an ideal position to broker a peace between Washington and Tehran when the situation becomes truly untenable for Trump, perhaps with a view to winning an understanding that the U.S. in return might take a softer view on future Chinese actions over Taiwan’s sovereign status. Russia may also hope to leverage its own influence on Iran to secure a peace deal with the U.S. In exchange, Moscow would likely expect Trump to push for a matching settlement in Ukraine -- one that offers a better agreement than Russia could otherwise achieve -- although this approach seems less likely to succeed than Beijing’s gambit. Meanwhile, the U.S. has signalled its own willingness to confront any further widening of the war, at least regionally. For the first time, the U.S. publicly partnered with Saudi Arabia in military strikes carried out on 28-29 July, targeting Iran-backed Popular Mobilisation Forces militia groups in Iraq. This followed an historic long-range drone strike by Ukraine on 25 July in the Caspian Sea against ships moving from Iran to Russia. Those vessels were believed to be carrying Iranian Shahed drone components and ballistic missiles destined for Moscow’s war effort against Kyiv. A Washington-based security source exclusively told OilPrice.com last week that, aside from reducing weapons deliveries, the Caspian strike signalled that the U.S. can rely on Ukraine as a vital partner in various aspects of its broader fight against Iran. By Simon Watkins for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com

A monkey trap offers a reward such as food that, when grasped, makes the hand too large to withdraw from the hole in the trap giving access to that food. Unless the monkey lets go, the animal is stuck. Now, the obvious choice when danger arrives is to simply let go and run. But, supposedly, monkeys won't let go even as human hunters approach and then club them to death. The war with Iran has become the Trump administration's monkey trap; potential victory over Iran is the prize in the trap. Strangely, the only prize now available is something that was already available before the war started: freedom of transit through the Strait of Hormuz. But now that Iran has seized control of the strait and effectively closed it to unfriendly traffic, that seizure has become the most important leverage Iran has over the United States and its allies. As long as the war continues, Iran says there will be no shipments of oil, natural gas, petrochemicals, helium, fertilizers and other key commodities except for its own and a few select shipments from friends of the regime. Since these shipments make up substantial fractions of the world's supplies, closure of the strait has sent prices of these products skyward, with shortages already appearing in many places across the globe. If the Trump administration were to let go and simply withdraw from the conflict, the move would be seen as an acknowledgment of defeat. That is something that the administration and President Donald Trump, in particular, are eager to avoid. First, the acknowledgment that a presumed-to-be second-rate power such as Iran can defeat the United States is an invitation to others to challenge American hegemony elsewhere. The South China Sea and Taiwan come to mind. Second, support from pro-Israeli groups and megadonors to the Republican Party would plummet. Third, losing a war that the vast majority of Americans opposed will only confirm that majority's view and lead to damaging defeats at the polls in the November midterm elections. And, fourth, that loss would be a huge personal embarrassment for Trump, who has always portrayed himself as a winner and who frequently calls people he dislikes losers. A victory, on the other hand, would presumably avoid all four consequences. In that regard, it is worth remembering that at the beginning of the war, the American goals had been variously explained as 1) regime change, 2) the elimination of Iran's missile capability, and 3) preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Of course, re-opening the Strait of Hormuz to unfettered navigation was not on the list because the strait was already open. Now, items one, two, and three appear unattainable. All that remains is to reopen the Strait of Hormuz without Iranian control or tolls. But the Iranians are making it a matter of having to control all or most of Iran to take control of the Strait from it. After all, they have already demonstrated that they can launch missiles and drones from hundreds of miles away from any target, including the Strait, and hit what they want with precision. Even if the U.S. military gained control of the shoreline and immediate inland areas around the strait—a dangerous and potentially costly move in treasure and life—the military could not prevent attacks by Iran on shipping from further inland. To complicate matters, dwindling U.S. munitions, both offensive and defensive, are making it more challenging for the United States to defend its bases in the Persian Gulf region and to attack Iran, especially from positions outside Iranian airspace in order to prevent U.S. aircraft from being shot down. Replenishing many of the high-tech munitions expended during the Iran war will take not months but years. Moving ahead with continuing offensive operations risks using up the remaining low inventories of anti-missile batteries and precision long-range ordnance. The choice for the Trump administration is stark: Go on the offensive and risk exposing the United States and its allies, including Israel, to greater damage as Iranian missiles and drones overpower depleted missile defense. And, if Iranian energy infrastructure is targeted, risk having much or all of the energy infrastructure in Israel and the Persian Gulf targeted in retaliation by Iran. Such destruction would almost certainly create a worldwide economic depression due to acute global shortages of oil and natural gas that could not be overcome for years. Simply withdraw and thereby accept Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz and Iran's de facto dominance in Southwest Asia. Maintain the American embargo on Iran without advancing or retreating militarily, something that will lead to the same global economic depression over time as the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. As I'm writing this piece, I'm hearing in my head the chorus of a tune made famous as the theme music for the television streaming series "Bosch." The tune is called "Can't let go" and has a chorus that repeats over and over the following line: "I got a feeling that I can't let go." It appears that President Trump has a feeling that he can't let go. Whether and when he ever does let go should concern everyone on the planet. By Kurt Cobb via Resource Insights More Top Reads From Oilprice.com

تنوّه الشركة على أهمية مراجعة نشرة الإصدار الأساسية بعناية وبشكل كامل قبل اتخاذ أي قرار استثماري يتعلق بالاكتتاب في الصكوك، علمًا بأن هذا الإعلان لا يشكل دعوة أو عرضًا لشراء أو تملك أو الاكتتاب في أي أوراق مالية، وستقوم الشركة بالإعلان عن أي تطورات جوهرية أخرى في حينها وفقًا للأنظمة واللوائح ذات العلاقة

سمو #ولي_العهد يهنئ دولة السيد نيكول باشينيان، بمناسبة إعادة تعيينه رئيسًا للوزراء في جمهورية أرمينيا. pic.twitter.com/dqZCAnw8Uj— واس الأخبار الملكية (@spagov) August 3, 2026 بعث صاحب السمو الملكي الأمير محمد بن سلمان بن عبدالعزيز آل سعود ولي العهد رئيس مجلس الوزراء، برقية تهنئة لدولة السيد نيكول باشينيان بمناسبة إعادة تعيينه رئيسًا للوزراء في جمهورية أرمينيا وأعرب سمو ولي العهد عن أصدق التهاني، وأطيب التمنيات بالتوفيق والسداد لدولته، ولشعب جمهورية أرمينيا الصديق المزيد من التقدم والرقي.

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