For years, homeowners have been told that summer is prime time for burglaries as families leave for vacations and homes sit empty. But a new analysis of FBI crime data suggests that advice only tells part of the story, according to Moneygeek.

After examining burglary reports from 74 of the nation’s largest cities between 2022 and 2024, researchers found that while burglary rises modestly during the summer nationwide, the pattern varies dramatically depending on where you live. In many parts of the country, summer really is burglary season. Along much of the West Coast, however, the opposite is true.

Overall, burglaries were just 5.6% higher during June through August than during the rest of the year, far less than the large seasonal spikes often suggested by conventional wisdom. More importantly, that national average masks major regional differences.

Moneygeek notes that cities with cold winters experienced the strongest seasonal swings. Minneapolis posted the largest increase, with summer burglaries jumping roughly 47% compared to the rest of the year. Other northern cities, including St. Paul, Newark, Buffalo and Indianapolis, also recorded significant summer increases.

Researchers believe harsh winters may naturally suppress burglary activity by keeping more people indoors and reducing opportunities for break-ins. When warmer weather arrives, vacations, student departures and increased travel may create more opportunities for property crimes.

The picture changes almost completely along the Pacific Coast.

Cities including Riverside, Portland and San Diego actually experienced fewer burglaries during the summer than during the rest of the year. Riverside showed the strongest reversal, with burglary rates falling more than 12% during the summer months. Honolulu and several other coastal cities displayed similar trends.

Rather than peaking during vacation season, many West Coast cities recorded their highest burglary activity during the winter months. Researchers suggest that milder climates eliminate the dramatic seasonal shifts seen in colder regions, leading to a much different pattern of criminal activity.

The study grouped cities into three broad climate regions. Cold-weather cities averaged nearly a 12% summer increase in burglaries, while Sun Belt cities showed only a modest seasonal change of roughly 5%. Pacific Coast cities, meanwhile, averaged a slight decline in burglary during the summer.

The findings also challenge the idea that homeowners across the country should prepare for burglary risk at the same time each year.

For residents in northern cities, traditional summer precautions—such as using timers, security cameras, holding mail and checking alarm systems—appear well supported by the data. But homeowners along the West Coast may actually benefit more from increasing those precautions during the colder months instead.

Researchers caution that the data does not prove why these seasonal patterns exist. The FBI’s monthly statistics also combine residential and commercial burglaries, making it impossible to isolate exactly what’s driving the differences. Still, the geographic pattern was remarkably consistent, with cold-weather cities showing substantially stronger summer increases than their Pacific Coast counterparts.

The broader takeaway is that there is no single national “burglary season.” Instead, burglary trends appear to be heavily influenced by regional climate and local conditions, suggesting that homeowners may want to think about seasonal security differently depending on where they live.

Authored by Madge Waggy,

Most people imagine that the beginning of a crisis announces itself with unmistakable spectacle. We picture fighter aircraft crossing national borders, emergency broadcasts interrupting television programs or financial markets collapsing within a single afternoon. It is an understandable expectation because history is usually taught through decisive moments rather than the countless ordinary decisions that quietly shaped them. Yet those who spend their careers inside engineering firms, logistics agencies, intelligence communities or infrastructure operators often develop a very different understanding of how the modern world changes. They learn that the first indication of an approaching storm is rarely dramatic. It is more likely to appear inside revised procurement schedules, altered technical standards, infrastructure assessments, budget reallocations or conference presentations attended by specialists whose work almost never attracts public attention. By the time newspapers discover a story worth printing, the people responsible for keeping societies functioning have often been adapting to it for years.

That quiet transformation has become increasingly visible throughout the past decade. Public guidance issued by organizations responsible for protecting critical infrastructure has gradually adopted a vocabulary that barely existed in mainstream discussion twenty years ago. Engineers now speak routinely about degraded environments, operational resilience, segmented industrial networks, manual recovery procedures, continuity during communications failures and prolonged operation without external support. None of those expressions should be interpreted as evidence that catastrophe is imminent. They reflect a practical reality familiar to every experienced systems engineer: sufficiently complex networks cannot be made invulnerable, only more resilient. As industrial automation, cloud services, satellite communications and artificial intelligence have become intertwined with electricity, transportation, finance and healthcare, protecting every connection has become less realistic than ensuring that essential services continue operating even when individual components fail.

The evolution of that philosophy became particularly noticeable during (May 2026), when the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency introduced CI Fortify, a genuine initiative encouraging operators of critical infrastructure to strengthen their ability to isolate essential operational systems, maintain continuity under degraded conditions and recover safely after sophisticated cyber incidents. Read on its own, the guidance appears entirely reasonable. Governments prepare for unlikely events because preparing after they occur is no preparation at all. Utilities routinely rehearse emergency procedures, hospitals conduct disaster exercises and telecommunications providers regularly test continuity plans. None of that should surprise anyone familiar with critical infrastructure. What deserves closer attention is not the existence of those preparations, but the remarkable consistency with which similar assumptions have begun appearing across sectors that once planned almost independently.

When Separate Warnings Began Pointing in the Same Direction

Viewed individually, the defining infrastructure events of recent years appear entirely unrelated. The cyberattacks that disrupted portions of Ukraine’s electrical grid during (2015–2016) demonstrated that industrial control systems could become direct targets during geopolitical conflict. The Colonial Pipeline ransomware incident in (2021) revealed how disruption affecting digital business environments could rapidly produce consequences extending far beyond computer networks. Public advisories released between (2023–2025) described persistent activity attributed to groups such as Volt Typhoon, focusing less on immediate destruction than on quietly establishing access to communications and infrastructure considered strategically important. Around the same period, numerous governments expanded investment in transformer manufacturing, emergency communications, domestic semiconductor initiatives, resilience exercises and continuity planning for sectors supporting essential public services. Each development possesses a logical explanation when examined independently. Together, however, they reveal something more interesting than any single incident ever could: institutions responsible for infrastructure increasingly appear to be planning for prolonged disruption rather than isolated emergencies.

That distinction matters because it changes the questions engineers ask. Traditional emergency planning assumes that neighboring regions remain capable of providing assistance. Severe storms damage one area while another sends repair crews. Flooding interrupts one transportation corridor while alternative routes remain available. Cyber incidents affecting individual organizations can often be contained with outside expertise, replacement hardware and unaffected communications. Planning for prolonged disruption is fundamentally different. It quietly assumes that assistance itself may become slower, limited or temporarily unavailable because multiple systems are experiencing strain simultaneously. Once that possibility enters the equation, resilience is no longer measured by how quickly help arrives. It is measured by how effectively critical services continue functioning before help can arrive at all.

Among specialists, this shift has inspired an increasingly sophisticated discussion about dependency rather than vulnerability. Modern civilization depends upon far more than electricity alone. Reliable electrical transmission supports telecommunications. Telecommunications synchronize banking, emergency services, transportation and logistics. Satellite timing enables countless digital systems that most people never realize depend upon it. Cloud computing has become deeply integrated into industries that once operated almost entirely through local infrastructure. Hospitals rely upon uninterrupted electrical supply while simultaneously depending on communications, pharmaceutical logistics, refrigeration, digital imaging and increasingly interconnected medical equipment. Every improvement introduced over the past two decades has increased efficiency, yet every improvement has also woven another thread into a fabric whose overall strength depends upon thousands of relationships functioning at the same time.

