Trump halts 14-day Iran strikes for talks as US admits running out of ideas

Summary

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Iran: The Latest

Episode: Trump halts 14-day Iran strikes for talks as US admits running out of ideas
Date: August 3, 2026
Hosts: Venetia Rainey & Roland Oliphant

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the dramatic pause of a planned major US military offensive on Iran, examining the confusion over possible peace talks, escalating attacks in key maritime chokepoints, and signs the US military is running out of effective strategies. Venetia Rainey and Roland Oliphant contextualize America’s policy dilemmas, shifting Middle Eastern alliances, and the mounting humanitarian and climate challenges reshaping the region. They draw on updates from The Telegraph’s correspondents, official statements, and interviews, all set against the backdrop of global economic repercussions and waning public support for the war.

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1. The Aborted "Go Big" US Offensive and Confused Diplomacy

The Situation Recap (04:07–10:36)

• Trump Calls Off Attacks:
  The US was hours from launching a massive, 10–14 day bombing campaign on Iran—reportedly the largest since WWII. This plan, pushed by Admiral Bradley Cooper (CENTCOM), was intended to "shock them into submission."
• Regional Pressure:
  High-level calls from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and other regional leaders led President Trump to put the offensive on hold, citing imminent negotiations.
  • “We were all set to go... it would have been a massive attack. But when the allies ask to call it off, you got to sort of say, well, let's see. ... They thought that a deal is imminent and the deal is eminent, having to do with the Hormuz Strait and also the, ultimately the denuclearization of Iran.” — Donald Trump (08:03)
• Iran Denies Talks:
  Hours before recording, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman insists, “We are not currently negotiating with the United States. Our negotiations are with Oman to secure passage through the Strait of Hormuz.” (04:07)
  • Both sides’ statements set up a “Schrodinger's talks”—they might, or might not, be happening.
• Market Reaction:
  Global markets responded with relief: oil prices dropped, stock markets rallied, and even Tehran’s market rose (“Huge. The markets are pleased. There's not going to be a war.” — Oliphant, 09:44).

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2. The US Strategic Dilemma and Options Fatigue

The Policy Loop (10:36–13:58)

• Policy Paralysis:
  Roland and Venetia describe a repeating cycle—threats, planned strikes, last-minute holds, and promised negotiations—recurring since April.
  • “It's like a three horn dilemma. Do you bomb big again? Keep negotiating? Or walk away and leave Iran in control?... He just seems to circle between these options.” — Oliphant (11:11)
• CENTCOM Running Out of Ideas:
  CNN reports an unprecedented CENTCOM email searching for “new creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran” (11:52).
  • Unusually, this appeal for suggestions was emailed broadly within military intelligence, signaling “they've just run out of ideas and options.”
• Saudi Arabia’s Crucial Role:
  Saudi Arabia continues to maneuver—actively trying to shape events with both military engagement (airstrikes on Iraqi militias) and diplomatic restraint.

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3. Ongoing Attacks and Naval Escalation

Recent Military Activity (13:58–17:47)

• Drones in Kuwait & Attacks in the Strait of Hormuz:
  • Iran targets Kuwait with drones—causing damage to civilian facilities (14:46).
  • Series of attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz (LNG carrier GasLog Shanghai disabled; others threatened but not hit).
    • “None of these things hit the ships, but... warning shots, projectiles fired at the waters around the ships. Clearly Iran still trying to say strait of Hormuz is not completely open yet.” — Rainey (15:55)
  • Vessel traffic remains drastically reduced, with only about four transits daily (down from pre-war 100+).
• Potential “North-in, South-out” Maritime Deal:
  • Emerging talks suggest a new Hormuz passage structure: entering via the Iranian-controlled route and exiting via the Omani route, possibly involving payments (17:09).

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4. The Bab El Mandab Strait & Regional Naval Dynamics

The Southern Chokepoint (19:58–22:04)

• Bab El Mandab Activity:
  • Traffic steady but drops from 28 to 18 ships (likely due to it being Sunday).
  • Saudi oil tankers getting through despite a declared Houthi blockade—sometimes going dark by switching off transponders.
  • Houthis deny plans to charge tolls, aiming their actions specifically at Saudi Arabia rather than disrupting global shipping.
• Regional Naval Coalitions:
  • Saudi Arabia sets up a multinational defense coalition for Red Sea security.
  • An existing EU naval operation (since 2024) is still escorting ships—highlighting international efforts to keep trade lanes open.

