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Iran trades gas for food and medicine

President Ebrahim Raisi's administration is facing mounting local criticism over accepting Iraq's offer of what the opposition has dubbed the "gas-for-food"programme, in reference to a UN programme established for Iraq before the 2003 invasion.

On 7 April, local mediaquotedIran's petroleum minister Jawad Owji as saying that in return for exporting gas to Iraq, Tehran wouldreceive only food, medicines and humanitarian goods.

Following the news, critics of Raisi's economic plans reminded him that one of his presidential campaign slogans was to improve bilateral economic relations withneighbouring countries and to unlock Iran'sassets in Iraq that have been frozen due to US sanctions.

Iran officials hold secret talks with West without Raisis knowledge

"The reality of trading under sanctions shows that we exchange gas with essential goods and medicines. This happens even in a country like Iraq, which is under Iran's influence and very close to us," theMardom Salaridaily wrote on Saturday.

An Iranian economist, Mehdi Pazouki, under the headline "An achievement called oil-for-food",ridiculedRaisi's administration and his strategies for freeing Iran's frozen money in other countries.

"After about two years, Raisi's administration finally had an achievement; an achievement that is not good at all. Oil-for-food is the only accomplishment this government can announce," he wrote.

Despite the US sanctions on Iran's oil, gas and petrochemical export, Iraq is Iran's primary client for gas. However, due to sanctions on Iran's banking system, Baghdad cannot pay Iran for the gas it imports.

Iranian officials have announced conflicting numbers about Iraq's debt to Iran. On 10 March, the Shargh daily reported that the debt was over $18bn.

A branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in the city of Izehhassentencedan Iranian protester to deathon charges related to the killing of Kian Pirfalak,a nine-year-old boy whodied during last year's protests.

The court ruling was announced despite thePirfalak family'sinsistence thatMojahed Koorkoor was not their son's killer.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) arrested Koorkoor in Parsourakh village, near Izeh, in the country's southwest, in the aftermath of the protests that engulfed the country following the deathof Mahsa Amini while inthecustody of the morality police on 16 September.

Koorkoor was detained during a 20 December raid, during which the IRGC killed two men and two other people were arrested. Iran's judiciary has not revealed the identities of the other detaineesand those killed in the raid.

On 19 March, the judiciary's Mizan news agency reported that, during a four-hour court hearing, Koorkoor had pleaded guilty and accepted the charges. However, rights groups have warned that he was severely tortured to pressure him into givingfalse confessions.

Last week, avideoof Koorkoor's mother circulated on Farsi social media in which she urged Iranians to help her save the life of her only son.

The Pirfalak family and their lawyer have rejected the judiciary's accusations against Koorkoor, saying their son was killed when the security forces opened fire on their caron 16 November during anti-government protests in Izeh.

In anothervideopublished on 11 April, Pirfalak'sfather said that his family had not filed any complaints against Koorkoor and the other two individuals arrested along with him.

"My wife and I, with our own eyes, saw that the security forces under the command of the [second] brigadier general Eidi Abdi open fire at our car with a barrage of bullets," he said.

Since last September, authorities have executed four men accused of participating in the 2022 anti-establishment demonstrations.

Ali Mojtahedzadeh, a lawyer whodefended political and student activists as well as protesters arrested last year, said many activists face new trials despite being pardoned by a general amnesty ordered by Iran's supreme leader.

On 5 February, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered an amnesty or reduction in prison sentences for tens of thousands of people, includingpeople arrested during the 2022 anti-establishment protests. The judiciary officials later announced that more than 22,000 protesters were freed based on the decree.

However, on Saturday, Mojtahedzadeh warned in an article published in theEtemaddaily that the prosecution of the pardoned activists had resumed in various cases.

Iran finds new ways to crack down on women not wearing hijab

"Not only are the lawsuits against several pardoned individualsnot closed, but we see that the judicial proceedings related to their cases have continued, and they might face convictions," he wrote.

The lawyer said that a group of officials in the country's judicial system and intelligence services were the main forces against the release of the dissidents pardoned in February.

"It seems that some middle-ranking judicial officials and prosecutors have turned a blind eye to the general amnesty, insisting on the trial of those the supreme leader had pardoned," he said.