One veteran electrical engineer, speaking during a public infrastructure symposium several years ago, summarized that reality in a sentence that received polite applause before disappearing into the conference proceedings.

“The strongest systems are rarely the ones with the fewest weaknesses. They’re the ones that continue working after the first weakness has already been discovered.”

At the time, the remark sounded like little more than professional wisdom shared among colleagues. Read today, against the backdrop of evolving resilience strategies, it carries a noticeably different weight. The conversation surrounding infrastructure is no longer centered exclusively on preventing failure. Increasingly, it asks how societies continue functioning when failure, in one form or another, inevitably arrives.

The Hardware Beneath the Illusion

The digital economy has cultivated an extraordinary illusion: that civilization has somehow detached itself from the physical world. Financial markets appear to move through invisible algorithms, artificial intelligence exists inside distant cloud platforms, governments communicate through encrypted networks that seem to occupy no tangible space at all. Yet every byte crossing an ocean still depends upon glass fibers resting on the seabed. Every intelligent machine relies upon semiconductor fabrication plants that cannot simply be replicated in another country within a few months. Every modern city remains anchored to substations, transformers, switchyards and transmission corridors whose design has changed far less dramatically than the software now controlling portions of their operation. Beneath the elegant surface of digital civilization lies an industrial skeleton assembled over generations, and unlike software, steel does not receive overnight updates.

Engineers responsible for maintaining electrical transmission systems rarely describe the grid as a machine. They describe it as a living balance. Electricity exists only because generation and consumption remain synchronized across enormous distances every second of every day. A disturbance in one region does not politely remain where it began; the network responds instantly, redistributing stress according to immutable physical laws rather than human expectations. Decades of engineering have produced protection systems capable of isolating faults before they propagate, making today’s electrical grids remarkably reliable by historical standards. That reliability, however, often conceals the extraordinary precision required to sustain it. Millions of people experience nothing more dramatic than a light switch responding exactly as expected, never realizing that countless automated decisions have already occurred long before the room became illuminated.

Large transformers occupy a unique position within that ecosystem. They are simultaneously ordinary and irreplaceable. Most consumers never notice them, yet they quietly regulate the flow of electricity between generating stations and distribution networks serving entire metropolitan regions. Manufacturing one is neither simple nor rapid. Specialized steel, precision winding, insulation systems, exhaustive testing and carefully planned transportation all contribute to production timelines measured in months rather than days. Industry reports have repeatedly highlighted concerns surrounding global manufacturing capacity for these components, encouraging utilities to diversify suppliers and improve long-term planning. Those discussions are rooted in practical logistics rather than sensational predictions, yet they reveal something important about the modern age: resilience increasingly depends not only upon defending infrastructure, but upon preserving the industrial capability required to rebuild it.

The Architecture of Dependence

If electricity forms the nervous system of contemporary civilization, information has become its circulatory system. The overwhelming majority of international internet traffic still traverses undersea fiber-optic cables stretching silently across the ocean floor, linking continents through infrastructure that receives remarkably little public attention considering the volume of global commerce it supports. Satellite constellations contribute precise timing signals essential for telecommunications, navigation, banking and electrical synchronization. Cloud computing has concentrated immense computational capability within a comparatively limited number of facilities distributed across strategic regions. Individually, each system possesses redundancy and sophisticated safeguards. Together, they form an intricate architecture whose greatest strength lies in cooperation rather than isolation.

Infrastructure researchers frequently note that efficiency naturally encourages concentration. Manufacturers specialize where expertise already exists. Logistics hubs expand because traffic is already flowing through them. Data centers emerge where energy, connectivity and climate create economic advantages. The process is rational, incremental and almost invisible while it unfolds. Only much later does the resulting map reveal itself, showing how entire industries gradually clustered around a relatively small collection of indispensable locations. Such concentration is not evidence of negligence. It is often the inevitable consequence of decades spent optimizing performance, reducing costs and increasing reliability. Yet optimization introduces a subtle trade-off. Systems become extraordinarily capable during ordinary conditions while requiring increasingly sophisticated planning to remain equally capable during extraordinary ones.

This changing landscape has influenced resilience planning across numerous sectors. Public frameworks released during recent years increasingly emphasize continuity under degraded conditions, regional cooperation, diversified supply chains and the preservation of essential industrial capacity. Rather than assuming uninterrupted global logistics, planners have begun considering scenarios in which replacement equipment arrives more slowly, specialized expertise becomes temporarily scarce and communication between organizations grows less predictable. None of these assumptions requires a dramatic trigger. Natural disasters, geopolitical tension, technical failures or overlapping disruptions could all produce similar operational challenges. The common denominator is not catastrophe itself, but the recognition that interconnected systems recover according to the pace of their slowest critical dependency.

The New Currency of Strategic Competition

Competition between major powers has evolved alongside the infrastructure supporting modern societies. During much of the twentieth century, strategic advantage was often measured through visible indicators—industrial production, military hardware or territorial influence. The twenty-first century has introduced a quieter dimension in which resilience itself has become a form of national capability. Governments invest not only in stronger defenses, but in redundancy, domestic manufacturing, emergency communications, diversified energy sources and continuity planning designed to ensure that essential services endure even when conditions become unusually demanding. Those investments are rarely accompanied by dramatic public announcements because preparedness seldom attracts sustained attention during periods of relative stability. Nevertheless, their cumulative effect reveals an increasingly sophisticated appreciation for how deeply national security and civilian infrastructure have become intertwined.

Artificial intelligence is beginning to influence that relationship in ways still unfolding. Defensive systems already employ machine learning to identify anomalous network activity, prioritize alerts and assist analysts responsible for protecting vast digital environments. At the same time, researchers openly acknowledge that similar technologies can accelerate reconnaissance, automate portions of vulnerability discovery and increase the speed at which complex information is analyzed. Like previous technological revolutions, AI is unlikely to eliminate the importance of human judgment; instead, it is gradually compressing the time available for that judgment to be exercised. Decisions that once unfolded over days may increasingly require responses within minutes, placing greater value on preparation completed long before any incident occurs.

Perhaps that explains why resilience has become one of the defining themes of contemporary infrastructure planning. The objective is no longer simply to construct stronger systems. It is to ensure that societies retain the ability to adapt when conditions depart from expectations. Whether future disruptions arise from cyber incidents, natural disasters, geopolitical crises or combinations that no planner can fully predict, the institutions responsible for keeping modern civilization functioning appear to be converging upon a remarkably consistent conclusion. The most valuable capability may not be preventing every failure. It may be preserving enough stability that recovery remains possible before uncertainty has an opportunity to become something far more difficult to measure: a loss of confidence in the systems people once assumed would always be there when they reached for the light switch.

The Last Illusion

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of modern civilization is not its technological sophistication, but the confidence it has quietly cultivated in the permanence of that sophistication. Entire generations have grown up believing that electricity, communications, digital finance, satellite navigation and global logistics are constants rather than achievements maintained every hour by millions of interconnected decisions. We rarely stop to consider how many engineers, technicians, dispatchers and operators stand between ordinary life and extraordinary disruption because, on most days, their greatest success is remaining invisible. The world functions so consistently that continuity itself has become almost impossible to appreciate until it is interrupted.