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5. Iraq, Climatic Extremes, and Humanitarian Tensions

On the Ground: Iraq & Climate (22:04–27:05)

• Shia Pilgrimage Amid War Tensions:
  • Iran’s foreign minister heads to Iraq for the Arbaeen festival. An Iranian traveler describes IRGC border guards warning pilgrims to “be ready for martyrdom in case the Americans bombed the border post.”
  • Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces, with militias close to Iran, control key roads—highlighting how war blurs state/non-state actor lines.
• Climate Catastrophe:
  • Scorching heat—regularly 50°C (122°F) in southern Iran and Iraq—strains power, air conditioning, and tempers.
    • “Why the hell should I listen to these bastards back in Tehran who are sitting in their nice air conditioned offices while I'm out here in 50 degree heat?” — IRGC troops, relayed by Oliphant (26:06)
• Ongoing Kurdish Conflict:
  Reports of fatal drone attacks against Iranian military bases by Kurdish separatists in NW Iran indicate continuing instability on other fronts.

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6. American Public Opinion and Political Calculations

The Home Front (27:05–28:54)

• Dramatic Drop in Support:
  • Only 1 in 3 Americans now supports the conflict—the lowest since it began.
  • 69% of Americans (including 40% of Republicans) say “Trump hasn't clearly explained the goals” of the US campaign in Iran (27:05).
    • Comparison: Iraq (2003) and Afghanistan saw 70–90% public support in their early months.
• Electoral Pressures:
  • Midterms loom (Nov. 3rd), further shaping White House calculations.
    • “I was struck listening to Lottie who is in Washington, just how much things are seen through the prism of the US electoral cycle.” — Oliphant (28:54)
• Memorable Moment:
  A parody “Iran war participation trophy” is installed in NYC, mocking Trump with a gold medal for involvement in the war (29:17).

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7. Economic Impacts: Volatility & Risk

Markets Respond (29:41–31:27)

• Immediate Effects:
  • Oil prices plunge (Brent crude down 9.5%, to ~$82/barrel) on news of halted strikes, easing inflation fears.
  • Stock markets in Europe and Tehran climb; government bond yields fall.
• Long-term Risks:
  • Ongoing Hormuz disruptions still threaten to tip the UK and other economies into recession if unresolved.
  • Venetia notes: “There is a food security shock already baked in... the geopolitics of it all shifting around the Middle East... this war is slowly reshaping the region.” (31:27)

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8. Closing Reflections: Rinse, Repeat—But the Region Shifts

Patterns and Permanent Change (31:27–33:06)

• Stalemate but Structural Change:
  • Both hosts observe a sense of déjà vu as news and strategic cycles repeat, but note incremental, permanent changes:
    • New supply routes to bypass the Straits.
    • Shifting alliances and regional military postures.
    • US bases under continual attack, and Saudi Arabia’s civilian nuclear program advanced with US help.
  • Venetia concludes: “There are bigger shifts occurring and that's what we will continue to try to cover... this war is reshaping the world as we speak.” (31:27)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Trump halts strikes, official statements: 04:07–10:36
• US military’s strategic impasse: 10:36–13:58
• Weekend military activity (Hormuz/Kuwait): 13:58–17:47
• Shipping dynamics, Oman-Iran deals: 17:09–17:47
• Bab El Mandab, Houthi activity, naval coalitions: 19:58–22:04
• On the ground in Iraq, heat crisis: 22:04–27:05
• US public opinion, election impact: 27:05–28:54
• Markets and economic implications: 29:41–31:27
• Reflections on the region and war’s legacy: 31:27–33:06

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Memorable Quotes

• Donald Trump (08:03):
  “We were all set to go... but when the allies ask to call it off, you got to sort of say, well, let's see. And the reason they asked is, I think there's a deal... having to do with the Hormuz Strait and also the, ultimately the denuclearization of Iran.”
• Roland Oliphant (11:11):
  "It's like a three horn dilemma… He just seems to circle between these options. So yes, this is the, in the David Blair model of American Iranian relations, this is a certain stage of the circle."
• Venetia Rainey (31:27):
  "There are bigger shifts occurring and that's what we will continue to try to cover on this podcast along with the daily stuff because this war is reshaping the world as we speak."

