Iran asserts control in Strait of Hormuz, with Jon Elmer

You are watching and listening to the Electronic Intifada. I am John Elmer. This is the Resistance Report on day 1007 of Israel's genocide in Gaza, day 132 of the US Israeli war against Iran, day 130 of the battle in South Lebanon this latest round, and day 19 of the ceasefire in Lebanon such as it is followed that followed the memorandum of understanding signed between the US and Iran 3 weeks ago. I will be I am reporting this on the afternoon of Thursday, July the 9th. I'm going to cover the status of the ceasefire in Lebanon shortly, but let's start with the Strait of Hormuz where the US and Iran have exchanged fire over the last few days in the largest attacks since the memorandum of understanding was signed, the 14-point framework agreement. So, the maps to get our bearings, there's going to be a lot of maps in this because I think that the maps really do show the military bind that the United States is in. We can see the Strait of Hormuz there in the center and along the coast of the Persian Gulf from Kuwait, Saudi, Bahrain, Qatar, and the UAE in the Gulf. 20% of the world's oil, a little more than that of natural gas, and then all kinds of precursors and petrochemical products, fertilizers, all running low all around the world because of this, and there is a clear solution to this that has been stated by Iran over and over. Iran's chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said the Hormuz Strait will never return to its pre-war status. The MOU 5 says, "Understanding the signing of this MOU, the Islamic Republic of Iran will make arrangements using its best efforts for safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge for 60 days. The Islamic Republic of Iran will conduct dialogue with the Sultanate of Oman to determine the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz in discussion with the other Persian Gulf littoral states and in line with the application of international law and sovereign rights of the coastal states of the Strait of Hormuz. It's nothing to do with the United States as was previously mentioned. Nothing to do with CENTCOM. This is Iranian territorial waters that after the United States and Israel launched an unprovoked war of aggression on the state of Iran. Iran closed down that Strait of Hormuz to the parties to the conflict. It is from each of those states that you see there. From the top from Kuwait, from Saudi, from Bahrain, from Qatar, from the UAE. Those Those are the bases from which Iran is being struck by the Americans and also to include bases in Saudi Arabia and Jordan as well. But these are states that are in active conflict with Iran on the side of the United States allowing the United States to use that security infrastructure from the global war on terror era to to be used to fight Iran. And Iran is not having that and that is clear. Let's take a look at the next map cuz we can keep in mind where those countries are and here see it as a different angle. This is actually a photograph taken from an astronaut in the International Space Station that just shows you Iran to the north there and the Zagros Mountains that are a natural border around the Persian Gulf and the high ground over all of that territory through which the world's oil flows. You could see on this map from Kuwait City through Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, and Oman on this map as well. And the Strait of Hormuz up there in the top right-hand corner. All of the petrochemicals, all of the oil and gas has to pass through that straight to exit the Persian Gulf. Incidentally, this photograph was taken with a Nikon D5 with a 28 mm lens. So, it's an actual photograph from an astronaut on the space station. We've got another one of those coming up here next to where you can actually see how the Strait of Hormuz operates. It's a tiny strip of land. We saw on the previous map how shallow the waters are. It has all kinds of military complications for the United States. And that is why the Iranians have asserted control over this corridor in order to have a leverage point, a permanent strategic asset that they are going to wield, a strategic geographic asset that isn't going to change. And the Iranians are asserting that control as was agreed to in the memorandum of understanding. Earlier this week, three commercial vessels, one LNG liquid natural gas ship from Qatar, one crude carrier from Saudi, and a UAE flagged crude carrier had projectiles fired at them as warning shots when they were traveling outside of the Iranian set corridors. That is what tipped off what has happened this week. But, you can see that the United States followed that up by saying that there are more than 20 US Navy warships patrolling the waters across the Middle East as CENTCOM forces continue to promote regional security and stability. But none of them are in this picture that you're looking at right now. They're not coming close to the strait. They're not escorting ships through the strait. They are giving coordinates to ships that want to go through the Omani route, which I'll show you coming up here in a second. The way the ships are escorted in so far as they even are escorted, it's by air. It's not The United States does not have the naval capacity