The U.S. sanctions on Iran have succeeded only in forging a tighter trade partnership with Iran and the rest of the world. Instead of isolating Iran, it has created an indispensable relationship between Iran and China because China now buys 91% of Iran’s oil. What China does with Iran’s oil is beyond U.S. control but what it has done with its market position is 1. Secure it and its trading route, and 2. Create partnerships with other countries, from the UAE to Malaysia. This has not only helped Iran, it has helped all other countries in the region by creating something that Trump has not accounted for when it comes to the global oil market – stability.

What is the U.S. still looking for? Israel took out the regime’s leadership on the first day of the war, but left the son of the supreme leader alive, disfigured and with a bounty on his head.

Why would the U.S. and Israel do that if they wanted to topple the regime?

What has been exposed through this war is how wide the network is that sustains the regime, even without leadership and even as the country is being obliterated on the ground. The regime’s network has a stronghold on Iran’s oil and without being able to identify who the trustees are, the U.S. can do nothing but watch the Iranian oil market cut down America’s oil market and keep a group of very rich exiles in power.

The war in Iran is hinging on a media narrative, at the centre of which is a myth about the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. has maintained this myth for years, seeing this passage of water as a political asset and a potentially commercial one because it represents competition for their own oil trade and oil market. The Strait of Hormuz has never been closed and can’t be closed. The U.S. has, in its insistence that Iran closes the strait to cut off the global oil supply, revealed its own intention to exercise power and control over the supply of oil in order to inflate its price.