Mojtahedzadeh also warned that ignoring the general amnesty would lead to a more profound social distrust and weaken the status of Iran's judicial system.

"The destructive and dangerous impact of resuming the trial of these pardoned convicts is so enormous that we can wish the general amnesty was not ordered in the first place," he concluded.

*Iranian press review is a digest of news reports not independently verified as accurate by Middle East Eye.

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Raisi's 'gas-for-food' programme with Iraq criticised: Iranian press ... - Middle East Eye

Figures from the recent Nowruz holidays reflect a widening class gap between Irans rich and poor.

Travelling to other cities, historic sites and seaside resorts has been very popular Nowruz activity for Iranians since the advent of modern transportation in mid-20th century.

While four- and five-star hotels remained busy during the holiday season, two- and three-star properties were vastly under their usual seasonal average.

The chairman of the Iranian Air Travel and Tourism Offices, Hormatollah Rafiei, admitted the trend reflects the economic woes of the country as it battles through some of its worst financial crises of recent history with rising costs of living and declining incomes.

"A large part of four and five-star hotels, which are more expensive, were fully booked, while two and three-star hotels, which are cheaper, remained empty, he said this week, suggesting little impact of the crisis on the top echelons of the country's rich.

It suggests a trend of those in the middle-income brackets either not traveling or opting for more affordable options such as schools, pilgrimage centers, and municipal camps, he added.

Echoing the trend, Iran's hoteliers association announced a 70% drop in occupancy levels during the holidays.

While annual inflation hovers around 50 percent, prices for necessities such as food have risen much faster. Official figures published by Statistical Center of Iran show food prices rising by 70-100 percent in the past year.

As the national currency has halved in value since mid-2022, monthly salaries for ordinary people have dropped to less than $150.

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Travel Figures Show Social Class Inequality Widening In Iran -

Louis Ren Beres, Emeritus Professor of International Law at Purdue University, discusses the possibility of an Iran-Israel nuclear conflict.

For by Wise Counsel, Thou Shalt Make Thy War.

Proverbs, 24,6

As a matter of logic, an Israel-Iran nuclear exchange is presently out of the question. Though energetically pursuing a military nuclear capability, the Shiite Republic still has a formidable way to go before it can claim any credible status as an operational nuclear power. From Israels standpoint, prudent survival preparations should now take variously multiple and overlapping forms. In this connection, Israel likely understands that nothing short of a massive non-nuclear preemption could summarily stop Tehrans nuclearization (a nuclear preemption is essentially inconceivable), but that even if such a defensive first-strike were to meet the authoritative tests of anticipatory self-defense under international law, its overall results would be catastrophic.

What next for Jerusalem? Always, Israeli strategists should examine the countrys available security options as an intellectual rather than political task. This is an overriding and invariant imperative.

There is more. This cautionary conclusion about planning is compelling, inter alia, because any tactically successful conventional preemption against Iranian weapons and infrastructures would come at more-or-less unacceptable costs. Already, in 2003, when this writers Project Daniel Group presented an early report on Iranian nuclearization to then-Israeli PM Ariel Sharon, prospective Iranian targets were more directly threatening to Israel than was Iraqs nuclear Osiraq reactor on June 7, 1981.

To the limited extent that they could be estimated, the plausible risks of an Israel-Iran nuclear war would ultimately depend upon whether such a conflict was intentional, unintentional, or accidental. Apart from applying this critical three-part distinction to their analysis, there could be no good reason to expect any usefully systematic strategic assessments emerging from Tel Aviv (MOD/IDF). Once applied, however, Israeli planners should understand that their complex subject is entirely without useful precedent.

This uniqueness represents a quality of critical predictive importance. The peremptory rules of logic and mathematics preclude any meaningful assignments of probability in matters that are unprecedented or sui generis. To come up with meaningful estimations of probability, these predictions would first have to be based upon the determinable frequency of relevant past events. Prima facie, there have been no such events; unassailably, there have been no nuclear wars.

Still, it is essential that competent Israeli strategic analysts do their best to examine all current and future nuclear risks from Iran. To some ascertainable extent, it may be sensible for them to study what is currently happening between Washington and Pyongyang as a model for calculating Israels long-term nuclear perils. Looking back, in examining the more-or-less overheated rhetoric that had emerged from US President Donald J. Trump and North Korean President Kim Jung-Un, neither leader was paying sufficiently close attention to the grave risks of an unintentional or accidental nuclear war.