History, however, has rarely been generous toward assumptions of permanence. Every era eventually discovers that the systems appearing strongest are often those that have simply not yet encountered the combination of pressures capable of exposing their hidden limits. That observation is not a prediction of collapse, nor is it evidence that disaster waits just beyond the horizon. It is simply the lesson repeated by complex societies across centuries. Stability is never a destination reached once and preserved forever; it is a condition renewed continuously through preparation, maintenance and adaptation. The documents now published by infrastructure agencies around the world reflect that understanding with increasing clarity. They speak less about preventing every conceivable failure and more about preserving the ability to function when prevention proves incomplete. Quietly, almost imperceptibly, resilience has replaced certainty as the defining objective.

Imagine, then, a future evening that arrives without warning and without spectacle. There are no air raid sirens, no dramatic broadcasts interrupting television programming and no unmistakable declaration that history has changed course. Instead, the first indications are so ordinary that almost everyone dismisses them. A district experiences an unexpected outage lasting longer than anticipated. Mobile networks become unreliable in another region. Freight movements slow because several digital systems require manual verification. Financial transactions begin taking a little longer to settle. Emergency maintenance teams receive an unusually high number of unrelated service requests within the same twenty-four-hour period. Individually, every incident possesses a perfectly reasonable explanation. Collectively, they form a pattern that remains invisible precisely because no single event appears extraordinary enough to command immediate attention.

Days later, normality gradually returns. Electricity is restored, communications stabilize, transportation resumes its familiar rhythm and public attention shifts toward newer headlines. For most people, the episode survives only as a temporary inconvenience, another brief disruption absorbed into the endless flow of modern life. Yet inside the control centers responsible for keeping those systems alive, the memory lingers differently. Engineers archive operational data, compare response timelines, revise contingency procedures and quietly alter assumptions that had remained unchanged for years. The infrastructure looks exactly as it did before, but the confidence surrounding it has subtly evolved. Experience has introduced questions that routine maintenance alone cannot answer.

Perhaps that is the quiet transformation history records most often and society notices least. Great changes seldom announce themselves at the moment they begin. More often, they emerge gradually, hidden within revised engineering standards, procurement decisions, emergency exercises and technical language that appears too mundane to deserve public attention. Years later, when historians search for the moment everything started to shift, they rarely find a single defining event. Instead, they discover countless ordinary decisions made by people who recognized that the world had become more complicated than it appeared from the outside.

The unsettling possibility is not that the lights may one day fail. Every electrical system eventually experiences interruptions, and every infrastructure operator plans accordingly. The more thought-provoking possibility is that one day the lights will return exactly as expected, the streets will fill once again with traffic, financial markets will reopen, phones will reconnect and daily routines will continue almost unchanged—while somewhere beyond public view, the people entrusted with maintaining those systems quietly acknowledge that the assumptions guiding them for decades are no longer sufficient. If such a moment ever arrives, the most profound change may not be visible in darkened skylines or silent cities. It may exist only inside the minds of those who understand that the next interruption will no longer be measured by how quickly electricity returns, but by how much confidence disappeared before it did.

New data show that Saudi Arabia purchased a record $47.2 million worth of small drones from Taiwan last month, underscoring how governments are beginning to rapidly procure suicide drones.

Bloomberg was the first to cite new data from Taiwan’s Ministry of Finance showing that drone exports surged in June, driven by a record order from Saudi Arabia. The timing suggests Riyadh absorbed many hard lessons during the US-Iran conflict and is moving quickly to build stockpiles of one-way attack and interceptor drones.

The exported drones weighed roughly 7 to 15 kilograms – or up to 30 pounds – and in a recent report by Piper Sandler analyst Clarke Jeffries, these drones are considered Group 1 and Group 2.

Jeffries laid out three key insights about the rapidly changing defense landscape:

He also listed ways to profit from the drone industry as the wave of orders begins:

Read:

• “Only The Beginning”: How To Profit From The Asymmetric Warfare Boom

It’s not only one-way attack and interceptor drones that will be produced en masse globally, but also counter-AUS technology to defend high-value assets such as refineries, ports, data centers, and power grid infrastructure

.Related:

• US Military Races To Harden Strategic Nuclear Bases With Counter-Drone AI Shield

In the mergers and acquisitions space, DZYNE Technologies – a maker of drones, loitering munition-type systems, and counter-drone technology – was recently sold by its investors to Nasdaq-listed defense and industrial technology firm Ondas Holdings for a handsome profit.

To begin the week, Bloomberg reported that drone company Helsing completed a $18 billion financing round from investors, including Goldman Sachs.

Refer to our note above on how to profit from the asymmetric warfare boom, as this theme will continue.

Authored by Charles Bass and Richard Swett via RealClearPolitics.com,

Who was David Brat?

Many Americans have forgotten the name. We haven’t.

In 2014, David Brat, then a little-known economics professor, stunned the political world by defeating House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a Republican primary in Virginia. At the time, most observers viewed the upset as an isolated event – a local revolt against an established leader who had lost touch with his district. In retrospect, it was something much larger. David Brat’s victory was an early warning shot. It signaled that a powerful populist movement was building within the Republican Party, one fueled by frustration, distrust of institutions, anger toward political elites, and a conviction among many voters that neither party was listening to them. Two years later, that same current helped propel Donald Trump to the presidency and fundamentally reshape the Republican Party.

As we watched with dismay the results of the New York Democratic congressional primaries, the memory of David Brat came floating back.

What happened in New York may prove to be a similar moment for Democrats. For years, political analysts have treated populism as primarily a Republican phenomenon. That was always a mistake. Populism is not an ideology. It is a political force. It can emerge from the left or the right. It thrives whenever large numbers of citizens conclude that the people running the country’s major institutions no longer understand or care about their concerns.

Today, both parties are confronting their own versions of that phenomenon.

The populism that has transformed the Republican Party often channels its frustrations toward immigration, globalization, cultural change, and government dependency. The populism now emerging within parts of the Democratic coalition directs its anger toward concentrated wealth, large corporations, and what it sees as entrenched political and economic power. The targets differ. The emotions do not. At its core, populism reflects a broad loss of confidence in elites – political, economic, academic, media, and corporate. Millions of Americans increasingly believe that the institutions that once commanded public trust are no longer delivering results, no longer accountable, and no longer responsive.

That sentiment has been building for years. The financial crisis damaged confidence in Wall Street. Endless political gridlock damaged confidence in Washington. Social media accelerated distrust of traditional news organizations. Rising housing costs, student debt, stagnant wages, and growing economic inequality left many younger Americans questioning whether the system works for them at all. When confidence in institutions erodes, voters look elsewhere.

They become more willing to embrace candidates who promise disruption rather than stability, confrontation rather than compromise, and sweeping change rather than incremental reform.

As former members of Congress who represented New Hampshire’s Second Congressional District from opposite political parties, we find this trend deeply troubling. American democracy has historically depended on a broad center. Progress came not because one side achieved total victory, but because competing interests eventually found common ground. The system was designed to reward coalition-building and compromise. Today, compromise is increasingly viewed as weakness.

Moderation is often treated as betrayal. Political incentives now favor outrage over persuasion and ideological purity over practical governance. That dynamic is affecting both parties.

