strikeMay 30, 2026

What the Iran war teaches Kim Jong Un - UPI.com

Summary

May 30 (UPI) -- The author prefers to use the lowercase "n" to challenge the Kim family regime's legitimacy. The Message to Pyongyang The war in Iran sends one clear message to Kim Jong Un: nuclear weapons remain the ultimate guarantee of regime survival, but they do not provide immunity from pressure, isolation, or attack. Kim will not see this war as an argument for restraint. He will see it as evidence that a regime without a fully credible nuclear deterrent remains vulnerable to coercion by the United States and its allies. That is the first and most important lesson for north Korea. Kim will study Iran's vulnerability and conclude that Tehran was exposed because it had not yet achieved a survivable nuclear force. He will compare Iran's position with his own. north Korea already has nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, hardened facilities, underground infrastructure, cyber capabilities, and a political system built for endurance under pressure. Kim will believe that his father and grandfather made the right decision by pursuing nuclear weapons at almost any cost. Nuclear Weapons Do Not End Risk But there is a second lesson, and it is more complicated. The war also shows that nuclear ambition does not shield a regime from military action. It can invite it. The United States demonstrated that it may use force against a state it believes is crossing a strategic threshold. Kim will see the danger. He will not abandon his arsenal, but he may accelerate efforts to make it more survivable, more dispersed, and more difficult to neutralize. Expect north Korea to emphasize mobile launchers, solid-fuel missiles, hardened command-and-control, cyber disruption, special operations, and political warfare designed to fracture allied cohesion before a crisis begins. The war also reinforces Pyongyang's belief that diplomacy is a tool of strategy, not a path to genuine compromise. This is where north Korea and Iran are most similar. There will never be a successful agreement with either Iran or north Korea as long as the current regimes remain in power. The nature of the regimes, their objectives, and their strategies preclude them from making a good-faith agreement that will be enforceable or that they will truly honor. Any agreement they make will be tactical. It will buy time. It will relieve pressure. It will divide opponents. It will create space to gain advantage. The Limits of Agreements This does not mean diplomacy has no value. It means diplomacy must be understood correctly. Agreements with these regimes are not solutions. They are tests. They may freeze a problem, delay a crisis, or create temporary transparency. They may reduce the risk of immediate war. But they should never be mistaken for strategic transformation. Iran's regime seeks survival, regional influence, ideological legitimacy, and coercive leverage. north Korea's regime seeks survival, domination of the Korean Peninsula on its terms, recognition as a nuclear power, sanctions relief, and the weakening of the ROK-U.S. alliance and removal of U.S. troops. These objectives are not incidental. They are central to regime identity. For Kim Jong Un, the reported cease-fire extension and prospective negotiations will carry another lesson. He may conclude that pressure can be endured and then converted into talks. He may also conclude that limited restraint, when paired with threats and escalation risk, can force Washington into negotiation. That would be a dangerous lesson. It could encourage north Korea to provoke, pause, demand concessions, and then repeat the cycle as it has done many times over seven decades. Connected Strategic Theaters The implications for the Asia-Indo-Pacific region are serious. The Middle East, the Korean Peninsula, and the Taiwan Strait are not separate problems. They are connected by American credibility, allied confidence, global energy flows, defense industrial capacity, and adversary learning. China, Russia, Iran, and north Korea watch one another. They study U.S. will. They test allied unity. They learn from sanctions, strikes, cease-fires, and negotiations. A war in Iran can shape risk calculations in Pyongyang and Beijing. A crisis in Korea can affect calculations in Tehran and Moscow. What Allies Must Do For South Korea and Japan, the lesson is direct. Deterrence cannot rest on declarations alone. It requires readiness, integrated missile defense, resilient command-and-control, civil defense, energy security, and political unity. It also requires a shared understanding that north Korea's strategy is not merely military. It is political. Pyongyang seeks to weaken resolve before it fires a shot. It will use psychological warfare, cyber operations, nuclear threats, and peace offensives to create doubt inside the alliance. The United States must therefore avoid two errors. The first is believing that force alone can solve the problem. The second is believing that negotiations alone can solve it. The better approach is integrated statecraft: pressure, deterrence, diplomacy, information and influence activities, alliance coordination, human rights, sanctions enforcement, and military readiness all working together. In short, a superior political warfare strategy supported by overwhelming military capability and capacity. The Final Question and a Hard Lesson The strategic question is not whether Kim Jong Un learned from Iran. He did. The question is whether the United States and its allies can learn faster. If they see the war as an isolated Middle East event, they will miss the point. If they see it as part of a larger contest with authoritarian regimes that use diplomacy as maneuver and nuclear programs as leverage, they will be better prepared. The central lesson is hard but necessary. Agreements with Iran and north Korea may manage danger, but they will not end it. The regimes themselves are the problem. Until that is understood, every tactical pause will be mistaken for strategic progress. Army Special Forces colonel who has spent more than 30 years in the Asia-Indo-Pacific region. He specializes in Northeast Asian security affairs and irregular, unconventional and political warfare. He is vice president of the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy and a senior fellow at the Global Peace Foundation, where he works on a free and unified Korea. After he retired, he became associate director of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. He is on the board of directors of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and the OSS Society and is the editor at large for the Small Wars Journal.