This means, among other things, that both Trump and Kim seemed to assume the other leaders decisional rationality and the primacy of decisional intention. If no such mutual assumption had existed, it would have made no sense for either president to deliberately strike existential retaliatory fear in the heart of the other. What are the lessons here for Israel vis--vis Iran? Should Israel similarly assume a fully rational adversary in Iran? To be sure, any such assumption would be more or less reassuring in Jerusalem, but would it also be correct?

During his dissembling tenure, Donald J. Trump, then US president, openly praised feigned irrationality as a tangible US security strategy. But such a preference could never be actionable without incurring assorted dangers, for America or for Israel. Although neither Israel nor Iran might actually want a war, either or both players could still commit catastrophic errors during competitive searches for escalation dominance. The only predictable element here would be the scenarios inherent unpredictability.

There is more. An unintentional or inadvertent nuclear war between Israel and Iran could take place not only as the result of misunderstandings or miscalculations between fully rational leaders, but also as the unintended consequence of mechanical, electrical, or computer malfunctions. This includes hacking interference, and should bring to mind a corollary distinction between unintentional/inadvertent nuclear war and an accidental nuclear war. Though all accidental nuclear war must be unintentional, not every unintentional nuclear war would be generated by accident. An unintentional or inadvertent nuclear war could sometime be the result of misjudgments (both fundamental and seemingly trivial) about enemy intentions.

In war, says Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz famously in his classic On War, everything is simple, but the simplest thing is difficult. In fashioning a successful endgame to any future nuclear confrontation with Iran, it would be vital for Israels leaders to understand that this sort of crisis is about much more than maximizing any correlation of forces or missile-interception capabilities. It will be about imaginative intuition and variously antecedent notions of dialectical thinking.

There are many complex details. As a nuclear war has never been fought, what will be needed in Jerusalem/Tel Aviv is more broadly intellectual guidance than Israel could ever reasonably expect from even its most senior military officers. In essence, ipso facto, there are no recognizable experts on fighting a nuclear war, not in Jerusalem, not in Tehran, not anywhere. It was not by accident that the first capable theoreticians of nuclear war and nuclear deterrence in the 1950s were academic mathematicians, physicists and political scientists.

There remains one last point about any still-estimable risks of an Israel-Iran nuclear war. From the standpoint of Jerusalem, the only truly successful outcome could be a crisis or confrontation that ends with a reduction of Iranian nuclear war fighting capabilities and intentions. It would represent a serious mistake for Israel to settle for bloated boasts of victory that are based only upon a one-time avoidance of nuclear war. Israel ought never to be taking existential risks with Tehran if the best anticipated outcome could only be status quo ante bellum.

Providing for Israeli national security vis--vis a still-nuclearizing Iran ought never to become a seat-of-the-pants game that is, the sort of visceral stance taken earlier by US President Donald J. Trump opposite North Korea. Without any suitably long-term, systematic and deeply-thoughtful plan in place for avoiding atomic war with this determined adversary, a nuclear conflict that is deliberate, unintentional or accidental could ensue. At every stage of its continuously corrosive competition with Tehran, Israel should avoid losing sight of the only rational use for its presumptive nuclear weapons and doctrine. That residual use, a product of abundantly wise counsel, concerns stable nuclear deterrence.

LOUIS REN BERES (Ph.D., Princeton, 1971) is Emeritus Professor of International Law at Purdue. His twelfth and most recent book is Surviving Amid Chaos: Israels Nuclear Strategy (2016). In 2003, Professor Beres was Chair of Project Daniel in Israel (regarding Irans nuclear weapons, prepared especially for PM Ariel Sharon). He has published in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists; The Jerusalem Post; Israel Defense (Tel Aviv); BESA (Israel); INSS (Israel); JURIST; Air-Space Operations Review (USAF); The Atlantic; Yale Global; Harvard National Security Journal (Harvard Law School); International Security (Harvard); Oxford University Press Yearbook on International Law & Jurisprudence; World Politics (Princeton); Parameters: Journal of the US Army War College (Pentagon); The Strategy Bridge; International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence; The War Room (Pentagon); Modern War Institute (West Point); Horasis (Zrich) and The New York Times.