to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz or really the uh the guts to do it. As you can see, Iran has all of the overwatch, the high points, and the ships going slow through that corridor are sitting ducks. Um So, that was number three. Let's look at number four because we could see the satellite image here of this one shows the high line the overwatch that Iran has from the mainland. And also, there's a lot of talk about where the the missiles are fired from or the drones. They don't need to be fired from the coastline. They could be fired from deep inside Iran to hit those targets. Um so, it's not simply the overwatch. It's the entire strategic depth of the country behind uh that strait. So, three ships were struck in a 24-hour window. Iran did not take credit for those ships though their foreign ministry did say that the ships were traveling in the Omani corridor, not through the approved that Iran has stated. The Iranian armed forces said yesterday that it is declared once again that the only safe passage for transit of commercial ships and oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz is the route determined by the Islamic Republic of Iran. You take a look at number five here and you can see the strategic importance of the Persian Gulf that we looked at in those other photos because this one shows you all the key oil refineries and terminals all along the coastline of the Persian Gulf there in front of Kuwait and Saudi, Bahrain, less in Bahrain but in Qatar. Bahrain hosts the US CENTCOM's regional naval headquarters is in Bahrain. But you can see both in this map where the key refineries are, all of which could be targeted if Trump wants to escalate this war. And and also the proximity of these countries. They're able to be hit, Iran is able to hit US bases in these areas because they are so close and they can use missiles as we'll see coming up here shortly that are very accurate and effective missiles. And that is the case for their longer range ballistic missiles but it's very much the case for their tactical ballistic missiles and short range ballistic missiles. Let's take a look at number six cuz you can see the territorial waters. Again, this is not a stretch for Iran to say that ships should pass through the Iranian route because the majority of the straight requires that in any case. The areas off the coast of Oman are shallow as we saw in that first map that I showed you that had the the depths. Um They're shallow. It's not the best route through there. Um the United States has tried to to pose a secondary route to try to deny Iran this asset that came out of a war that the United States launched. Let's take a look at the next slide. This is the Iranian IRGC Navy map that was put out. Again, there's been minor um uh minor tweaks to it, but only uh in in the smallest ways, and those are projected uh over void by voice over radio to the ships um that are safely transiting through the Iranian uh route. And over the past uh before this week's dustup and the exchange of fire, the Iranian route was working well and increasing traffic from zero, effectively zero, through the Strait of Hormuz uh up to as much as a third uh of what the pre-war levels were. Um and firing on the ships is a message to the underwriters, to the insurers, um to follow the rules of this corridor. And it's not the only Iran is not the only one that exerts control uh over its territorial waters. Other countries do this, Turkey does this, um as well. And Canada, um Arctic uh we have transit fees in Canada as well. So, this is not something that Iran has pulled out of a hat. Um there's a long record for it, and that is why they Iranians have said that they're willing to do this through uh established international norms. Um so, let's take a look at the next uh map cuz this shows where the ships were hit. This is a map put together by Mench OSINT, who does an excellent job tracking this stuff, and I appreciate uh being able to use uh his maps here that show very clearly the ships that were targeted are all in the Omani channel. Um they were all traveling with their AIS off. They were trying to go stealth. They're spoofing, they're jamming. Um they're not showing up on um on the tracking systems. They're trying to go dark through this area and undermine the peace agreement that was signed between Iran and the United States. Um so Iran asserted control in uh with warning shots. They're not trying to sink these vessels. They're not trying to blow up the liquid natural gas carrier, which is basically a floating bomb. Um these are warning shots to have them turn around and go through the established route. Um so these as I said before it was a Qatari uh liquid natural gas tanker, a Saudi owned um very large crude carrier, and a UAE uh associated um uh tanker as well. In there, you can see it up at the top there. Um that is the UAE owned one. So three parties to the conflict, three countries that are using their bases to attack Iran are not following the memorandum of understanding that was signed between the two countries. Whether Trump says he's ripping it up in the last two days, I'm not going to get into that this week. We're not chasing Trump's idiotic statements all over the place. He has no idea what he's talking about, so he's