The Republican Party has already experienced a dramatic populist transformation.

The Democratic Party may now be entering a similar period of internal upheaval.

Whether that process ultimately reshapes Democratic politics as profoundly as Trump’s movement reshaped the GOP remains to be seen. But the signs are increasingly difficult to ignore.

What concerns us most is that the underlying forces driving these movements are not going away. Neither party has yet found a convincing answer to the frustrations that fuel populism. Economic insecurity remains widespread. Institutional trust remains low. Political polarization continues to deepen. Younger voters are increasingly skeptical of traditional leadership. Social media amplifies anger faster than solutions. These are not temporary conditions. They are structural challenges.

As strange as American politics has seemed over the last decade, we should not assume we have reached the end of the story. We may only be in the middle chapters. The populist wave that transformed the Republican Party did not stop with Eric Cantor’s defeat. It gathered strength over time. The same could happen on the Democratic side.

We hope we are wrong. We hope both parties rediscover the value of practical problem-solving, responsible leadership, and the political center. Our country needs strong institutions and leaders willing to govern rather than simply mobilize outrage. But history suggests that once public confidence in elites begins to break down, the forces unleashed are difficult to contain. David Brat’s victory was not the cause of the populist transformation of the Republican Party. It was a symptom. What happened in New York may be another symptom. And if that is true, American politics is about to get a lot more unpredictable.

The tide is rising. We may not be able to control it. But we would be wise to understand it.

By Michael Every of Rabobank

Hormuz update: Comfortably Bomb

Summary

• The US-Iran MoU appears to have collapsed sooner than we had thought.
• With both sides striking the other, US efforts will turn to ensuring energy can flow through Hormuz ‘the hard way’ via escorting ships through it.
• For now, markets are saying the US can ‘comfortably bomb’ and ‘there is no pain’ even if the ‘MoU are receding’, mostly due to finite SPR drains and low Chinese oil imports.
• That gives the US a window for action: if it can keep enough oil flowing through Hormuz, which is our base case, it underlines military action can move markets in a desired direction; if it fails, we face a far larger energy crisis with far less in the tank as mitigants – or a geostrategic reckoning.

We argued the June 17 US-Iran memorandum of understanding temporarily suited both sides but would last, at best, until the US midterm elections and would ultimately collapse due to its inherent contradictions over tolls, sanctions, Lebanon, and uranium. At time of writing on 13 July, the US and Iran have separately declared the “ceasefire” and “diplomacy” as over. Both were striking the other, albeit not yet all-out as at the start of the war. Typically, the IRGC has declared that the Strait of Hormuz is now closed – and the US that it is still very much open for business.

There is no pain

Regardless, the market response has been constrained. At Asian market open on Monday, Brent was only up around 4% to $79, for example (Figure 1). In short, markets continue to treat a new active conflict around the Strait of Hormuz as containable.

That’s the case for several reasons. First, inventory draws have eased immediate pressure. Second, China is keeping its oil imports subdued. Third, some energy workarounds have emerged. Lastly, there has been some demand destruction.

This is not a sustainable long-term dynamic, but for a few weeks, or months at most, the market may continue to say “there is no pain” in spot oil prices even if wide crack spreads were already telling another story on refined products before this latest fighting started.

The key question is if this is a temporary or a longer-term geopolitical issue: arguably it’s both. However, the US may be gambling it can resolve the Hormuz situation to the energy market’s satisfaction before things become critical.

MoU are receding

The Hormuz disagreement stems from the MoU’s Article 5, which stated:

“Upon the signing of this MoU, Iran will make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels, with no charge for 60 days only, from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman, and vice versa. The traffic of commercial vessels will immediately start, and considering the need for removing the technical and military obstacles, and de-mining by Iran, will be instated within 30 days. Iran will conduct dialogue with the Sultanate of Oman, to define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz, in discussions with other Persian Gulf Littoral States, in line with applicable international law and the sovereign rights of coastal states of the Strait of Hormuz.”

Iran took this to mean it controlled all of Hormuz, including outside its own territorial waters, and could toll maritime traffic there.

The US took it to mean that Iran couldn’t and set up an alternative toll-free route via Omani waters. Iran has since attacked ships using this alternative route. That was the proximate trigger for the latest rounds of US strikes on Iranian facilities on islands within Hormuz and along its coastline aimed at degrading Tehran’s ability to project control over the waterway; and of Iranian counterstrikes.

The MoU therefore collapsed over the easiest of its contradictions to resolve, tolls, which could have been relabelled as ‘fees’. That presents a daunting challenge for market optimism as it implies US-Iran tensions are here to stay on multiple fronts.

However, it also focuses the immediate problem –and US and Iranian attention– on physical control of Hormuz.

A distant ship smoke on the horizon 

The message from US CENTCOM is clear: “The Strait of Hormuz is open to all vessels seeking to lawfully transit the international waterway. US forces are positioned and prepared to ensure that freedom of navigation remains available despite unwarranted Iranian aggression, harassment, threats, and arbitrary declarations. Iran does not control the strait. Traffic is flowing.” In pledging this, the US aims to ensure that Hormuz doesn’t bother markets the way that it did earlier in the war. That implies: 

1. Taking out Iranian facilities in and along Hormuz so the threat to the southern Omani channel is diminished. 

2. Providing defensive cover for ships passing through from drones, missiles, small boats, and mines, etc.  

3. Shielding GCC allies, particularly their energy and critical infrastructure, but where stocks of missile interceptors are reportedly low. Very notably, Iran has so far not struck at these key GCC facilities again in recent attacks. That could suggest Tehran realises there are limits to what it can do to its neighbours if it also wants to offer alternative regional leadership ahead.  

These US tasks, mirroring the late-80’s Operation Earnest Will in the Iran-Iraq War’s Tanker phase, may require help from the GCC and NATO. While US allies have been reticent to (publicly) act in this regard until now –and the Saudis blocked Operation Project Freedom with the same goal– that dynamic may change with the recent narrow avoidance of an energy crisis and the narrative that Iran alone is now blocking Hormuz.  

Moreover, it has been revealed that the US continued with a covert version of Project Freedom anyway without Saudi assistance. 

You are only coming through in waves 

It’s credible to assume US (and GCC/coalition) naval escorts with air cover could move substantial energy volumes through Hormuz via Omani waters even under duress. Recent operational data suggest the US military directly escorted tankers carrying significant amounts of oil successfully through the Strait. The US claims this was as high as 7 million barrels per day. Sustained throughput of meaningful amounts of oil and products via these military escorts appears theoretically feasible, albeit at higher costs from insurance premia and longer transit times. That turns a serious supply shock into a manageable disruption. 

At the same time, it’s realistic to expect that on top of a cancelled Iranian oil sanctions waiver, the US could reimpose its blockade on Iranian oil to increase economic pressure on it.  

We can also expect more efforts to build alternative supply chains and pipelines that avoid Hormuz as possible around it. None of them are a short-term palliative to match the Saudi East West pipeline to Yanbu, but in the longer run they will reduce Iran’s leverage even further.  

Your lips move but I can’t hear what you’re saying 

President Trump has called the Iranians “liars” and “scum” and Iran has stated it wants “revenge” and to kill him. Both sides have made their red lines explicit and have shown they are prepared to enforce them kinetically. The most positive near-term path is continued tit-for-tat pressure, punctuated by attempts at limited talks that produce little beyond contradictory statements.  

