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War On Iran: – New Clash Over Strait Passage – Lebanon’s Capitulation Ignites New Civil War
the last days there were two developments in Lebanon and Iran that will likely cause the war to reignite into a much larger conflagration.
Iran insists on having control over the Strait of Hormuz. But at least half of the passage way is under Oman’s jurisdiction.
Oman is, unlike Iran, a member of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and has as such a different view of the international law with regards to the Strait situation. Oman is also a (former) UK/U.S. dependent. Iran’s attempts to pull the traditionally neutral Oman onto its side of the conflict have failed.
On Thursday the UN’s International Maritime Organization (IMO) had arranged for a convoy of ships that had been stuck in the Persian Gulf for weeks to sail through the Strait right next to the coast of Oman. Iran saw this (falsely) as a breach of the Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. and (correctly) as an attempt to undermine its leverage:
Oman, in conjunction with the UN International Maritime Organization, has opened up a corridor for the purpose of evacuating ships from the Gulf. However, it is not hard to imagine that having regularized one-way traffic on the Oman side, that it would not soon become two-way traffic, vitiating Iran control of the Strait of Hormuz. And we have pointed out that with the southern side of the Strait being Oman territorial waters, if Iran interferes with ship transits there, its presumed legal argument would look an awful lot like what Israel has been hawking in its invasion of Lebanon, that it can run roughshod over Omani sovereignity out of a not-credible claim of a security risk.
Iran’s response to the challenge was a (harmless) drone attack on a container ship under the flag of Singapore which had used the IMO organized convoy to slip out of the Persian Gulf on its own. As the head of IMO announced during a press conference:
I have been informed of an attack today in the Gulf of Oman on a vessel which passed through the Strait of Hormuz. This vessel did not transit under IMO’s evacuation framework. I have always reiterated that the safety of the seafarers remains paramount. Therefore, to ensure a coordinated approach and navigational safety, the evacuation plan will be paused until further clarity is obtained. …”
No one got hurt in the drone attack. There was only minor damage to the ship.
The U.S. however used the incident, in which it was formerly not involved, to escalate the situation. Several U.S. airplanes launched stand-off missile attacks on Iranian radar installations near Sirik, a port city in southern Iran, near Hormuz.
Last night Iran announced that it had hit back:
The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy has struck American military targets in the region in retaliation for earlier aggression against Iranian coastal areas.
The force made the remarks in a statement issued on Friday, saying its reprisal “targeted the deployment sites of the US terrorist military in the region.”
It noted that the retaliation came after American forces launched airstrikes against areas lying along the Iranian coastline as part of the United States’ changeless “pattern of breaching its commitments.”
Waging the aggression, Washington used “various pretexts, including the passage of a non-compliant vessel through an unauthorized route in the Strait of Hormuz,” the statement added.
It is not yet know which U.S. military sites the Iranian’s have been hit or what kind of damage the strike might have caused.
If the damage was small the U.S. may for now (again) stop the tit-for-tat. The situation could, for a moment, go quite again.
The development in Lebanon however points to its rather rapid re-escalation.
A abbreviated bit of background: After the Nakba and the loss of the 1968 Arab war against Israel many Palestinians had fled to Lebanon. This changed the demography of the previously majority Christian country. Lebanon slipped into a civil war between the various factions of the Christian, Druse, Sunni and Shia Muslim population.
The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) set up shop. It used the south of Lebanon for attacks on Israel. In 1983 Israel invaded Lebanon and occupied Beirut. Its aim was to defeat and expel the PLO but it soon ended up being hated by most parties of the multi-confessional Lebanese population. The deprived Shia, which had a large majority in the south, soon turned from being Israel friendly into its worst enemies.
The U.S. intervened and deployed ‘peacekeepers’ which took the side of the Maronite Christians. Suicide explosions hit the barracks of the U.S., French and other ‘peacekeepers’. The U.S. retreated. Israel installed its own proxy forces which lost against the growing Shia resistance. Only in the year 2000, under high pressure from the Shia resistance, did Israel leave its positions in south Lebanon.
The civil war died down. Political power was split which each domination getting a part. The Christian faction, which had shrunk significantly due to emigration, kept its dominant positions while the Shia, which are now the majority, were left under-represented.