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David MaxwellBy David Maxwell
May 30 (UPI) -- The author prefers to use the lowercase "n" to challenge the Kim family regime's legitimacy. The Message to Pyongyang The war in Iran sends one clear message to Kim Jong Un: nuclear weapons remain the ultimate guarantee of regime survival, but they do not provide …

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Jul 21, 2026strikeUnverifiedUSIsraelIranProxy

US strikes Iran for 10th consecutive night as Tehran strikes tanker in the Strait of Hormuz

○ 1 source

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran attacked a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz early Tuesday, forcing its crew to abandon the ship, while the United States conducted yet another round of airstrikes targeting the Islamic Republic as they struggle over control of the key waterway.

The 10 consecutive nights of U.S. airstrikes haven’t compelled Tehran to loosen its grip on the strait, through which about a fifth of all crude oil and natural gas traded once passed in peacetime. Even as the U.S. and Iran inch closer to all-out war again, Iran’s interior minister traveled to Pakistan, a key mediator in the conflict, for talks.

However, it remains unclear just what new deal could be reached to end the fighting. The interim deal signed last month that was meant to end the fighting has crumbled. Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has largely stalled. And as fighting intensifies, both sides have targeted civilian infrastructure relied on by millions of people.

“Iran and groups supportive of Iran may target other U.S. interests overseas or at locations associated with the United States and Americans throughout the world,” the U.S. State Department said in a new warning to Americans. The escalation has pushed oil prices higher in recent weeks.

Benchmark Brent crude traded Tuesday above $88 a barrel and regular gasoline in the U.S. climbed to an average of $4 a gallon, keeping pressure on Americans’ wallets ahead of midterm elections this fall. Meanwhile, the U.S. military identified two soldiers who were killed in Jordan in attacks that left a third person missing.

Separately, the military confirmed another death in Iraq on Saturday during the “controlled detonation” of a downed Iranian drone. President Donald Trump took to social media on Monday to warn that “Every time Iran kills an American Soldier they will pay for that killing many times over!

” Trump was planning to attend a ceremony on Tuesday evening at Dover Air Force Base, where at least one service member’s remains were due to arrive. US strikes come as ships attacked The U.S. military’s Central Command said Tuesday it targeted “Iranian military command centers, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and air defense systems.

” It released more footage of bombings that targeted sites in Iran. “American forces remain postured and prepared to hold Iran accountable for unwarranted aggression toward civilian mariners seeking to freely and openly transit the strait,” the command said.

Iranian state media reported that explosions were heard in Fars, Hormozgan, Ilam, Kerman and Sistan and Baluchistan provinces. However, traffic through the strait has slowed to a crawl during the latest violence. Lloyd's List Intelligence said only three ships transited the strait on Sunday.