Markets pricing for a resolution of this crisis from a diplomatic perspective or a ‘TACO’ are likely wrong. However, US hard power could also achieve the same benign outcome.  

I can’t explain, you would not understand 

Markets and analysts are rightly confused by all the contradictory signals being seen around this crisis: declining inventories, wide crack spreads, the renewed cut-off of Iranian oil, intensifying military action and perhaps more later – yet energy prices have not blown out. It perhaps helps to underline who has been winning and losing and who could emerge as the final victor and how. 

This is not how I(ran) am

Iran was heavily beaten militarily while exposing key US defensive weaknesses; then it was handed a win in peace negotiations due to energy market pressure on Trump; now, with oil prices contained, it has overplayed its weak hand and is under a new phase of US pressure: 

• Iran could potentially lose effective control of Hormuz. 
• Iran gets no sanctions relief as well as no oil sales if the US blockades it. 
• Iran gets no assets unfrozen nor a $300bn in FDI for an economy shattered by the recent war. 
• In Lebanon, peace progress has been on Israeli and Lebanese not Iranian/Hezbollah terms; 
• Iran’s proxy in Syria has been lost and is working on a pipeline to help Iraq avoid Hormuz; Iraq’s pro-Iranian militias are being constrained by the government; the Houthis remain quiet; and Hamas has agreed to cede power in Gaza, if not disarm. 
• Iran’s highly enriched uranium will clearly not be discussed, with reports Tehran is trying to rebuild its nuclear facilities. The US will have to address this too, but that perhaps via the air rather than boots on the ground, as in 2025. 
• None of that means the US is aiming at regime change even if Israel says it is. Yet, Tehran could find itself regionally shrunken, economically ‘caged’, and geopolitically ignored. 

But that’s only if the US wins the Battle of Hormuz. As repeatedly stressed, a US defeat or retreat would flip the script. That’s why we have continuously argued the US will use kinetic force (and, if absolutely necessary, radical economic statecraft in the energy sector, i.e., NAFTA > NAPHTHA) 

I have become Comfortably Bomb

Markets can therefore enjoy a form of geopolitical anaesthesia: “geopolitical risk equals higher energy prices” is not firing fully because so much oil has been injected into our global system.

The US SPR cushion could last a few more months at current rates of depletion; so could Japan’s SPR; and China has kept its oil import volumes subdued and has vast reserves. Indeed, there’s little logic –beyond a statecraft escalation vs the US– for China to restart buying oil aggressively while the US undertakes military action to try to free up Hormuz which, ordinarily, would suit China. (The only caveat being that Iran has promised a ‘friends and family’ discount to Chinese ships on its proposed tolls.)

As such, the market seems to be telling the US to ‘comfortably bomb’ – but only on the unspoken assumption that its attempts to keep Hormuz open work. That is our geopolitical base case given the historical track record and the overall stakes.

However, if it fails, and/or if Iran steps up its attacks against GCC energy and infrastructure regardless of the regional bridges (and refineries and desalination plants, etc) that it burns, then we would face a serious global energy crisis, and with much less left in the tank as potential mitigants.

At the least, the US –with midterms looming– would again have to pause until after them; and at the most, we could see the return of narratives heard a few months ago and still echoing in places – that the US is unable to use its military power to achieve its strategic goals, with enormous geopolitical and geoeconomic consequences.

The full implications of that thought should be enough to leave any strategist comfortably numb.

Summary

• Trump formally notifies Congress US has resumed war with Iran.
• Trump warns will hit Iran ‘hard’ tonight or tomorrow; Pentagon confirms 3rd night of strikes has begun.
• Reports of Houthi missiles launched on Saudi Arabia: oil extends gains near month-highs.
• Trump says US blockade of Iran ports ‘reinstated’: states that US to be reimbursed at rate of 20% of cargo shipped for vessels wishing to transit. CENTCOM affirms with closure message.
• Strikes escalated over weekend: US hit over 140 Iranian military targets; Iran attacks US-linked facilities across the Gulf.
• Shipping tensions boil: Iran claims the strait is closed, but commercial vessels continue transiting under US protection.
• Oil prices climb: on rising risk to global shipping & energy markets, as diplomacy clearly unraveling.

WH Formally Notifies Congress War has Resumed

We are very far past the little “excursion” the administration talked about in the earlier phases of Operation Epic Fury, per reports late this afternoon and early evening:

President Trump formally notified Congress last week that the U.S. has resumed military strikes against Iran, providing the Pentagon an extra 60 days to utilize U.S. forces in the U.S. Central Command (Centcom) theater absent congressional approval. 

Trump told lawmakers in a 2-page letter on Friday that U.S. strikes resumed against Iran on July 7, alerting legislators in line with the War Powers Act, which stipulates the commander-in-chief has to inform Congress within two days of the military conducting kinetic action abroad. 

President Trump is still insisting that the US won’t get sucked into a ground war, akin the Iraq or Afghan wars. “United States ground forces are not involved in these strikes. These strikes are limited, measured, planned and executed in a manner designed to minimize civilian casualties,” the president wrote in the letter.

Overnight reports say Iran has in turn renewed its retaliation on Gulf allies hosting American bases, especially Bahrain.

Pentagon Announced 3rd Night of Major Strikes

In case anyone had doubts that the region has witnessed a return to full-scale US-Iran war, CENTCOM has announced that it has begun launching the third consecutive night of strikes on Iran in the overnight hours (local):

This as President Trump has claimed Monday that the US had a “deal with [Iran] two days ago” but that Tehran wanted “to negotiate it further”. However when asked by a reporter whether he thinks a negotiated settlement is no longer possible Trump responded: “I never reached that conclusion.”

He explained his beleif that the “most effective” way to put pressure on Iran is va a combination of a blockade and “hitting them”. Earlier he and the Pentagon announced that a full blockade of Iranian ports is back on.

JUST IN – US strikes against Iran begin pic.twitter.com/YWCvSepJp8

— Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) July 13, 2026

New deaths the the Strait of Hormuz being reported:

*UAE SAYS ATTACK KILLED ONE CREW MEMBER, INJURED 8

*UAE SAYS TANKERS WERE HIT IN SOUTHERN PATHWAY OF HORMUZ STRAIT https://t.co/Pj7g3cOG9Z

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 13, 2026

Fresh Trump statement, oil extends gains

The US is going to hit Iran hard on Monday night and Tuesday, Trump has previewed in remarks to conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.

When asked about the MoU, Trump said it was a “test” for Iran, which “they did not honor”. The remarks came just as reports emerged of more IRGC attacks on vessels seeking to transit the Strait of Hormuz.

OIL PRICES EXTEND GAINS IN POST SETTLEMENT TRADE, RISES 10%

There’s a rich irony in terms of the day this will be implemented, an anniversary of sorts:

The US has said it will reimpose its naval blockade of Iran on Tuesday, on what would have been the 11th anniversary of the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The landmark nuclear was finalised in Vienna on July 14, 2015 after being agreed by Iran, Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.