not adding anything to this by saying uh that the MOU is dead. He just gets really upset when his forces get targeted in these bases. Every single time these bases are hit, it always takes a few days to get the satellite images, of course. American satellite providers have blocked our access to these satellite images because of the embarrassment of these strikes. So Trump gets upset and says dumb things. We won't track that here, but we'll track what actually has gone on. If we look at the next slide, um you can see the two warning messages. A tanker reported being hit by an unknown projectile on the port side causing a small fire while traveling southbound. No casualties or environmental impact reported. And you can see the location of that on the map, again, in the Omani route, not in the north in the uh Iranian route according to the memorandum of understanding. So, these are clear ceasefire violations. The Iranians have made that clear. We can see it on the next one as well. This was the uh This is the UKMTO is the Royal Navy the UK Navy's monitoring of ship traffic. So, there again, you see that ship was in clearly in uh the Omani route. Um and again, uh no This is minor structural damage, no casualties or environmental impact reported. The vessel is continuing on its way. These are warning shots. These are not attempts to murder uh international um uh just sailors, um merchant marines. Let's take a look at 13. These are the operations that um the Iranians uh launched after the United States strikes. Again, every single time Iran matches, these are Apparently, these uh you can tell by the uh propellant exhaust that these are solid fuel. These are probably Fateh-110 um uh short-range tactical ballistic missiles with very high accuracy um compared to uh other missiles that are most accurate missiles. And they're short distance. So, these are the missiles that are hammering the US bases in uh Kuwait, Qatar, uh and uh and elsewhere. Although, longer-range uh ballistic missiles were fired this morning at Muwaffaq al-Salti Air Base in Jordan, which is uh one of the major hubs. The Fateh-110s are 500 kg warhead. Um and as I said, you can tell by that white by the white uh consistent um exhaust from the propellant there that we're looking at solid fuel. So, you can assume that um we're talking about Fateh-110s here, Fateh family at least uh missiles here. These were targeting Ali Al Salem uh Air Base in Kuwait, Muwaffaq al-Salti Jordan, the fifth fleet uh in Bahrain, and Al Udeid airbase in Qatar. Uh the United States said that they carried out 80 strikes on the first day and 90 strikes yesterday. Iran said 85 strikes in response to the first day, and we haven't seen uh their total for today, which they will surely respond to as well. Let's take a look at number 14 because the Resistance Report always likes to bring you a drone being destroyed. Done it dozens and dozens of times. This is one of 30-plus uh MQ-9 Reaper drones, the flagship drone of the United States uh Air Force shot down. You're going to see it blown out of the sky in a moment here. They've got it on lock for a long time with a secondary um with a secondary radical here from the ones cuz there you see um what appears to be possibly a drone that struck that. Unclear. Need to um get a clearer picture of that, but again, on the way down, people who People who watch the Resistance Report know these uh images. They're all the same. We've seen them 30 times in Iran, 25 times in Yemen. The Israelis have admitted to dozens lost uh of these comparable drones lost in Iran, and we've watched them lose somewhere between several and many in uh Lebanon. Um 15 and 16 here just show on the ground uh the burn um that the locals get to find, um which is always double confirmation, again looking like what we have seen from Yemen for so long as well. Um And then just take a look at number 17. This is uh This is the International Monetary Fund tracking uh transits in and out of the in in and out of the Strait of Hormuz. So, on the left side you see there uh is when the war is beginning, drops off to basically zero. Um normally would be a 100 a rolling 7-day average. It hits around a 130 transits per day. Um 80 of which are oil and gas, and right now we're at a fraction of that, and for most of the last um several months we've been at virtually zero um exiting. And again, this is the whole This is the whole uh strategic outcome of the Strait of Hormuz, and that is the Iranians have the global energy market um by the throat here. They have their lever uh of control in this region is now impacting the entire world. So, the question is how long the United States want that massive gap that you see in March, April, May, and June, and you start to see it at the end of first 3 days of July. You start seeing it go up. Lloyds of London, which is a insurance underwriter, they were talking optimistically about how um more ships were traveling, we're comfortable with the route, uh and whatnot, and that just um you know, that was blown up this week with uh the events this week. And Trump said that, you know, Trump said repeatedly he doesn't want to be Herbert Hu- Herbert Hoover, who was the president that took the US into the Great Depression, and he's talking about it as a global uh depression. You