[This Iran war update is likely to be thin but hopefully accurate but your humble blogger has been mainly in transit and is now in the war zone, as in Dubai, so forgive me if catchup has led to material errors or omissions]
Nat took appropriately yesterday to making fog of narrative a major focus of his update. I posted a tweet from a couple of days ago complaining that the already bad information pollution had increased markedly in the last 48 hours. After a short enforced absence from the newsflow, it is astonishing to see how much blather is being repeated uncritically. As usual, the big driver is Trump schizophrenic claims, that a deal is, as alway, just around the corner, even as he also insists that things are gonna happen that Iran would never never agree to, as in giving up nuclear enrichment.
Admittedly, some of this outcome is due to Iran choosing to selectively play along, for reasons I cannot fully fathom. The current example is the “Strait of Hormuz is completely open,” which is a Trump and market pleasing framing, as confirmed by a drop in paper oil prices.
As an aside, actual barrels remain immune to Trump’s blather:
Crude oil traded above $200/bbl yesterday CnF Asia. If you think crude oil is going down is because you are looking at the Brent June and WTI May online video game for day gamblers. Refineries shutting down, flights being canceled due to jet fuel above $200/bbl.
This is not a…
— Gerardo Moscatelli (@gemoscatelli) April 17, 2026
Since that has been confirmed by none other than Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, it is now being headlined in the orthodox press and independent media podcosts.
But that “competely open” seems to be the Iran war variant of Schrodinger’s cat: whether the feline is alive or dead depends on who is opening the box, or more accurately, whether their priors prevented them from noticing Araghchi’s caveats. For instance, that “fully open” is for at most the duration of the current Israel-Lebanon ceasefire, which is set for only ten days.
In line with the ceasefire in Lebanon, the passage for all commercial vessels through Strait of Hormuz is declared completely open for the remaining period of ceasefire, on the coordinated route as already announced by Ports and Maritime Organisation of the Islamic Rep. of Iran.
— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) April 17, 2026
Someone from the Iran side felt compelled to try to clear up the spinning of what Araghchi said. From Tasnim News. Source Clarifies Mechanism of Temporary Reopening of Hormuz Strait:
From the beginning of the ceasefire brokered by Pakistan, Iran was supposed to allow daily passage of a number of ships, the informed source said Friday.
“However” he said “after the ceasefire in Lebanon failed to be implemented and the ceasefire agreement failed to include (ceasefire between) Hezbollah and the Zionist regime of Israel, Iran suspended the agreement on the passage of ships through the Strait.”
The informed source noted that Iran has set three conditions for the passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz:
1. The ships must be commercial and the passage of military ships is prohibited, and neither the ships nor the cargo should be related to the hostile countries.
2. Vessels must pass through the route designated by Iran.
3. The passage of ships must be coordinated with the Iranian forces responsible for the passage; as CENTCOM had, before the war, confirmed the management of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) over the Strait of Hormuz.
The informed source further emphasized that the implementation of some preconditions, including the ceasefire in Lebanon, was key to Iran’s decision to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
The source at the same time warned that if naval blockade continues, it will be considered a violation of the ceasefire and the passage through the Strait of Hormuz will be prevented.
Earlier, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi announced that the Strait of Hormuz will remain fully open to commercial vessels for the remaining period of ceasefire.
First, the requirement for ships to transit through “the route designated by Iran” which is sure to mean through Iranian territorial waters, does not correspond with what most US observers would think “fully open” means. Transit is still subject to Iran’s conditions.
Second, the barring of military ships is also not consistent with layperson readings of “completely open.”
Third, and the original in Persian may be clearer, but “neither the ships nor the cargo should be related to the hostile countries” would see to bar not just US and Israel related ships and cargoes, but also those of the Gulf States supporting the US in the war.
Fourth, the IRCG controls who does in and out; CENTCOM acting as if it has a vote via keeping the blockade on will violate Iran’s conditions and lead to a Iran again clamping down on transits.
One could argue that Iran has gotten caught in its own messaging underwear. It insisted early on that the Strait was open and it was those big bad insurers that were keeping it shut….when it did lob some missiles at vessels, including a Thai flagged cargo ship, killing three. It does not take much of that sort of thing for survival-favoring crews and loss-averse owners to decide that the prudent course of action is to wait until conditions look a lot safer.