The negative return to full war headlines have come one after another on Monday

• IRAN’S TASNIM SAYS SEVERAL ‘VIOLATING’ VESSELS WERE TARGETED IN THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ
• TRUMP SAYS US WILL HIT IRAN ‘HARD’ TONIGHT AND TOMORROW
• TRUMP: IRAN MOU WAS BUILT TO TEST
• TRUMP NOTIFIES CONGRESS OF NEW WAR AGAINST IRAN: POLITICO
• TRUMP ON IRAN: WE HAD A DEAL YESTERDAY, THEY BREAK DEALS
• Iranian state media cites the army stating that it targeted US military facilities and equipment in Kuwait with drones, while it also targeted a ‘hostile’ US vessel with cruise missiles

Oil Surges To Month-Highs on Yemen Missile Attack on Saudi Arabia

Reports are emerging out of Saudi Arabia of inbound ballistic missile attacks on its air bases and/or an international airport. With Houthi potential involvement unfolding, there are fears that this war is now rapidly expanding. Oil is reacting to what is both the complete unraveling of the MoU and new signs of the Houthis joining the war on Iran’s side:

• US blockade encompasses entirety of Iranian coastline: RTRS
• Saudi defenses dealing with Houthi missile attack: Alekhbariya
• Tasnim reports of an attack on Abha International Airport in Saudi Arabia
• Yemeni war media identifies the coordinates of important airports and ports in Saudi Arabia that will likely be targeted by Houthi attacks, reports Tasnim
• Explosions heard on Iran’s Larak Island in Hormuz Strait: Tasnim
• Several violating ships were targeted in the Strait of Hormuz, reports Tasnim

WTI climbs to near $78 around one month highs…

CENTCOM statement affirming Trump’s blockade announcement:

At the Commander in Chief’s direction, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces will resume blockading maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports on July 14 at 4 p.m. ET.

CENTCOM forces will enforce the blockade against vessels transiting to or from Iranian ports and coastal areas. The U.S. military continues to support traffic flow through regional waters for all vessels not violating the blockade.

The resumption of the U.S. blockade against Iran follows the initial implementation from April 13 to June 18. CENTCOM forces redirected more than 140 compliant vessels, disabled nine non-compliant ships, and allowed over 50 commercial vessels supporting humanitarian aid to pass through the blockade during the two-month period.

All mariners are advised to monitor Notice to Mariners broadcasts and contact U.S. naval forces on bridge-to-bridge channel 16 when operating in the Gulf of Oman and Strait of Hormuz approaches.

Iran Foreign Minister response:

POTUS is absolutely right. Whoever provides secure and safe passage of commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz should be compensated for this service.

Iran has always been the GUARDIAN of the Strait and will remain so FOREVER.

20% is of course too much. We will be fair

— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) July 13, 2026

Iran: Pay a 1% toll and you’ve got guaranteed safe passage through Hormuz.

Trump: Pay a 20% toll and get shot at while crossing.

Which transit scheme do you think the world would prefer? 🤔 https://t.co/gd5DNh5xL0

— Rosemary Kelanic (@RKelanic) July 13, 2026

Trump: Blockade Reinstated, US To Be ‘Reimbursed’ on 20% of Cargo

A stunning new Trump statement via Truth Social, proposing that the United States will collect an astounding rate of 20% of cargo shipped for vessels wishing to transit the Strait of Hormuz. He has declared the US military is “reinstating the Iranian blockade” due to the IRGC continuing to try and enforce Iran’s own protocol. This could of course amount to a US ‘fee’ of tens of millions of dollars for each vessel, significantly more than what Iran was seeking to impose. Iran’s retaliation continues? New reports of major incident in Saudi Arabia:

Oil extends gains, rise 7% to session highs:

Oil jumps this morning on the bellow succession of headlines…

• IRAN’S REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS SPOKESPERSON: WE CONTINUE TO ASSERT OUR AUTHORITY AND CONTROL OVER THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ
• TRUMP: REINSTATING THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE
• TRUMP: US WILL BE REIMBURSED 20% ON CARGO FROM HORMUZ

Trump: US to Take Over Strait & Get Paid For It

President Trump in surprising commentary issued to “Fox & Friends” has said the United States will probably take over the Strait of Hormuz and should be reimbursed for controlling it. His words have raised eyebrows given Washington’s stance has been that no one can collect tolls for transit through the vital international waterway. He said once the US gains control of it, following a weekend bombing campaign on Iranian coastal sites, “we’ll probably run it” and “we should be reimbursed for that.”

“We’re going to keep the strait, and we’ll probably run it. We’ll become the guardian of the strait. Maybe we’ll call it the guardian angel of the strait. And we should be reimbursed for that,” he says in the Fox phone interview.

Again, US officials have throughout Operation Epic Fury voiced that it is an illegal outrage for Iran to suggest it would charge fees, but now…

Trump: “We’re gonna keep the strait, and we’ll probably run it. We’ll become the guardian of the strait. We should be reimbursed for that. When we do that, we’re gonna be reimbursed. We’re gonna get paid.” pic.twitter.com/O4ckjB2FkK

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 13, 2026

Below is a fuller transcript of the Monday morning exchange:

Fox: It looks like they’re back to trying to take control of the Strait, what’s your response?

Trump: Well, we’re taking over the straight. They have nothing, they’ve got nothing. So…. something that nobody knows, yesterday they had an eleven hour meeting, everything’s eleven hours with these guys you know you can’t settle a one sentence in, one hour, in one minute… It should be one minute—But we had a deal, but nobody knows, we had a deal, it was a done deal, but then they broke it, they always break it. And so we’re just going to hit them very hard. And we’re gonna keep the uh Strait, and we’ll probably run it, we’ll become the guardian of the Strait, maybe we’ll call it “The guardian angel of the Strait”. And we should reimbursed for that, when we do that we’re gonna be reimbursed because the other nations are very wealthy, they’re on our side. We guarded the Strait for 50 years, more, and, we never got paid for it. They made all the money and the US was just, you know, not, it’s just amazing. We guarded it for nothing.

The Iranians have been quick to respond, with its top military command asserting that Iran will not allow the US to intervene in the management of the strait. State-run IRNA also states:

Iran says we will not be forced to pay the ‘enemy’ for ship passage.

So this sets up the warring sides for further clashes in the Persian Gulf region, as absolutist demands continued to be adhered to, and red lines continue to be tested and blown past. Below is more from the Iranian Foreign Ministry articulating enforcement of its passage protocol:

Iran’s FM Spox. Esmail Baghaei:

The United States bears direct responsibility for the recent developments in the Strait of Hormuz.

The Americans reneged from day one; they are trying to bypass the secure route coordinated with Iran. pic.twitter.com/zlkvM6EkUS

— Clash Report (@clashreport) July 13, 2026

Overnight Attacks

The US and Iran exchanged another round of strikes overnight, extending a weeklong surge in fighting and casting dark clouds of uncertainty over whether the Strait of Hormuz remains open to commercial shipping.

US Central Command revealed US forces unleashed air-delivered munitions on dozens of Iranian air-defense systems, coastal radar systems, missile launch sites, and drone capabilities, bringing the weekend total to about 140 targets. This move aimed to degrade the IRGC’s ability to threaten commercial shipping in the Hormuz chokepoint, which it has done over the past week.

Iran responded with attacks on US-linked facilities in Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, and Oman, while also claiming it intercepted two vessels using what it called an “illegal route” through Hormuz.