In recent years a minor quarrel between the Shia Amal faction and the Iran allied Shia Hizbullah had allowed for the formation of an unrepresentative government under the former General Joseph Aoun, a Maronite Christian.
In conjunction with the war on Iran Israel re-invaded south Lebanon. While Iran, through the MoU, set the retreat of Israel from Lebanon as a condition for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the Lebanese government, under the pressure of U.S. sanctions, insisted on finding its own solution by selling out to the U.S. and Israel.
Yesterday it signed a Tripartite Agreement with the U.S. and Israel which will allow Israel to keep control over south Lebanon including over some 60 townships which it had cleansed of their Shia population. The agreement commits the Lebanese government to disarm Hizbullah, which it can not do, while allowing Israel to stay indefinitely.
For a deeper analysis of the agreement (and its illegality under Lebanese law) see here, here and especially here:
Lebanon is not a place where external powers can easily impose a security architecture against a major domestic constituency. It was not possible in 1983. It is not possible today.
The May 17 [1983] Agreement was buried because it lacked legitimacy, because it was tied to occupation, and because those expected to accept it had the capacity to reject it. The Washington framework may not be identical, but it carries the same weakness. It depends on Hezbollah’s disarmament without Hezbollah’s consent. It depends on Lebanese army enforcement without Lebanese political consensus. It depends on American mediation despite American partiality. It depends on Israeli withdrawal while giving Israel the authority to delay withdrawal.
That is not a peace process. It is a controlled crisis.
It is even more than that. Israel’s clear intention here is to reignite a Lebanese civil war and may well succeed.
Elijah J. Magnier 🇪🇺 @ejmalrai – 8:54 UTC · Jun 27, 2026
The Lebanese resistance will not accept the long-term presence of Israeli occupation forces in the occupied south of Lebanon. Its response, whenever it comes, will underline the crisis of legitimacy created by President Joseph Aoun’s decision to remove the state of animosity with Israel, a power he does not possess, and to accept a so-called “buffer zone” that prevents the inhabitants of nearly 60 villages from returning to their homes.
The agreement about Lebanon will lead to replay of the 1980s situation. Like in 1983 this will be another brutal but fruitless attempt to sort out the conflict against the will of the population. A civil war will ensue, a U.S. military intervention will follow. It will be defeated by Hizbullah and end, maybe years from now, in an Israeli retreat.
U.S. and Israeli observers acknowledge that the agreement will likely lead to more war not only in Lebanon but in the wider Middle East region:
This is literally the opposite of peace. …
By interjecting this agreement now, literally in the midst of trying to negotiate an end to the American war with Iran, in the midst of a 60 day ceasefire with Iran — which, if successful, would end the fighting in Lebanon — we take action with these signatures in Washington today that makes it nearly impossible to maintain the cease-fire and reach a final settlement, and therefore makes war more likely.
While restarting the civil war in Lebanon and re-intensifying, via the U.S., the war on Iran, Israel is already setting its sight onto the next target:
Israel’s Minister of Science and Technology Gila Gamliel:
“Once we move beyond the Iranian regime, there is the Ottoman Empire’s ambition, which will seek to expand and spread its influence.
There is no doubt that Türkiye, with its ambitions to expand beyond its borders and to lead the region according to its own vision, poses a real future threat to the citizens of the State of Israel.
Israel always prepares for every threat, and there is no doubt that Türkiye is becoming a front that could indeed become a threat in the future.”
To which the Sunni NATO member Turkey responds by subtly honoring Shia theology:
Erdogan this week:
“I commemorate the Kerbela martyrs with mercy and respect. We have been experiencing the sorrow of the martyrdom of our master Husayn ibn Ali and his companions just as it was on that day for a full 14 centuries.”
Don’t be surprised when future news items report of Hizbullah logistics running through Turkey …
Prunella Scales | Jun 28 2026 3:39 utc | 199—
The Aryan Myth was used by Hitlerian Germany and Hindu India to promote their Exceptionalism …
Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 28 2026 3:45 utc | 201
You’re referring to Nazis and Hindu India ideologies. Ok thanks for clarifying. I was into this 2010 and before, and forgotten many details now. It was confusing when you said ‘the Aryan myth is a myth,’ because you’re right—but which myth? The linguistic ones? The racial ones? The colonial one? The nationalist one? The Nazi one? The migration one? The anti-caste inversion? The Theosophy ones? Because it’s not a single myth—it’s a dozen different ones, all arguing over a word that meant something completely different 3,500 years ago.