A related issue is trying to look like the grownup in the room when dealing with Trump, who seems determined to drag everyone into the mud with him. Do Iranians have a saying like the Western, “Never wrestle with a pig, you get dirty and he enjoys it”? Game theory holds that tit for tat produces the best outcomes over time, even if the party adhering to it may lose individual rounds. That means cooperating when the counterparty does something positive. Here Trump got Israel to behave by (at least hopefully for an itty bit of time) via the Lebanon ceasefire. So cooperating with Trump’s messaging is low-cost reinforcement.
And what does one do with this?
Some mainstream outlets did quickly try improve informational hygiene.
BREAKING: Seyyed Mohammad Mehdi Tabatabaei, a spokesperson for Iran’s president, has lashed out at the “baseless statements of the enemy”, shortly after Trump said Iran had agreed never to close the Strait of Hormuz again.
🔴 LIVE updates: https://t.co/dSUb64nw3f pic.twitter.com/gdH9Zq5ZFi
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) April 17, 2026
From The Mirror in Iran war live: Trump Strait of Hormuz claim branded ‘baseless’ by Tehran regime:
US President Donald Trump has claimed Iran will “never close the Strait of Hormuz again” but Tehran has branded the comment “a baseless statement of the enemy”.
Iran has declared that Tehran will reopen the shipping lane, which is vital to the UK’s fuel supplies, for the remainder of Lebanon’s 10-day ceasefire with Israel.
“In line with the ceasefire, the passage for all commercial vessels through Strait of Hormuz is declared completely open for the remaining period of ceasefire…” said Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
Trump followed that by posting on Truth Social that the US blockade of Iranian ports would continue “until such time as our transaction with Iran is 100% complete”
But hours after the sightings above (and others), Bloomberg has as its banner headline:
And Trump is keeping the blockade in place, as the landing page of BBC’s live blog shows, again at odds with Iran’s conditions:
Similarly:
BREAKING: US military says more than 10,000 troops enforcing Iran blockade
🔴 LIVE updates: https://t.co/KBCw7E3ESw pic.twitter.com/tfPUcAMAqf
— Al Jazeera Breaking News (@AJENews) April 17, 2026
And of course, Israel, which ever and always is out to sabotage any hope of peace in the Middle East, did its usual spoiler routine:
However, after the ceasefire failed to materialize in Lebanon and the agreement to extend the ceasefire to Hezbollah and the Zionist regime was not accepted, Iran suspended the ship passage agreement in the Strait. https://t.co/Bwi1ruO3Hv
— Tasnim News Agency (@Tasnimnews_EN) April 17, 2026
Trump also made the wild-eyed claim that Iran was giving up uranium enrichment:
🚨 JUST NOW: President Trump reveals IRAN AGREED to NO ENRICHED URANIUM
An absolutely monumental win.
“Did Iran agree to stopping enriching uranium, getting rid of their ability to create these weapons. HE SAID YES. THEY AGREED TO EVERYTHING.” — NewsNation
Donald Trump is… pic.twitter.com/8pOCymKLTu
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) April 17, 2026
And that the US would take Iran’s existing cache:
Again, Iran cleared its throat. From Agence France-Presse in Disputing Trump, Iran says its enriched uranium stockpile ‘not being transferred anywhere’:
Iran’s foreign ministry says the country’s stockpile of enriched uranium will not be transferred “anywhere,” denying an earlier claim by US President Donald Trump that the Islamic Republic agreed to hand it over.
“Iran’s enriched uranium is not going to be transferred anywhere,” Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei tells state TV.
A second Iranian source pushed back Thursday against Trump’s claim that Tehran agreed to transfer its enriched uranium stockpile to the United States.
Iranian journalist Mohammad Ghaderi wrote: “The delivery of enriched uranium to the U.S. is another lie,” adding that “no major… pic.twitter.com/Oc84Bc18Dc
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) April 16, 2026
Trump says Iran agreed to even more things to which it almost certain Iran has not conceded:
During an interview earlier with CBS News, President Trump said that Iran has agreed to stop backing proxy terrorist groups across the Middle East, like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) April 17, 2026
“They agreed to everything. It’s a great deal. It’s a wonderful deal. They agreed to everything…”
Donald Trump stated in an interview with CBS News that Iran has agreed to all US conditions, including ceasing all support for “Hezbollah” and “Hamas”.