Suggested citation: Louis Rene Beres, Figuring the Odds of an Israel-Iran Nuclear War: A Complex Task for Logic, Mathematics and Law, JURIST -Academic Commentary, April 13, 2023 https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2023/04/Louis-Beres-Israel-Iran-nuclear-war/.

This article was prepared for publication by Rebekah Malkin, Co-Managing Commentary Editor. Please direct any questions or comments to she/they/them at commentary@jurist.org

Opinions expressed in JURIST Commentary are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JURIST's editors, staff, donors or the University of Pittsburgh.

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Figuring the Odds of an Israel-Iran Nuclear War: A Complex Task for ... - JURIST

A California woman was sentenced on April 7 to four years in prison followed by three years of supervised release for conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) by providing services, including financial services, to Iran and the Government of Iran, in violation of U.S. sanctions against Iran, and for structuring.

According to court documents, Niloufar Bahadorifar, aka Nellie Bahadorifar, 48, of Irvine, pleaded guilty on Dec. 15, 2022, before U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams, who imposed the sentence.

The Government of Iran has shown that it will take extreme measures to silence dissidents and critics around the world exercising their lawful rights, including through the use of violence on U.S. soil, said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Departments National Security Division. We hold accountable an individual who violated U.S. sanctions by providing financial assistance that ultimately supported a failed kidnapping plot directed by the Iranian government, underscoring the Departments commitment to bringing to justice those who criminally aid the Iranian regime.

Niloufar Bahadorifar provided financial support to a brazen plot intended to kidnap an Iranian human rights activist living in the United States whom the Iranian Government has sought to silence for years, said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York. Efforts by malign foreign governments to stifle free speech and peaceful protest by means of intimidation or repression cannot be tolerated. The right to free speech is a core fundamental principle of American ideals, and this office is proud to protect that right with every means at our disposal.

Simply put, the defendant provided assistance to individuals who tried to help kidnap a journalist living in New York, who has criticized the regime in Teheran, said Assistant Director Alan E. Kohler Jr.of the FBIs Counterintelligence Division. This case demonstrates that the government of Iran will continue to target dissidents and reach beyond their borders, violating U.S sanctions and national security, but more importantly threaten the personal safety of individuals living in our country.The FBI will continue to shield those who are targeted and aggressively pursue anyone who attempts to circumvent our laws and will leverage all our authorities to protect the right to free speech.

According to the indictment and other documents in the public record, as well as statements made in public court proceedings:

For years, the Government of Iran has targeted a prominent Iranian dissident living in New York City (the Victim). The Victim is a journalist, author and human rights activist who has publicized the Government of Irans human rights abuses and suppression of political expression. Beginning in at least 2020, Iranian intelligence officials and assets, including co-defendant Mahmoud Khazein, plotted to kidnap the Victim from within the United States for rendition to Iran in an effort to silence the Victims criticism of the regime. As part of that plot, on multiple occasions in 2020 and 2021, agents of the Government of Iran procured the services of private investigators to surveil, photograph, and video record the Victim and the Victims household members. These agents of the Government of Iran, including Khazein, procured the surveillance by misrepresenting their identities and the purpose of the surveillance to the investigators and laundered money into the United States from Iran in order to pay for the surveillance, photos and video recordings of the Victim.

Beginning in approximately 2015, Bahadorifar, a U.S. citizen residing in California and originally from Iran, provided financial and other services, including access to the U.S. financial system and U.S. financial institutions, to Iranian residents and entities, including to Khazein. Bahadorifar, who is not charged with participating in the kidnapping conspiracy, provided financial services that ultimately supported the plot. Among other things, Bahadorifar caused a payment to be made to a private investigator for surveillance of the Victim on behalf of Khazein. Bahadorifars payment obscured the origin of those who had hired the private investigator, who surveilled the Victim without knowing it was on behalf of Iranian intelligence services. At no time did Bahadorifar obtain permission from OFAC to provide services to Iran.

Beginning in approximately 2019, Bahadorifar also structured cash deposits totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. In total, Bahadorifar structured at least approximately $476,100 in more than 120 individual deposits. All but two of the deposits were less than $10,000.