The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said a tanker came under attack early Tuesday in the strait off Oman, forcing the crew to abandon the vessel. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard claimed the attack, as well as two other attacks on ships Monday in the waterway.

The route around Oman has been the one the U.S. military has encouraged ships to travel to avoid Iran’s control. The UKMTO separately reported Tuesday that another previously unknown attack on a ship took place early the previous day. Tehran also hit U.

S.-allied countries throughout the Middle East. Jordan military's said Tuesday that Iran targeted it with five drones and three missiles, all of which were shot down. Bahrain sounded its missile alert sirens Tuesday afternoon as another Iranian barrage targeted the island kingdom, which is home to the U.

S. Navy's 5th Fleet. Nearly 100 US injuries since early July The Pentagon’s chief spokesperson said nearly 100 U.S. service members have been injured since the U.S. restarted strikes on July 7, and 96% of them have returned to duty.

“The vast majority of injuries experienced were minor concussions,” Sean Parnell posted Monday on X in response to a New York Times report that the Pentagon has withheld information about troop injuries from Iranian strikes. He denied that the Pentagon was hiding data about injuries.

However, the Defense Casualty Analysis System, the military’s clearinghouse for reporting deaths and injuries in conflict, has not been updated as of Monday night with the latest attacks. Yemen rebels threaten attacks on other Mideast waterway Yemen’s Houthi rebels announced a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia on Monday.

The Houthis, who are backed by Iran, said they would block shipping between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden by targeting the Bab el-Mandeb, a maritime chokepoint like the Strait of Hormuz, in response to an attack on Sanaa International Airport last week that they blamed on Saudi Arabia.

With the Strait of Hormuz blocked, Saudi Arabia has been relying on a pipeline to the Red Sea to get millions of barrels of oil out to market. The Houthis earlier demonstrated their ability to disrupt shipping there when they targeted ships for months over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, with over 100 vessels attacked.

Saudi Arabia’s military said it would keep the waterway open. “All Houthi threats against transiting vessels will be dealt with swiftly and firmly, as such threats are a blatant violation of international law and fall under acts of maritime piracy,” said Maj.

Gen, Turki al-Malki, a Saudi military spokesman. A glimmer of hope for diplomacy Pakistan has intensified diplomatic efforts in recent days to resuscitate the interim deal. Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni arrived in Islamabad on Monday for two days of talks with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and others.

On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that the U.S. is still open to negotiating with Iran but that “it has to be real.” “If the door opens to diplomacy — if the guys that want to do something productive for Iran win and take control of that system, or take control of the negotiations — that’ll be a very positive development,” Rubio said.

“That’s not where we are tonight, unfortunately.” Iranian authorities on Sunday said at least 50 people have been killed and 517 wounded in the latest rounds of U.S. strikes. Since the war began on Feb. 28, 17 U.S. service members have been killed.

JON GAMBRELL, Associated Press

Jul 21, 2026strikeUnverifiedUSIranRussiaChina

How the US-Iran conflict has thrown India’s Chabahar plans into doubt

○ 1 source

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth posted social media images showing damage to a maritime control tower at Iran’s Chabahar port following reported US military strikes, accompanied by the caption “Iran does not control the Strait of Hormuz.” India’s Ministry of External Affairs stated that the Shahid Beheshti terminal operated by India at the port sustained no damage.

The ministry reiterated its position that civilian infrastructure should not be targeted during conflicts.

Location: Iran

Divya A

Jul 21, 2026strikeUnverifiedUSIranProxy

U.S. strikes Iran and Houthis threaten Saudi Arabia shipping as mediators push 10-day ceasefire

○ 1 source

U.S. strikes Iran and Houthis threaten Saudi Arabia shipping as mediators push 10-day ceasefire - The U.S. has carried out its tenth consecutive evening of attacks against Iran. - Iran attacked a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz early Tuesday, while Houthi militants in Yemen declared a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia.