IRGC Fires Warning Shots

Early Monday, Iranian state TV reported that IRGC forces fired “warning shots” at multiple ships attempting to transit the Hormuz chokepoint.

“This morning, two ships that were attempting to cross the Strait of Hormuz illegally were targeted and stopped by warning shots fired by the navy of the Revolutionary Guards,” said a correspondent on state TV.

Tehran has declared the strait closed until further notice, but the US military, President Trump, and maritime monitors say the southern route remains passable.

Bloomberg data shows the LNG tanker Al Hamra safely transited the Hormuz chokepoint over the weekend and is now full steam ahead in the Gulf of Oman. Axios noted earlier that 20 commercial ships managed to transit the Hormuz chokepoint in coordination with the US military.

Bloomberg data only tracks ships with transponders on. 

Crude Climbs as War Back on Menu

Brent crude futures traded up 3.5% to the midpoint of $78 a barrel, while WTI futures are up around 3.4% to $73.85 amid increasingly heated tit-for-tat attacks.

Here is Deutsche Bank equity research analyst Chris Robertson’s summary of developments last week and through the weekend:

Last week, Iran declared that the Strait of Hormuz is closed until further notice. Iran attacked a commercial container ship attempting to transit the region, causing a fire aboard the vessel.

The Joint Maritime Information Center (JIMC) said on Sunday that the southern Omani route remains available, but that the threat level is rated as “severe”.

Regardless of any claims around the Strait being closed or open, what matters is that commercial ship owners are likely not willing to risk transit in an active war zone, putting ships and crews at risk of attack.

We reiterate our initial concerns that despite major destruction of traditional Iranian naval vessels and assets, the ongoing threat that shipowners face is asymmetric warfare technologies such as drones and missiles. These types of threats are much harder to predict or plan for, thereby maximizing uncertainty related to mitigating voyage risks.

We expect transit activity will slow, especially as it relates to vessels planning to enter the Gulf through the Strait which, unlike exiting activity, is the real sign that conditions are normalizing. We believe that an ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz will lead to downward pressure on shortterm tanker rates as ships remain in other regions, thereby increasing effective supply of those ships.

Diplomacy Unravels

As of Monday morning, it is clear that US-Iran diplomacy is unraveling, while US forces are systematically degrading the IRGC’s ability to close the maritime chokepoint. Commercial ships continue to transit the waterway, undermining Tehran’s claim that the critical waterway is effectively shut.

Tehran must also recognize the longer-term strategic risk: every disruption accelerates global investment in pipelines, export terminals, and other infrastructure designed to bypass Hormuz. Once those alternatives are operational (Read Here), Tehran’s greatest source of geopolitical leverage will evaporate. Then what?

*  *  *

Overnight/Weekend Developments

• US President Trump threatened that the US military would “completely decimate and destroy all areas” of Iran if its leaders attempted or carried out an assassination on him.
• US forces said they struck 140 Iranian military targets on Saturday and were also reported to have carried out another round of strikes on Sunday, while Iran targeted at least five US allies across the Middle East in drone and missile assaults early on Sunday, as well as announced that the Strait of Hormuz would be closed until further notice. However, the Joint Maritime Information Centre said the path along the Omani coastline is still available for transit, while it was separately reported that a Chinese tanker transited through Hormuz via an Iran-designated route.
• US official said around 20 commercial vessels transited through the Strait of Hormuz in coordination with the US military over the last 24 hours, in addition to several vessels without US coordination, according to Axios.
• US military announced on Sunday evening that it began a new wave of strikes against Iran to continue degrading its ability to attack civilian mariners and commercial ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, while Iranian TV reported explosions in Qeshm, Jask, Bandar Abbas and Sirik.
• US Central Command denied a claim by Iran that three US service members were killed in Kuwait, while it stated that there have been no reports of US casualties in the region, with all personnel accounted for and safe. CENTCOM later commented that it completed a new wave of offensive strikes on Iran, hitting dozens of targets at multiple locations to degrade Iran’s ability to continue attacking international shipping flowing through the Strait of Hormuz.
• Kuwait’s military said three border posts were attacked and that a drilling platform owned by the Kuwait Oil Company was struck in a drone attack, while it was separately reported that US intelligence sources noted observations that Iran was preparing to carry out a massive attack on the UAE and Kuwait.
• Iran said it caused heavy damage to Jordan’s Prince Hassan Airbase, as well as claimed it targeted the Al-Udeid Airbase in Qatar and a US Navy logistics base in Dukm, Oman. Furthermore, Iran also targeted Kuwait and the US base in Bahrain.
• Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei issued a written statement, vowing to avenge the death of his father and said that it was the demand of the nation.
• Iran’s Foreign Ministry condemned US attacks on Iranian infrastructure, which it said were a violation of the ceasefire deal and the UN Charter, while it warned Gulf states over the use of territory for US attacks.
• Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Gharibabadi said no action against Iran should go unanswered and called for a pre-set response to any attempt against Iran, its military, Supreme Leader and officials.
• Iranian lawmaker and member of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Kashkavi, said Iran prefers to manage the Strait of Hormuz through cooperation with regional states, particularly Oman, and stated that the clear official position is that future management of the Strait will be arranged by Iran.
• Iran denied social media reports that claimed the Bushehr nuclear power plant had been attacked, while its nuclear agency said all units continue to operate normally and that the plant is in a safe and stable condition.
• Iraq’s PM is to visit Washington on Monday, while oil and gas deals are expected to be announced, although the Islamic Resistance in Iraq warned the government against US economic deals and demanded a US troop withdrawal.
• Yemen’s Foreign Ministry reiterated that Yemen would continue its support of Iran in the face of ongoing US and Israeli aggression.
• Israeli artillery conducted further shelling in southern Lebanon, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency.
• Explosions were heard around Iran’s Bandar Abbas and Qeshm Island on Monday afternoon, Mehr News reported, while there is also the possibility of clashes in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.
• Reported fire at Kharg Island appears to be a result of routine flaring, according to Nour News.
• Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson said the US violated all clauses of the MoU in less than a month and stated that Iran will not execute commitments in the MoU as long as the US is not fulfilling its commitments. He added that the MoU is in “crisis” phase. Muscat talks with Oman were solely focused on the Strait of Hormuz. On the recent strikes, none of the US bases in any country in the region have been removed from the target list and that the defensive strikes of Iran are solely against the bases, facilities and positions used by the US to attack Iran, including their logistical and support facilities. In terms of further talks, mediators are still continuing their efforts to mediate between Iran and the US in recent days and Iran is in contact with mediators.
• Iran’s IRGC said only way to open the Strait of Hormuz is to end US military interventions and respect the sovereignty of the countries bordering it.
• There is no clear timetable for Israel’s withdrawal from the experimental areas in southern Lebanon amid a policy of consolidation and non-compliance with the framework agreement, Al Araby reported citing sources.

The proliferation of low-cost suicide drones and interceptor drones appears to be accelerating as nation-states begin stockpiling these expendable platforms, reflecting a rapid and structural shift in modern warfare toward mass, attritable weapons.

More concerning is that some of these drones appear to be marketed far beyond traditional military channels and potentially sold to the highest bidder.