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Notable Moments

• “Schrodinger’s talks”: the uncertainty over whether US-Iran negotiations are actually happening.
• Saudi Arabia’s growing price for involvement and its central broker role.
• Recurring military attacks and new naval routes hinting at de facto, on-the-ground shifts.
• A surge in climate-related hardship compounding conflict in Iran and Iraq.
• Satirical protests in the US highlight public fatigue and confusion about the war’s objectives.

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In summary:
This episode captures the dramatic combination of high-stakes brinkmanship and diplomatic confusion, the U.S.'s narrowing options against Iran, the growing influence of Saudi Arabia, and the slow but profound way the conflict is permanently altering the Middle East’s power structures, economic flows, and daily lives.

Transcript

[Venetia Rainey]

The telegraph.

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[Venetia Rainey]

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[Roland Oliphant]

And I'm Roland Oliphant.

[Venetia Rainey]

This is Iran The Latest It's Monday 3rd of August 2026.

[Roland Oliphant]

On today's episode, Trump says he's called off the biggest attack since War II on Iran to restart peace talks. But Iran says there are no negotiations underway. So what is going on?

[Venetia Rainey]

Plus more attacks in the Strait of Hormuz. And is the US military running out of ideas about how to punish Iran?

[Donald Trump]

A short time ago, the United States military began major combat operations in Iran.

[Venetia Rainey]

Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the attacks. Say Yed Moshe for the first time ever, the US Navy used a surface sea drone in combat to strike Iranian targets.

[Donald Trump]

The strait are almost completely closed again.

[Roland Oliphant]

Does anyone really think that someone can

[Jake Stauch]

tell President Trump what to do?

[Venetia Rainey]

Come on, Roland. We're back in the studio again. You've been off for two weeks. I've been off for a week. Feeling refreshed?

[Roland Oliphant]

Yes, moderately.

[Venetia Rainey]

Got a tan.

[Roland Oliphant]

Thank you.

[Venetia Rainey]

You're welcome. I tried but I'm very pale so I don't tan in quite the same way. I was up a mountain. You were in Italy.

[Roland Oliphant]

I was in Italy. I was in Tuscany.

[Venetia Rainey]

Both bearing seeing the effects of climate change.

[Roland Oliphant]

It was absolutely horrible.

[Venetia Rainey]

Right up close.

[Roland Oliphant]

It was like being in an oven. It was kind of 40 degrees in the day. I'm going to talk about that a bit later because I just had some word from an Iranian hanging around in southern Iran and crossing the border into Iraq where it's 50 degrees.

[Venetia Rainey]

Oh my gosh.

[Roland Oliphant]

But just, just brutal. I mean, it's African heat now.

[Venetia Rainey]

I was checking the weather while I was up in like the Chamonix sort of mountain area and it was quite cool there because we were quite high up. But it was hotter, I think in Cambridge, where I live, than it was in Beirut. I mean, that is ridiculous.

[Roland Oliphant]

Yeah. So demanding. And then I came back here and I realized that it's a bit. We're going to get into the news, but I've just got this massive sense of deja vu. I do feel. I don't want to kind of put listeners off listening to this, but we could have pre recorded this entire episode about two weeks ago or maybe even two months ago. And I'll explain why.

[Venetia Rainey]

Okay, let's get into it. Because we left. Well, not us, but Henry and Lottie from our Telegraph newsroom left listeners with this idea that Trump might be about to launch this 14 day blitz. Everyone was braced for loads of action over the weekend, but it didn't transpire. What happened?

[Roland Oliphant]

Well, I'm going to start with a bit of a spoiler and I just want listeners to keep this in their minds as I go through everything else. So a few hours ago, before we started recording on Monday morning, Iran's Foreign Ministry said it is not in talks with the United States. We are not currently negotiating with the United States. Our negotiations are with Oman to secure passage through the Strait of Hormuz. That's the Foreign Ministry spokesman Ismail Bakiri in his weekly Monday morning briefing to the Iranian press right now. Keep that in mind as we go through this. We'll come back to Oman and Hormuz and these negotiations later. But it's really significant because yesterday Donald Trump said that he had cancelled a two week strike offensive in order to allow negotiations that he said would start this afternoon, Monday afternoon. But Kerry's saying they haven't happened. So what on earth happened? Let's go back to going back to that Friday where we started. So as you said, Friday afternoon, there's a cabinet meeting in the White House on Friday and it Seems that Trump's Cabinet there apparently came up with or agreed to a new plan for an extremely heavy round of bombing of Iran. Now, this seems to have been, as reported in the Wall Street Journal, as Henry mentioned on Friday, it's a kind of go big plan. It seems to have originated with Admiral Bradley Cooper, who's the head of Central Command. 10 to 14 days of strikes designed to eradicate Iran. The idea was we're going to go big. We're going to just shock them into submission. And in fact, at the Cabinet meeting, Trump was heard saying while reporters were still in the room, we will be hitting them very hard. At some point, they're gonna say, we just can't take it anymore.