Meanwhile, The Wall Street… pic.twitter.com/mdhf1Yn1G9
— Sprinter Press Agency (@SprinterPress) April 17, 2026
NO1 confirms that Trump is Making Shit Up bigly and that Israel is predictably cheating on its ceasefire:
If this is confirmed, Iran has acted to enforce its red lines:
BREAKING!!! MULTIPLE SHIPS NOW BEING TURNED AWAY FROM THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ!!! pic.twitter.com/NxVV0v09x9
— DD Geopolitics (@DD_Geopolitics) April 17, 2026
All of this talk of deals that are either not happening or are greatly exaggerated is more than just a strategy to keep Mr. Market dazzled. It smacks of setting up a pretext for launching another big salvo at Iran. Recall that in the talks led by JD Vance, the US side was apparently mystified that Iran was not eager to end the war. They really do believe their PR that Iran is close to being prostrated.
Trump is already laying that ground:
BREAKING: President Trump warns Iran that if they don’t accept a peace deal the U.S. military will be forced to take action again:
“If there’s no deal, fighting will resume.” pic.twitter.com/cUuDqW5Xl3
— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 16, 2026
Larry Johnson and Olivier Boyd-Barrett express similar views. From Larry Johnson in Trump Pushes Fantasy about Iran, Hormuz and Enriched Uranium:
Here is a summary of the various claims he [Trump] made on Friday:
The “Hormuz Strait situation is over” and Iran has agreed to never close the Strait of Hormuz again. He described it as “completely open and ready for business and full passage.”
Iran (with US help) is removing the mines it laid in the strait last month.
Iran has agreed to nearly all (or “virtually all”) of his demands, including ending its nuclear program “forever.”
The war is “very close to over” / “close to being over,” and a final deal should be completed “very quickly” (possibly with talks this weekend). He said most points have already been negotiated.
He agreed to a two-week double-sided ceasefire (suspended bombing/attacks) after requests from Pakistani leaders, conditional on Iran fully opening the strait. Despite Iran’s announcement that the strait is open, the US naval blockade of Iranian ports will remain in full force until the overall transaction/deal with Iran is “100% complete.”
China’s President Xi Jinping is “very happy” that the strait is open/rapidly opening. Trump claimed he is doing this “for them, also — and the World,” and that this situation “will never happen again.”
China has agreed not to send weapons to Iran. Trump predicted his upcoming trip to China will be “special” and “potentially Historic,” and that President Xi will give him a “big, fat, hug.”
He dismissed NATO as a “Paper Tiger” that was “useless when needed.” After the strait reopened, NATO reportedly offered help, but Trump told them to stay away unless they just wanted to “load up their ships with oil.”
He emphasized that the US has already met and exceeded its military objectives. He claimed Iran now has a “new regime” that is “much less radicalized and far more intelligent” than before, making a long-term peace agreement possible. He reiterated that the U.S. will work with Iran “at a leisurely pace” on finalizing the deal.
Trump’s flurry of messaging was primarily directed at manipulating the stock and oil markets. He succeeded, with the US stock market soaring while the future price of oil fell significantly. Investors foolishly believed that Trump was telling the truth. He was not… He lied….
Trump is doing one of two things: 1) Spinning the American public so that he can make a deal to end the war, declare victory and head home, or 2) Or setting up a strawman by insisting a deal is at hand and then, when the US refuses Iran’s demands as laid out in the 10-point plan, blame Iran for refusing to negotiate and launch new attacks on Iran by April 26. I believe, based on the continuing flow of US military aircraft into the region, that Trump is going to order new attacks on Iran before the end of April.
From Olivier Boyd-Barrett in Lying Through His Strait
While the situation in Iran and Lebanon is confused, it certainly falls a great deal short of anything that US President Donald Trump has claimed in the past 24 hours.