know, Trump said previously there was only 4 weeks of strategic petroleum reserves, and after which you'd have no oil, which I'm paraphrasing, but that's basically literally what he said. So, [snorts] I'm not sure this game of chicken in the Strait of Hormuz is going to benefit the United States. Again, 20-plus million 20-plus million barrels a day, 20% of the world's oil, and more than that of natural gas, and we have entire states Iraq, Kuwait, um bare- They've been at zero crude output for the last 3 months. They're just beginning to dial up the first um uh to the register their first uh exports. Um let's take a look at number 18 cuz this shows this is not an Iranian aligned uh outfit. This Kepler is a maritime tracker and there you can see on the north, if you follow the north channel, you can see it works perfectly well. You go in, you go out. It follows exactly like those maps we showed. Uh green going in, red going out. Um and then you see again people trying to sneak to the bottom one, uh to the southern one off Oman. You see them turning off their transponders, going dark, um you know, subterfuge to get themselves to the other side of the corridor um of the strait in violation of the agreement. Um Lloyd's List Intelligence, these are the insurance underwriters, uh vessel tracking identified 33 Strait of Hormuz transits on Tuesday when this all started. Um but in the wake of the latest attacks, no traceable transits were recorded in the southern corridor on Wednesday. So, Trump is closing his corridor um by violating the MOU. It would only strengthen Iran's hand. I wanted to show you these maps because this war is not going away and these are going to be relevant understandings found dations for how we address um this conflict going forward because uh all signs show that this is not going to hold up. Now, let's take a turn to Lebanon. I was away last week, so I just wanted to get up-to-date uh tie a bow on uh the Lebanon uh front. And again, it's the uh maps that I've shown you from before. The area of the battle um is marked here south of the Litani. That's the only significance of the red in this map is that that is the zone that the that this stage of the war was fought in and I keep bringing you this map first because it just shows you the basic geography of the areas. Yakhmar above Metula there, that is Beaufort Castle and just above that is the Ali al-Taher ridgeline that overlooks Nabatieh which you can see on that map and you can see the Galilee Panhandle up to Metula. Metula's inside what is now northern Israel. Um and just to point out that in the memorandum of the memorandum of understanding, the MOU, ensures the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon. And when the MOU was signed, Trump said, "There must be no more attacks from Israel anywhere in Lebanon." Well, that is obviously not happening because Israel is carrying on although at a drastically reduced level from the open war stage, they're still doing what they do everywhere. Trying to achieve through ceasefire what they failed to achieve on the battlefield. Let's take a look at 21 cuz this security zone is establishing a security zone in an area that was ethnically cleansed and then drawing an arbitrary line. It doesn't symbolize which battles were won, which areas are held. It's not it's a map that is built is drawn inside of Israel. It's not drawn on a battlefield. But you can see they've expanded up in the north there if you follow the the white borderline, the blue line between it's white on this map but the blue line is as called between Israel and uh Lebanon. If you follow that up to Metula, again at the north of the Galilee panhandle, you can follow that north to Beaufort Ridge, which is Beaufort Castle. Um and north of that is the Ali Altaher Ridge. And Israel has it on their map marked that they are in operational control of the Ali Altaher Ridge. Um we know that operational control, going back to uh November 2023, when the Israelis started declaring it in Gaza in places in the north where they had to go back four and five times and still haven't defeated the resistance there. Um it they're claiming control over areas that they do not hold. Um but what they did do was sign a collaborationist agreement. We look at the next map. This is the map that the Prime Minister's office, Netanyahu, released uh showing the uh agreement with the uh Lebanese with the nominal Lebanese government, a collaborator agreement that allows Israel to remain with territorial inside the territorial sovereign lines of Lebanon. Again, a violation of memorandum of understanding point one. Um but that is still going on. And again, Netanyahu celebrated this achievement from the get handed to him by the Lebanese uh nominal government. Um he said, "We did not leave Lebanon. We will actually establish a security belt 10 km deep in inside Lebanon with the consent of the Lebanese government." So again, not a military victory, an ethnic cleansing, a targeting of civilians, and then a collaborationist uh uh an agreement that the US facilitated to leave uh Israeli presence inside Lebanon uh in these pilot zones. Let's take a look at uh 23 shows these two pilot zones. Netanyahu has marked them there. So this is this is what the exchange was to the uh Lebanese nominal Lebanese