[Donald Trump]

Language.

[Venetia Rainey]

We've had a lot over the last few weeks. Yeah.

[Roland Oliphant]

I did say we could prerecord this.

[Venetia Rainey]

Yeah.

[Roland Oliphant]

So CBS News said this plan was basically, they came up with it during this Cabinet meeting and that there was a division. So some of the White House aides who focus on the political side of things were strongly opposed. No names mentioned. I'm thinking people like J.D. vance, people thinking, oh, my God, the midterms. Oh, my God, I promise not to get any Middle Eastern war. But no names. My speculation there. Okay, so it's all ready to go come Saturday. If any of our listeners are American citizens who are signed up with the State Department for alerts for U.S. citizens in the Middle east, as I'm sure some of you are, you would have got. You'll be ahead of us because you would have got this note from the State Department telling U.S. citizens in the region to be alert and ready to leave. Americans currently in the Middle east should exercise caution and heightened vigilance and should be prepared for flight cancellations, periodic airspace closures, and potential travel disruptions. Americans in the region should consider departing or be prepared to depart should there be an escalation. Americans outside the Middle east should seriously reconsider travel to and through the region. So suddenly, American citizens. That sounds like it's on, right? American citizens in Iraq, Jordan, Beirut, Jerusalem, suddenly getting these alerts from State. So sounds like it's on. Meanwhile, Abbas Arakchi, the Iranian foreign minister, is putting in calls to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, amongst other people. And then Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, puts the call to Donald Trump. And then suddenly, in the early hours, Donald Trump announces that indeed, the US Is locked and loaded and ready to go against the Islamic Republic of Iran. But he's had calls from Middle Eastern countries and he's agreed to hold off Any attack if in that the perimeters of a deal have been agreed to. So I was going to bomb the hell out of them. Actually, we think there's a deal on the table. I've been asked to hold off by my local allies, so we're putting it on pause. And later he did speak to reporters on Air Force One to elaborate on that. And I think we've got a clip of that we can listen to now.

[Donald Trump]

We were all set to go just about at this time right now, and it would have been a massive attack. We're all set to go. But when the, the allies ask to call it off, you got to sort of say, well, let's see. And the reason they asked is, I think there's a deal, there's a deal on Hormuz and then there will be a deal on the nuclear, or you might call it the denuclearization of Iran. Well, now what we're doing is we're talking to them in the form of a negotiation. It begins tomorrow afternoon and we'll see if it's true. I'd love to do that. Save a lot of lives, save a lot of, a lot of unnecessary power, to be honest with you. Take many, many years to ever build it back. If it could. I don't think it would be even buildable back. So we had a, we had an attack that would be the biggest attack since World War II, and it would have been disastrous for them. And they didn't want us to do it. And, and frankly, Saudi Arabia didn't want it either. They thought that a deal is imminent and the deal is eminent, having to do with the Hormuz Strait and also the, ultimately the denuclearization of Iran. I asked him, I asked Saudi Arabia, the King, I said, the Crown Prince, I said, what would you rather do? Would you rather have us do this or not? They said, we would much prefer a deal as opposed to an attack, because you don't know where these attacks lead. I mean, will they be flooded with people pouring into their country and disaster. A lot of bad things can happen.

[Roland Oliphant]

So, in conclusion, bring you up to speed. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief. Stock markets open up in Europe, the oil price opens down. Even the stock market in Tehran is up this morning. Huge. The markets are pleased. There's not going to be a war. And then Mr. Baghairi this morning denies any such talks are taking place. However, he was speaking in the morning in Tehran, and Donald Trump said on Monday afternoon the talks would start. And if he's talking about Monday afternoon EST in the United States. We've still got several hours for them both to be right.