- Rystad Energy has warned about the risk of a significant rebound in oil prices. The U.S. completed a fresh round of strikes against Iran on Monday evening as Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis threatened to impose a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia, potentially opening a new front in the Middle East conflict.

The latest cycle of tit-for-tat strikes comes amid reports that regional mediators have presented Washington and Tehran with a proposal for a 10-day ceasefire, a pitch that could put last month's Memorandum of Understanding back on track. The U.S. Central Command said overnight that it had carried out another round of strikes on Iran at 9 p.

m. ET on Monday. "U.S. forces struck Iranian military command centers, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and air defense systems to degrade Iran's ability to continue attacking commercial vessels flowing through the Strait of Hormuz," Centcom said in a statement.

It added that commercial vessel transits through the strategically vital waterway were continuing. Centcom forces, the statement said, had facilitated the transit of around 900 commercial vessels and 450 million barrels of crude oil through the strait since early May.

Iran, meanwhile, attacked a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz early Tuesday, forcing its crew to abandon the vessel as it seeks to tighten its control over the waterway, one that typically handles around 20% of the world's oil traffic. Houthi militants in Yemen on Monday declared a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia effective immediately, a move that could substantially threaten Middle East oil supplies.

The Houthis have repeatedly threatened to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait during the U.S.-Iran war. The strait is a choke point for commercial ship traffic that connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and global markets. The militants, in a statement carried by state news, accused the Saudis of laying an "aggressive siege" against them.

Tensions escalated last week after they claimed that Riyadh had bombed Sanaa International Airport. The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said that it would respond to the Houthis naval blockade with force, reportedly describing such threats as "a blatant violation of international law.

" 10-day ceasefire 'won't be an easy task' Oil prices rose briefly on news of the Houthi statement but later pared gains as energy market participants closely monitored the prospect of a diplomatic breakthrough. International benchmark Brent crude futures with September delivery were last seen trading 0.

5% lower at $88.77 per barrel, having surpassed $90 in the previous session. U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures with August delivery, meanwhile, stood 0.4% lower at $82.88. Strategists at ING said there's some hope of de-escalation between the U.S.

and Iran given the reports that mediators are proposing a 10-day ceasefire. "This won't be an easy task," ING's Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey said in a research note published Tuesday. "Large divisions remain between the US and Iran. And President Trump said the US would retaliate following the deaths of several American troops," they added.

In a post on Truth Social on Monday, President Donald Trump said: "Every time Iran kills an American Soldier they will pay for that killing many times over!" He added that this directive had been passed on to every leader in the military. Saudi Arabia oil risk Jorge León, senior vice president and head of geopolitical analysis at Rystad Energy, said the Houthis' threat puts approximately 2.

5 million barrels per day of Saudi Arabian oil at risk at a time when traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is at a standstill. "With the Gulf's primary maritime outlet largely closed, the market is increasingly dependent on Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline and Red Sea terminals to maintain export flows," León said Monday in a research note.

Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline network, or Petroline, is a roughly 750-mile system that transports crude across Saudi Arabia, connecting Abqaiq on the oil-rich kingdom's eastern Gulf coast to the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea. "Any disruption at Bab el-Mandeb would therefore threaten not only Saudi shipments but one of the few remaining routes capable of compensating for the severe reduction in Hormuz traffic," León said.

"If a ceasefire does not materialize and Hormuz remains largely closed while the Houthi threat to Red Sea shipping intensifies, the risk of a significant rebound in oil prices would be substantial," he added. — CNBC's Chloe Taylor and Spencer Kimball both contributed to this report.

Location: Iran

Sam Meredith

Jul 21, 2026strikeUnverifiedUSIranProxy

Another ship hit in Hormuz as Houthis add to regional risks

○ 1 source

A tanker identified as the Kaifan was struck by an unknown projectile northeast of Oman’s Limah in the Strait of Hormuz, according to a July 21 report from UK Maritime Trade Operations. No ships were observed transiting the strait that day. Attribution of the strike and links to prior incidents have not been confirmed by the vessel’s owner.

Location: Strait of Hormuz

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