The FBI New York Field Office Counterintelligence-Cyber Division and the New York FBI Iran Threat Task Force investigated the case, with valuable assistance provided by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and the NYPD Intelligence Bureau, the FBI Los Angeles Field Office and the Justice Departments National Security Division.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael D. Lockard, Jacob H. Gutwillig and Matthew J.C. Hellman for the Southern District of New York and Trial Attorney Christopher M. Rigali of the National Security Divisions Counterintelligence and Export Control Section are prosecuting the case.

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Woman Sentenced to 48 Months in Prison for Conspiring to Violate ... - Department of Justice

The secret police tail was impossible to miss but easy to lose. Two men in Saudi national dress white thobe and chequered shemagh drove a large black American saloon slowly behind me as I walked on the baking hot road. I turned into a shopping mall and they parked outside, not bothering to follow on foot as there was only one entrance. I went into a shop, all the way to the back, and then out through a door for staff to get to the malls loading bay, where a local activist picked me up in his car. We felt immensely pleased with ourselves when we got to the house of the Shia dissident we had come to see. He laughed and pointed out a nearly identical black car down the road, one man with binoculars, another on his phone. The dissident was being watched 24/7. He gave the secret policemen a wave.

The Saudi-Iran peace deal might be seen as MBSs judgment that Israel will attack Iran sooner or later

This was the town of Al Qatif, in eastern Saudi Arabia, in 2011. Young Shia were starting to take to the streets, encouraged by the Arab Spring. They promised a day of rage. The Saudi authorities promised an iron fist. The dissident, a softly spoken intellectual, was trying to calm things down.

The Saudi authorities terrified of losing the eastern oil fields accused Iran of stirring up the trouble. More than a decade later, when mass demonstrations began last year in Iran, the authorities there accused Saudi Arabia of provoking the unrest. In both countries, people were angry enough without outside help. But the bitter enmity between the rulers in Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran has been a defining fact of the Middle East for the past 40 years, deepening the sectarian divide across the region, fuelling small wars and threatening a much larger conflict.

Then suddenly last month Riyadh and Tehran made peace. No one saw it coming at least not the US State Department or the CIA. You couldnt blame them. After all, the Saudi leader, Mohammed bin Salman, had once said that Irans supreme leader makes Hitler look good. MBS had also accused the Iranians of wanting to grab Mecca. He said hed take the war to them, on Iranian soil, before letting that happen. Its easy to talk tough when the big kid on the block, the United States, will step in if you lose a fight. But in 2019, MBS was shocked when the US seething following the murder of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey the previous year failed to hit back after an attack by Iranian-made drones shut down half of Saudi Arabias oil production. By all accounts, MBS started to doubt Americas reliability and to see the wisdom of coming to terms with the old enemy.

Kim Ghattas is cautious about the resulting tentative agreement. Her book Black Wave is a history of the decades of conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, sparked by the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979. This is not a genuine peace deal, she says both sides are just being pragmatic. The Iranians are hurting from economic sanctions and under pressure from street protests; there is internal discord small cracks in the regime. The Saudis are in a panic just like after the invasion of Kuwait about how dangerous and volatile the region has become. I remain a sceptic this is a short-term tactic to buy time on both sides and see who comes out on top at the end.

So, she goes on, both sides wanted to defuse tension and de-escalate while keeping all their cards. In Irans case, this means keeping its proxy militias active around the region: Hamas in the Palestinian territories and Lebanon, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. The regime in Iran feels encircled and sees these militias as its first line of defence. It will continue to use them to shore up the Syrian regime, to harass American troops in Syria and Iraq, to attack Israel. There is no change to Irans foreign policy, except for some cosmetic changes to allow the supreme leader some space and time to figure out how theyre going to ensure the survival of the Islamic Republic.

For Saudi Arabia, too, the fundamentals of its foreign policy remain the same: fear and suspicion of Iran. But two important things appear to have changed. The first is that MBS is desperate to get out of the quagmire of his war in Yemen, fought against an Iranian-backed militia, the Houthis. Thousands of Yemenis have died under Saudi bombs (supplied by the US and Britain). Many more have starved to death in a famine caused by the war. This, perhaps, does not bother MBS as much as the Houthis ability to send rockets and drones into Saudi Arabia at will. One fell on Jeddah while the city was hosting the international Formula 1 Grand Prix, an event MBS loves so much he may try to buy it for $20 billion.