Here is my take, albeit provisional:
Under pressure from the US, Israel appears to have conceded a 10-day ceasefire in Lebanon but this is conditional upon Hezbollah – which is not, so far as I know, formally a party to any ceasefire, although it may have voluntarily ceased its fire for the time being – not attacking Israel’s occupying occupying army in southern Lebanon…
Earlier today Trump claimed that in the wake of the ceasefire in Lebanon (a condition of Iran’s 10-point plan which according to Trump was supposedly the basis for the US-Iran talks that took place in Islamabad last weekend, but which the US arch zionists Kushner and Witkoff scuttled after 21 hours), Iran had opened the Strait of Hormuz, but Trump followed this up by saying that the US blockade was still in place so far as the movement of Iranian ships is concerned…
Iran later denied that the Strait had been opened and said that it retained safe corridors for ships approved by Iran….
In one of his Truth Social posts today, Trump has claimed that Iran has agreed to hand over its “nuclear dust,” an apparent reference to its enriched uranium…this claim is highly unlikely to be true, in my judgement.
Reports continue to indicate a US military build-up in the Gulf region, although safely removed, in the case of US shipping, by 500 or so miles from the Strait of Hormuz, even despite a crop of reports alleging that US navy personnel are suffering from inadequate food and hygienic conditions. Whether or not these reports are true they do serve as a reminder of the great logistical challenge involved in feeding and sustaining any invading army in armed and hostile territory.
In a new talk with Mario Nawfal, Colonel Douglas Macgregor says he believes the US will launch a savage three or so day air campaign against Iran when the ceasefire expires next week:
Macgregor describes the US intent to “the final solution for Iran,” which he believes could to “almost fatal damage” yet still has good odds of failure. One small quibble: he expects the strikes to start within a few days. I doubt this market-sensitive Administration would launch early in a trading week, so I would expect Friday (to end the week with reports of a great wave af bombings before results were known) to be the earliest probable date, and over the next weekend or even the weekend after to be more likely.
Professor Marandi similarly expects war to resume:
Personally, I believe Trump is probably saying all this nonsense about agreements with Iran so that he can later claim, “Iran didn’t keep its promises” – promises Iran never made. The chances of renewed murderous aggression from Trump and Netanyahu are high.
Iran is ready.
— Seyed Mohammad Marandi (@s_m_marandi) April 17, 2026
In the meantime, more Trump-appeasing handwaves from the UK. Starmer’s position has been that the UK would get involved only after fighting stopped. As far as I can tell, this is just old wine in new bottles:
🚨 BREAKING: Keir Starmer says the UK will lead a defensive military mission with France to protect shipping in the Strait of Hormuz pic.twitter.com/QUPKaywjou
— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) April 17, 2026
Even though Politico, faithful stenographer ever, takes up Starmer’s framing. If you read carefully, despite 30 countries signing up, there continues to be not much there. From Europe to accelerate effort to secure Hormuz despite Trump’s order to ‘STAY AWAY’. The amusing new wrinkle is Trump lashing out at the EU messing with his optics of having been abandoned even by vassals:
European leaders pledged to rapidly ramp up a multinational effort to secure the Strait of Hormuz after Iran said it would reopen the vital waterway to maritime traffic, even if Donald Trump doesn’t want their help.
French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and the prime ministers of Italy and the United Kingdom, Giorgia Meloni and Keir Starmer, jointly announced Friday that they would be spearheading what Starmer called a “defensive” mission to ensure freedom of navigation in the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas travels.
“We agreed to accelerate the military planning, I can confirm that France and the U.K. will lead a multinational mission to protect freedom of passage as soon as conditions allow,” said Starmer, adding that details would be shared at a military planning conference in London next week.
The United States, however doesn’t appear inclined to accept that assistance.
After announcing that Tehran had agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz following Israel and Lebanon’s agreement on a 10-day ceasefire, Trump wrote Friday on his Truth Social account that his NATO allies were “useless” and weren’t needed.
“I received a call from NATO asking if we would need some help. I TOLD THEM TO STAY AWAY, UNLESS THEY JUST WANT TO LOAD UP THEIR SHIPS WITH OIL,” he wrote.
I have stopped now because my plane is boarding. See you soon!