We have already identified what appear to be Chinese companies advertising advanced dual-use drone systems on Facebook, suggesting that drone warfare technologies could soon be easily accessible on the commercial market.

Various companies on Facebook appear to be marketing low-cost suicide drones and interceptor drones that look on par with those seen in Ukraine, as shown on Reels.

Here are some of those advertising videos featured on Reels:

When reaching out to what appear to be Chinese or Hong Kong-based drone companies selling advanced AI interceptor drones to anyone, you’re greeted with a sales document:

Pricing sheet.

The central question is whether these exporters are complying with China’s Export Control Law and the 2024 regulations governing dual-use items. The potential national security risk is clear: low-cost drone systems could be acquired by criminal groups, terrorist networks, or other non-state threat actors with limited technical or financial barriers.

A possible early warning came from Mexico, where authorities recovered a fiber-optic drone. The discovery suggests that technologies refined on modern battlefields, such as in Ukraine, may already be migrating toward the US homeland and other allied countries.

Jim “Fergie” Chambers, the Communist centi-millionaire and heir to the massive Cox media fortune, was arrested in Ibiza at the request of the US Justice Department and is awaiting possible extradition on federal charges linked to “international money laundering… with the intent to provide material support to and resources to foreign terrorist organizations,” according to The Grayzone on Monday, citing new details from the sealed indictment.

The indictment alleges that Chambers transferred funds from US banks to accounts in Tunisia with the intent to support foreign terrorist organizations.

The Grayzone notes that the sealed indictment has little evidence that Chambers has donated any money to “foreign terrorist organizations.” It merely states “Chambers made numerous transfers of funds from banks in the US to banks in Tunisia,” where he relocated in late 2023.

Chambers is the founder of the Babochki Collective and a major backer of Stop Cop City, Palestine Action US (later renamed Unity of Fields), and related legal defense efforts. He allegedly funded bail, legal fees, and direct-action campaigns targeting police-training projects and Israeli-linked defense firms, while also building networks with far-left activists.

To note: Mirah Wood sits at the center of Babochki Collective as an “Admin” and is the co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America’s (DSA) Internationalist Committee

A communist and convert to Islam from New York, Chambers has pledged to use his $250 million fortune to fund “revolutionary organizing.”

The indictment also alleges that, after fleeing the US in 2023, he transferred about $7.5 million out of the country in order to seek opportunities to provide material support to Hamas, Middle East Eye reported.

There are numerous reports that Chambers has possibly supported or interfaced with designated terrorist groups, including Samidoun, which the US Treasury identified as a “sham charity serving as an international fundraiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization,” and Middle East Children’s Alliance, which has been cited by US and allied governments for links to the PFLP.

Additional US groups he has possibly supported or interfaced with include China-based Marxist Roy Singham’s NGO sphere, including ANSWER Coalition, Party for Socialism and Liberation, and Newsclick, as well as student and campus mobilization networks (such as Students for Justice in Palestine) and political prisoner advocacy groups. Chambers’ own Berkshire Communists project in Massachusetts has served as a local hub for organizing and arms training within this network.

City Journal’s Stu Smith wrote in a recent report, “Chambers is one of the main funders of America’s radical Left. His money has flowed to a host of projects in the “anti-imperialism” organizing space,” adding, “Chambers claims that he and Singham are effectively the two primary financiers of the US radical left.” Despite this, the two have apparently been at loggerheads—a conflict that has now gone public.”

🚨 Fergie Chambers, heir to the Cox media fortune and a major funder of militant pro-Palestine groups, was detained in Spain as the Trump administration seeks his extradition on federal charges carrying up to 30 years in prison.pic.twitter.com/4YrIyZSR8q

— Stu Smith (@thestustustudio) July 13, 2026

Chambers’ arrest comes ahead of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s planned meeting this Thursday of high-level officials from 60 nations that will begin to problem-solve how to curb transnational far-left terrorism across the Western world.

Rubio Convenes 60-Nation Summit To Confront Transnational Far-Left Terrorism https://t.co/lAnQqeBWYL

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 11, 2026

Last month, Fox News’ Asra Nomani reported that US Attorney Jay Clayton for the Southern District of New York, authorized by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, is examining whether Singham, NGOs he funded, or their leaders committed wire fraud, bank fraud, money laundering, or other financial crimes.

FIRST ON FOX: A federal grand jury is investigating China-based tech tycoon Neville Roy Singham over alleged financial improprieties involving $278 million that investigators say moved through his financial network over the past decade.

Federal investigators are examining… pic.twitter.com/cqqt9QthU6

— Fox News (@FoxNews) June 29, 2026

Smith also noted, “Congressional scrutiny of the Singham network has recently intensified. Several House committees have sought documentation from affiliated organizations. Lawmakers have also referred The People’s Forum to the IRS, urging review and possible revocation of its tax-exempt status, and have asked then-Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Singham under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.”

Meanwhile, Calla Walsh, a former Democratic Party operative who worked for Democratic Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, met Chambers several years ago while working with Unity of Fields. She was recently seen on Iranian television praising slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as the “greatest anti-imperialist leader” of her lifetime.

“Ayatollah Khamenei was the greatest anti-imperialist leader to have lived during my lifetime,” Walsh said.

Former Elizabeth Warren staffer who called for the United States to be abolished as justice for Khamenei, attended his funeral and called him one of the greatest leaders of her lifetime pic.twitter.com/WSzpzcpd1R

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 5, 2026

Walsh shared a message similar to that of the Democratic Socialists: “Death to America”…

Palestine Action US founder Calla Walsh attends Ayatollah Khamenei’s funeral and calls him the “greatest anti-Imperialist leader” in her lifetime.

This is the brainwashing going on in the far-left, making them to unite with Islamists and terrorists. pic.twitter.com/N5o0Z3Wrv4

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) July 4, 2026

Oddly enough, the rhetoric from Chambers, Walsh, Marxist NGOs operating in the US, and the DSA all sounds similar.

Here’s the DSA calling for revolution and the destruction of America from within:

Frank, Aaron, Hank and Sam are Communist insurgents, radicalized marxist revolutionaries hiding behind personal ideologies to justfy their 1A expressions of the right to promote the insurrection of the Constitutional Republic of the United States of America pic.twitter.com/XLzzjisOqd

— AnimalFarm1945 (Moshe) (@Farm1945A) July 6, 2026

Days ago, Mark Penn, the former chief White House pollster and strategic advisor to President Bill Clinton for six years, warned in a Wall Street op-ed titled “The Socialist Threat Is Real” that “Lawmakers, law-enforcement agencies and journalists should investigate the DSA to see if it is being funded by foreign governments and interests.”

This all comes as Western leaders are trying to determine where a troubling pattern of left-wing revolutionary activity is originating, amid an alarming rise in far-left activists seeking to kill “capitalists.”

Walsh is calling for revolutionaries to attend a rally in front of the courts in Ibiza on Tuesday, where Chambers is being held. 

Noise demo is planned tomorrow at the courts of Ibiza in support of political prisoner Fergie Chambers: https://t.co/q49PwHkKxa

— Calla (@CallaWalsh) July 13, 2026

Perhaps Rubio’s upcoming meeting with leaders from 60 nations on Thursday can begin piecing together the puzzle of who is funding the activist groups seeking a communist revolution to destroy America from within.