government that accepted this collaborator agreement that these two tiny areas are going to be called pilot zones and the Lebanese armed forces who the Israelis have been killing along with every other Lebanese job or type of people. It's an attack on civilians and the Lebanese army are included in that. But these pilot zones the Lebanese army will come into them nominally will control them and disarm Hezbollah. Again, because Israel cannot defeat Hezbollah so they're coming up with other plans outside of the battlefield through diplomacy, negotiation, collaborators to try to tilt the battlefield. And Netanyahu said about this, "I want to announce a significant achievement for the state of Israel." I mean, that's what he called the agreement with the Lebanese government. Not nothing in here about defeating Hezbollah. Nothing in here at all about disarming them. I mean, you have to defeat them before you can disarm them as we know in Gaza. Didn't happen there for 3 years. It's not going to happen in Lebanon in a quarter of the time. But this is an important part two because this is this goes against the memorandum of understanding and Iran has been clear that they are not going to accept this. Let's look at 24 because what accepting this means is that you can see this and I showed you these from from Gaza as well. Ben Zion Macales is an IDF aligned genocide supporter who makes these 3D or makes these satellite maps which is are very handy work to show the erasure of entire villages. This is Khiam between 2020 2023 and 2026. And the Israeli defense minister, who by the way is a political lackey, he is not a military man, he framed it this way. According to the defense minister in the western and central sectors of South Lebanon, there is almost 100% destruction of the villages along the line of contact. While in the eastern sector, 73% of the villages are destroyed. He says that some 600,000 Shias from villages in South Lebanon have fled and another 7,000 have been displaced in the Dahiyeh in the stronghold of Beirut. Again, not a military man, not touting military victories, touting ethnic cleansing and the destruction of civilian homes as their military purpose because they can't defeat the resistance on the battlefield and they didn't. Just to say to our regular viewers, the way that the ceasefire came, there was actually zero Hezbollah videos released or field reports released while I was away. So you didn't miss any breakdowns of any videos. We broke down every single video from this stage of the conflict thus far. So you're not missing anything, but let's take a look at 25 because last show I was talking to you about the battle of Ali al-Tahir Ridge and the map that I just showed you where the Israelis say that they're in control of that. Hezbollah released a statement just after the ceasefire saying the Islamic resistance categorically denies what was published by the official entities belonging to the Israeli enemy army regarding control over Ali al-Tahir Ridge on the eastern outskirts of the city of Nabatieh. It confirms that the hill is free of any presence of the occupations forces and that it remains held by the resistance fighters who exercise their control over it and they're in full readiness to confront any attempt to advance or in uh or any incursion carried out by enemy forces. So, the Israelis made a big uh a statement. They've repeated that the Israeli fight Israeli soldiers are above ground and the Hezbollah fighters are underground on Ali al-Taher Ridge. And Hezbollah wants you to know that uh that is not true about the above ground. They don't speak about the underground um in this. Let's take a look at 26 cuz this is Naim Qassem's response to this uh to this peace deal in Lebanon and it's along with a mixtape of operations that you'll remember uh I broke down over the past couple of months. So, the Secretary General of Hezbollah Naim Qassem says, "We confronted a war aimed at eliminating the existence of Hezbollah, its environment, and its people. Through our proud and dignified people, we were able to stop this aggression. We were able to achieve a great accomplishment. We have broken the American-Israeli designs on Lebanon. Israel must withdraw unconditionally. Any commitment that undermines Lebanon's sovereignty will not pass. No normalization. No ending the state of hostility. No gains for Israel. No presence on Israeli territory. Um let Sorry. No presence on Lebanese territory by the Israelis. The resistance continues in its existence, in its presence, in its doctrine, and in its capabilities. Today, it is the pillar of Lebanon's independence and liberation, and it will remain so. So, it is this people, this land, and the past, the present, and the future. We will continue to uphold the slogan, "Far be it for us to accept humiliation." Or uh maybe a paraphrase, "Humiliation is not in our lexicon." Uh as we have seen before. And these statements by Hezbollah have been very clear uh on this. And of course, they would be because they have said that they're fighting an existential battle for every inch of territory of Lebanon and that territory will be liberated and they have promised that before and delivered it multiple times. So, this has been the resistance report on day 1,007 of Israel's genocide in Gaza.