In India, colonial elites and reformers weaponized the “Aryan” word for their own identity politics—Tilak, Dayanand Saraswati, and even later Hindu nationalists all used selective readings of the Vedas to construct self-serving narratives. The Theosophical Society, led by figures like Helena Blavatsky and Annie Besant, played a significant role in crafting a particular narrative around the “Aryan” concept that was then leveraged for various ideological purposes. Blavatsky wrote about “Root Races” and “Races,” including the “Aryan” race, in the 1800s presenting them as part of a grand spiritual and evolutionary hierarchy. Hitler rode on her coattails, obviously, given known influences on him.
Besant, who succeeded Blavatsky, was a prominent figure in the Theosophical Society and also deeply involved in the Indian independence movement. She shifted the Theosophical approach towards a more political and nationalistic ideology, aligning it with the growing Indian nationalist movement. The scholar Dorothy M. Figueira’s work explicitly groups figures like Besant with Indian thinkers such as Tilak and Dayanand Saraswati, as they all reinterpreted Hindu scriptures to construct an “Aryan” identity that served their quest for a national identity under colonial rule. Alice Bailey, another key figure in the Theosophical tradition, built upon Blavatsky’s ideas. She maintained the concept of “root races” and Atlantis but also introduced new elements like a stronger focus on esoteric Christianity.
Theosophists were not just passive observers of the “Aryan” discourse; they were active participants who developed their own distinct and influential version of it. The Aryan misconception is convoluted into multiple versions of myth making over centuries now. The word arya in Sanskrit — Indo-European languages — meant “noble” or “cultured”—it was a cultural, not racial, term. The same word appears in the Iranian Avesta as airya, but the Vedic Aryans worshipped Devas (Indra, Varuna, Mitra) while the Iranian Aryans worshipped Ahura Mazda and considered the Devas demons. They were rival branches of the same linguistic family — not a white Aryan race.
The racial myth is mainly a European colonial fabrication but likely a simple misinterpretation too. But nefarious intent is not needed to explain all the confusions that arose.
The idea of “Aryan” has been weaponised differently in different eras—European racial theory, Indian nationalist revivalism, anti-caste critiques, and Sikh-Hindu polemics all use it selectively. Later religious movements like Radhasoami and Sikh reform movements drew on this heritage but forged their own distinct identities, often in direct conflict with each other over the definition of “who is Aryan” or “who is Hindu”. The Sikh identity was also being aggressively contested — with Arya Samajists claiming Sikhs were merely Hindus (Swami Dayanand’s Satyarth Prakash attacked Guru Nanak and Sikhism), leading to the famous “Ham Hindu Nahin” (We are not Hindus) counter-movement.
The real kicker? None of them could read the Rigveda in its original context. They all projected their own 19th- and 20th-century obsessions—race, nation, spiritual hierarchy, political legitimacy—onto texts that were composed by pastoralists who were more concerned with cattle raids, soma rituals, and pleasing Indra than with constructing “racial purity” or “national destiny.”
The Steppe Pastoralists (Yamnaya culture) who later migrated into South Asia were the ones associated with the spread of Indo-European languages. The major migration of “Aryan” speakers began after ~2000 BCE, with the Steppe ancestry mixing into South Asian populations from around 1900–1500 BCE The current academic consensus places the Vedas incl. the Rigveda (the oldest Veda) around 1500-1200 BCE. DNA evidence shows that the Steppe pastoralist genes (“Aryan” genes) are found in about 30% of the Indian population today. This is not a distinct racial group but distinct peoples speaking the same language group.
Chapter 4 on the Indo-Aryans would be relevant to this discussion. OT, I became interested in shamanism in Central Asia from reading Mircea Eliade and his global survey of shamanism. Geoffrey Ashe points to the Altai region as being the main source of the tradition.
