War On Iran: Escalation – Saudi’s Block Oil – Alleged Recruiting Of Ahmadinejad

  moon of alabama

The last week saw several rounds of tit-for-tat strikes exchanged between U.S. forces and the Iranian military. The strikes have now become more extensive and are hitting at more valuable targets:

Oman: The IRGC said it attacked Oman as part of its latest phase of retaliation. It said it targeted “the FPS long-range aerial radar and the vessel detection radar in Oman”, adding that these radar systems were destroyed.

Bahrain: The IRGC also said it launched missile and drone attacks targeting “installations and infrastructure of the aggressive US army” in Juffair, Bahrain.
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Earlier, the IRGC said it targeted Jordan’s Prince Hassan Air Base with missiles and drones and set fire to several fuel depots and ammunition storage facilities.

Kuwait: The IRGC said on Monday that it also targeted a US surface-to-surface missile base in Kuwait, “setting fire to two HIMARS missile launchers and missile-packed warehouses, completely destroying them”.
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The US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) earlier said it hit “dozens of targets at multiple locations with precision munitions to degrade Iran’s ability to continue attacking international shipping flowing through the Strait of Hormuz”.

These targets included “Iranian military air-defense systems, coastal radar sites, missile and drone capabilities, and small boats”, it said.

Iran says that the Strait of Hormuz is closed. The U.S. has reinstalled its maritime blockade of Iran. Trump is demanding a 20% payment on all cargo passing the Strait. Oil prices are rising as are the chances for a new global depression.

The U.S. is incapable of acknowledging its defeat that had followed after it had attacked Iran (twice).

It is now trying to renegotiate the Memorandum of Understanding it had to sign by using the same tools is had used when it had lost the war. This is unlikely to lead to a different outcome.

The overwhelming outpour of mourners at the burial of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has shown that Iran is willing to resist all U.S. pressure.

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Earlier today an Iranian passenger plane has (again) breached the no-flight-zone Saudi Arabia had declared over Yemen. The plane landed in Sana’a despite Saudi attempts to bomb the airport’s run way. The Ansarullah government in Sana’s announced that it will retaliate against the Saudis.

Despite the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz Saudi Arabia is still exporting significant amounts of oil via the Red Sea and through the strait of Bab el-Mandeb. Its attack on Yemen will likely lead to a Yemeni blockade of that outlet.

I find it somewhat inexplicable why the Saudis decided to reignite the conflict in Yemen now that their exports are solely depending on passing a route controlled by Yemen.

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Today the NY Times published a rather curious story about an alleged Mossad recruiting of the former president of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinjad:

Inside Israel’s Secret Operation to Cultivate Ahmadinejad – NY Times

In recent years, according to American officials, Israel secretly paid money to Mr. Ahmadinejad for housing and travel, and Israeli operatives met him abroad on several occasions, including during his trips to Budapest.

The effort culminated in late February of this year — during the first days of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran — with an audacious operation to relocate the former leader, who had been living under strict surveillance in Tehran. The goal: to set in motion the plan to topple the current regime and install Mr. Ahmadinejad.

This story makes little sense to me. Ahmadinejad was president between 2005 and 2013. He was a “has-been” in Iran. No one would have wanted him back in office. But he wasn’t a traitor and I suspect that anything he did was well known to, or even coordinated, with Iranian security forces.

Ali Ahmadi @AliR_Ahmadi – 13:15 UTC · Jul 13, 2026

I dont know if this tale is true but it does not make the Israelis seem smart or savvy. Ahmadinejad is the most discredited figure in Iranian politics, universally loathed by all.

I also should point out that he wasn’t under house arrest before the war. He would meet regularly with whoever he wanted and tell them he wanted to overthrow the Iranian gov. Obviously, Iranian intel was aware of this but probably didnt see a threat in him.

Ahmadinejad must be well. He took part in the funeral of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Haaretz has more on that story:

Inside the Mossad Plot to Install Israel’s Arch-enemy Ahamadinijad as Iran’s Leader (archived) – Haaretz

In Israel, particular attention was paid to Ahmadinejad’s belief that Iran could not continue to exist under the sanctions regime and that its nuclear program had, in his view, turned from an asset into a burden. Those who closely followed the developing relationship with him came to believe that his opposition to the regime had become so fierce that he would be willing to assist the Mossad and entrust his fate to it.
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In early 2026, when Iran became the central front, it became clear that Ahmadinejad was one of Israel’s most significant assets. And when Jerusalem decided to go all in and launch Operation Puss in Boots – the operation to overthrow the Iranian regime – Ahmadinejad was chosen to take the reins on the day after, in the hope that he would steer Iran in the desired direction, abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons and present the world with an old-new Iran.

In fact, the former Iranian president was only the tip of the regime-change project. Behind him lay influence operations inside Iran, a project to arm and train Kurdish forces in Iraq, efforts to mobilize other minorities to destabilize the existing order, and Israeli Air Force plans to create a land corridor for militia movements.

One wonders what exotic drugs Mossad chief David Barnea has been smoking to fall for such horse shit. It was Barnea and his boss Benjamin Natanyahoo who convinced Trump to take part in the endeavor.

Some more sane people tried to stop the nonsense but failed:

Maj. Gen. Shlomi Binder, head of IDF Military Intelligence, wrote an assessment giving the plan little chance of success. Brig. Gen. Ofir Mizrahi Rosen, head of Military Intelligence’s Research Division, authored an entire document casting doubt on the ambitious operation. Tzachi Hanegbi, then national security adviser, withdrew from the preparations after concluding that they were based on wild fantasies.

Three days before H-hour, the disagreements reached such a boiling point that IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir ordered everything halted. Nevertheless, the prime minister decided to proceed.

Haaretz announced to publish a longer story on this later today.

In 2002/3, when then U.S. President George W. Bush planned to attack Iraq, he and his people relied on Ahmed Chalabi, an Iraqi crook who, as it later turned out, was also an agent for Iran. The dream of installing Chalabi as a U.S. controlled proxy ruler over Iraq ended in bitter failure.

Ahmadinejad may well have played a comparable role in this. Iranian intelligence will have been well aware of what he was doing. But it let it happen as the Israeli plan was destined to end in what an Israeli Iran specialist is now calling a strategic failure.

“We’ll do the maximum” — this is how the State of Israel embarked on an unprecedented strategic maneuver, relying on the Kurdish forces and on a mercurial figure like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This publication illustrates, more than anything else, the depth of the Israeli strategic failure vis-à-vis Iran.

Israel conditioned the maneuver on the elimination of Ali Khamenei, precisely the man who for years served as a restraining factor within the Iranian system.
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To this was added the reliance on the Kurdish forces, even though the chance that they could seize territories, hold them, and advance toward Tehran was nil. Beyond their operational weakness, Turkey would not have allowed such a scenario to develop.

No less grave was the attempt to base a plan for regime change on Ahmadinejad, who is an unpredictable figure, lacking significant power centers within the regime and without a base of support that would enable him to lead Iran the day after.

This is a chain of baseless working assumptions, failed intelligence assessments, and strategic planning disconnected from reality. This is material for a state commission of inquiry, because these errors not only caused the maneuver to fail but placed Israel after the war in a strategic reality far more severe and dangerous than the one it faced beforehand.

A future assessment of how the U.S. government under Donald Trump failed for this plot to attack Iran will likely come to a similar conclusion.

Posted by b on July 13, 2026 at 15:10 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2026/07/war-on-iran-escalation-saudis-block-oil-alleged-recruiting-of-ahmadinejad.html