Yossi Schwartz ISL (RCIT section in cIsrael occupied Palestine) 19.05.2026
Again, Trump announced that the attack on Iran was being postponed. It is difficult to count the number of times the US president has issued his threats against Iran since the cease-fire was announced on April 8, which was supposed to last two weeks and since then about eight weeks have passed. On Monday, Pakistan passed a “corrected” Iranian version of the previous proposal, which was completely rejected by Trump.
According to sources who reported on the proposal, these are not new positions, but apparently a combination of Trump’s proposals with those of Iran to allow negotiations on all of them together as a single unit. It was intended to overcome one of the procedural obstacles that prevented the progress of the negotiations, in which Iran insisted on first discussing the shipping arrangements in the Strait of Hormuz, and to receive commitments and guarantees that the United States and Israel would refrain from attacking, and release the frozen funds
Iran has announced that its target will be as broad as the width of the American attack: water desalination plants, nuclear power reactors, power plants of Israel and the Gulf states. But while Netanyahu is pressing for a renewal of the war, the Gulf states are afraid of a renewal of the war, and this is ostensibly the reason for the new postponement.
By the end of last week, more than 30 ships, most of them Chinese, had passed through the Strait of Hormuz, four of which transported about 2 million barrels of oil from Iraq, as well as liquefied natural gas tankers from Qatar to Pakistan. Compared to the about 120 ships that crossed the strait every day on normal days, this is still a trickle and it is clear that the US administration does not want to confront ships carrying the Chinese flag. Iran announced that it is in negotiations with Oman on the drafting of a joint protocol for the passage of ships on Saturday. The chairman of Iran’s National Security Committee, Ebrahim Azizi, said that Iran is preparing a professional protocol for the management of the sailing in the Strait of Hormuz, the details of which will be published soon.
At the end of April, Pakistan, which mediates between the United States and Iran, announced that it had opened six land crossings to traffic in which about 3,000 containers stuck in the port of Karachi are expected to pass. Last week, an Iranian delegation held discussions in Pakistan on expanding the connection between the port of Chababar in Iran and the port of Gwadar in Pakistan, in a way that would allow it to circumvent the naval blockade imposed by the United States in the Persian Gulf. This route, if it opens wide, it could turn Pakistan into a center for marketing Iranian goods and later move most of the non-oil trade from the United Arab Emirates.
Iran’s land transportation routes reveal a plethora of existing and other alternatives that may develop, including the North-South Corridor connecting India via Iran to the Caucasus and Russia; the freight train line between Xi’an, China, and Iran, whose frequency has increased from once a week to three to four times; and the traffic arteries that connect Iran to the countries bordering the Caspian Sea. The railway line between Iran and Turkey, which has so far suffered from technical and bureaucratic difficulties, may also develop into a major alternative route, with it still unclear what will happen to the agreement signed at the end of last year to build a sophisticated and high-speed railway line between the two countries, at a cost of about $1.6 billion.
These land routes connect Iran to countries such as China and Russia, which are not bound by US sanctions, as well as to countries that partially implement the sanctions, including Pakistan, Turkey, and the countries bordering the Caspian Sea. These routes still cannot completely replace the sea route through which Iran has marketed about 1.5 million barrels of oil per day, most of them to China, at a much lower price than is customary in the market, but they have allowed the Iranian economy to function even under the heavy sanctions regime.
Iran reportedly charges up to $2 million for each tanker that passes through the Strait of Hormuz “with its approval,” about $1 per barrel of oil. As a result, charging such transit fees from 40 tankers a day is enough to compensate Iran for the loss of revenue.
According to a study by the Emirates Policy Center conducted at the beginning of the year, oil revenues were planned to be only about 15 percent of the budget, and the rest of the financing was planned to come from taxes (about 50 percent), the sale of bonds, and the withdrawal of funds from the National Savings Fund, which deposits surplus oil revenues and has no verified data on the amount of money deposited in it. Hence, even the American intelligence assessment that Iran has a “financial backstop” that could suffice for three or four months does not necessarily reflect the real situation. Iran not only has more financial reserves; Its ability to import and export goods by land may also fill its coffers and leave it with plenty of breathing space.
Yet Iran is preparing for the possibility of the renewal of the war and is mobilizing and arms the population. This is the time for the Iranian working class to demand its right to choose its commanders. If the regime refuses it will expose its betrayal in defence of Iran and shows that only the working class can defend Iran.