Posted by: Harmonic Resonance | Jun 28 2026 3:43 utc | 200
Thanks for the tip. I found the chapter online. The author is making a case for a cultural migration of beliefs—specifically, that Vedic cosmology has roots in older, shamanic practices of the Altai region. It is a very different and less academic claim than the linguistic and genetic evidence but I wouldn’t be able to dismiss some kind of shamanic / mastery connection is possible. The similarities across all the subcontinent’s spiritual traditions are many. Though the more ancient Siberian period is disconnected from the Steppe Pastoralists who brought the Indo-European languages to India.
The entire sub-continent spiritual landscape is awe inspiring. Studying these paths and their texts changed me forever.
Posted by: Prunella Scales | Jun 28 2026 6:44 utc | 212
advocating instead for horizontal, stateless social structures.”
Posted by: Strange Bedfellow | Jun 28 2026 13:58 utc | 248
I admire the enthusiasm for anarchist ideals, but they won’t be happening in Iran any time soon in my opinion. I think the worse thing to happen to Iran was Islam taking it over hundreds of years ago. You can’t serve two masters iow.
The references are good, that anarchist website is excellent I agree. My view is still nothing anywhere can stop the systemic nature of todays complex global structures until it ultimately collapses decades into the future. Maybe then pockets of anarchist communities can develop again. Like life used to be like for humans everywhere. Best wishes in spreading the word though.
In the meantime dismantling the Rojava model in east syria last January will continue.
Here’s a little Graeber and Wengrow who refer to the three primordial freedoms, those which for most of human history were simply assumed: the freedom to move, the freedom to disobey and the freedom to create or transform social relationships. We also noted how theEnglish word ‘free’ ultimately derives from a Germanic term meaning ‘friend’ – since, unlike free people, slaves cannot have friends because they cannot make commitments or promises. The freedom to make promises is about the most basic and minimal element of our third freedom, much as physically running away from a difficult situation is the most basic element of the first. In fact, the earliest word for‘freedom’ recorded in any human language is the Sumerian term ama(r)-gi, which literally means ‘return to mother’ – because Sumerian kings would periodically issue decrees of debt freedom, cancelling all non-commercial debts and in some cases allowing those held as debt peons in their creditors’ households to return home to their kin.One might ask, how could that most basic element of all human freedoms, the freedom to make promises and commitments and thusbuild relationships, be turned into its very opposite: into peonage,serfdom or permanent slavery? It happens, we’d suggest, precisely when promises become impersonal, transferable – in a nutshell, bureaucratized. It is one of history’s great ironies that Madame de Graffigny’s notion of the Inca state as a model of a benevolent, bureaucratic order actually derives from a misreading of the sources, if a very common one: mistaking the social benefits of local, self-organized administrative units (ayllu) for an imperial, Inca structure of command, which in reality served almost exclusively to provision the army, priesthood and administrative classes.133 Mesopotamian and later Chinese kings also tended to represent themselves, like the Egyptian nomarchs, as protectors of the weak, feeders of the hungry, solace of widows and orphans.
As money is to promises, we might say, state bureaucracy is to the principle of care: in each case we find one of the most fundamental building blocks of social life corrupted by a confluence of maths and violence.Congratulations to the Americans for supporting 250 years of Peonage and Violence by the State. And for believing the myth the founding fathers were not all lying war criminals and thieves.
The situation for the Kurds in Rojava, the autonomous region in northeastern Syria, has changed dramatically in early 2026. Following a intense military offensive by the Syrian interim government, the autonomous administration has agreed to integrate into the Syrian state, effectively ending its decade-long experiment in self-rule. This marks a major geopolitical shift, with the United States backing this outcome and withdrawing support for its former Kurdish allies
The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), known as Rojava, had established a unique system of decentralized governance. This was built on local councils, ethnic and religious power-sharing, and a mandatory co-chair system requiring one man and one woman to jointly hold every leadership position . This system is now being dismantled.
You can add the Kurdish Rojava to the list of nations and political systems destroyed by the great Satan America using violence and threats against basic human rights. It will not last forever. Their days are numbered too.
Posted by: Prunella Scales | Jun 29 2026 1:47 utc | 280
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