The second change is one we can only guess. But, presumably, Riyadhs new relationship with Tehran means it would not support Israel if it bombed Irans nuclear facilities. An American lawyer who deals directly with senior Saudi royals told me once that MBS was even thinking about sending his own jets to join an Israeli strike. That was hard to believe, though the lawyer had also told me MBS was meeting in secret with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and later it emerged there had been at least one such meeting. True or not, the lawyers claims are exactly the kind of thing that would be said if Israel did bomb Iran. Now as Ghattas tells me the Saudis could declare Were not involved and have some hope of being believed.

The deal with Tehran might, then, be seen as MBSs judgment that Israel will attack Iran sooner or later. There are other signs this might happen. Irans talks with the US and others to limit its nuclear capabilities have broken down. Last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency discovered that Iran had enriched uranium to 83.7 per cent purity;90 per cent is the level needed to make a nuclear bomb.

Jason Brodsky is policy director of United Against Nuclear Iran, an American lobby group. He tells me the Iranians are feeling very confident right now. They have escalated their nuclear activities without paying a meaningful price, instead being rewarded with a deal from Americas principal ally in the region. He worries that Israel has been left weaker, hopes shattered that an earlier deal with the United Arab Emirates the Abraham Accords would lead to one with the Saudis too. The unity that could have been developed if Saudi Arabia hadnt normalised relations with Iran is now in question.

A succession of Israeli leaders have promised to prevent the flying holocaust of a nuclear bomb atop an Iranian ballistic missile. For now, this means a war in the shadows, of assassinations and covert strikes. Iran has its own such covert war, too, using its (implausibly deniable) Shia militias. Here as well Brodsky says Iran has been emboldened: expect the Axis of Resistance as Iran calls its anti-Israel, anti-American coalition not just to remain active, but to test red lines. This is also a consequence, Brodsky points out, of Israels political crisis, with a divided government and mass protests on the streets against Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Last week, there was a volley of rocket fire from southern Lebanon into northern Israel. It was the largest attack since the war between Israel and Lebanon in 2006. At home in Beirut, we wondered if we should take the next flight out of Lebanon. We stayed, seeing that everyone was content to blame the Palestinian militant group Hamas, rather than Hezbollah, which is under more direct control from Tehran. But no one believed the attack could have occurred without Hezbollahs consent. It just happened to take place while the Hamas leader was in Beirut to meet the leader of Hezbollah.

A beleaguered Netanyahu told a news conference this week that further attacks from Hamas, Hezbollah or the Assad regime the Axis of Resistance would bring on the full force of an Israeli military response. Brodsky tells me that, in his view, Israel has to consider much bolder operations, not just going after Hamas, but Hezbollah too.

Hezbollah, though, has a vast arsenal. An Israeli thinktank puts it at 5,000 long-range missiles, capable of hitting any large Israeli city, 65,000 short-range rockets and 145,000 heavy mortars. Brodsky believes Israel could calibrate an attack to rebuild meaningful deterrence without triggering the full scale use of Hezbollahs rockets in reply. It might not be as easy as that. In 2006, a small incident on the border quickly blossomed into a full-scale war. Tensions are higher now.

A curious fact about the Saudi-Iranian cold peace: it was brokered by China, not (as with almost every other Middle East agreement) by the US. A photo shows the Iranian and Saudi foreign ministers shaking hands in Beijing. If not quite yet a New World Order in the Middle East, this is certainly a stunning upset. Chinas clout is economic. Its the biggest customer for Saudi oil and Iranian gas. The US, on the other hand, now produces enough oil to meet its own needs. Its clout is military, though Americans must increasingly wonder why, when they have their own oil, they have to pay for a peace that guarantees Chinas energy supply.

Nevertheless, the US has just dispatched a nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Florida, to the Persian Gulf, carrying 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles. There is a dangerous perception in the region that the US is occupied elsewhere, in Ukraine and by the possibility of war over Taiwan, and is not paying attention. The Middle East has a way of exploding back into relevance. Old enemies are shaking hands, reopening embassies, talking about trade and who could fail to welcome that? but one peace deal may simply serve to make the next war more likely.

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The dangerous shadow war between Iran and Israel - The Spectator