[Venetia Rainey]

So talks could be on.

[Roland Oliphant]

It's Schrodinger's talks, Talks could be on. The huge big bombing campaign is on pause. As I say, I feel like I could perhaps have either pre recorded this before I went on holiday or clipped up any of our episodes since about April to get us to this point.

[Venetia Rainey]

Yeah, I mean I looked back to see because we have been here a few times before. So, you know, in early April they agreed to this two week ceasefire and that was just two hours hours after Trump threatened to wipe out a whole civilization in Iran. So we had that apocalyptic threat then and then him walking all of that back. We had the same thing. In the middle of May, Trump announced he was holding off a major planned military strike because serious negotiations were underway. And then we had it again last month. Again, Trump threatening to hit Iran very hard and maybe even seize Kharg island to assume total control of their oil and gas markets. And then he called off the strikes, said negotiations were proceeding again.

[Roland Oliphant]

And it all goes back, Venetia, to this thing that David Blair's been talking about a lot. When he comes on about this huge, it's like a three horn dilemma. How do you get out of this? Do you go back to war and bomb them big? And I hope it works this time because it didn't work before. Do you carry on negotiating and hope that works? But it didn't work before? Do you just walk away and leave Iran in control of the Strait of Hormuz which doesn't really work either way? And he just seems to circle between these options. So yes, this is the, in the David Blair model of American Iranian relations, this is a certain stage of the circle.

[Venetia Rainey]

Okay. Envision various shapes according to how you see this all playing out. But it's clear that the Americans appear to be running out of ideas. CNN had this really interesting report about centcom. An officer in centcom's intelligence branch writing an email to a broad group of military analysts. This was last Wednesday. So before all of the action and then not action that you just outlined. And in the email they wrote, we are looking for new creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran. According to military officials. This is quite unusual request, particularly for it to occur over email. A second source told CNN that CENTCOM is looking at everything and is acknowledging that it needs to re evaluate its strategy. Really the sense that they've just run out of ideas and options for how to get Iran to Yield and they have tried to heavy bombing campaigns. They did it for 40 days and it didn't get anywhere. I think the other thing that's interesting from what you just outlined is clearly Saudi Arabia's really key role over the weekend. They are paying an increasingly heavy price in this conflict. It's not just the straight up Hormuz now, it's also Bab El Mandeb. Houthis announced this maritime blockade on their ports. And we've seen Iran attacking both ends of the east west oil pipeline that the Saudis have turned to to try and get oil out via the Yambu port on the Red Sea. It's become really problematic for Saudi Arabia. We saw that they briefly joined the war. They bombed Iranian militias in Iraq while we were on holiday.

[Roland Oliphant]

Yes, we'll get to that.

[Venetia Rainey]

Which we'll get to that later. I know you want to talk more about Iraq later, but just this Saudi element, they're both trying to be more actively involved and maybe trying to restrain the US Trying to shape the war a bit more, both with action and with non action. I think that's really interesting. They are obviously a mega player in this conflict. They do things a lot. Often things happen quite discreetly with them. So the Iranians, as I said, did bomb, I think the Yambu port a couple of weeks ago, but they didn't announce it. They were announcing everything else that they were doing to Kuwait, to Bahrain, to Jordan, but they didn't announce this strike against Saudi Arabia. So they don't want to anger Saudi Arabia too much. I think that's an interesting aspect of this conflict to keep an eye on.

[Roland Oliphant]

Yeah, I think the other thing to draw out there, I think it's common to lots of countries in the Middle East. When you're closer to a war, the more, the more bother it causes you to state the obvious. One of the things Trump talked about there was, he alluded to a refugee crisis and the fear of that. And we know that's something that the Iraqis, we know the Turks are absolutely beside themselves with concern they're going to get another wave of refugees, this time from Iran. So all those questions must be weighing on those governments as this pushes forward. But despite that, despite the cancellation of General Cooper's Go Big plan, there has been some military activity over the weekend.

[Venetia Rainey]

I think what's been going on there has. So bizarrely, we heard some reports from Kuwait that they had detected and destroyed hostile drones in the country's airspace. This was on Saturday. An alleged Iranian attack had targeted several Vital civilian facilities, civilian property belonging to a company on Bubayan island were hit and falling. Shrapnel caused material damage, but no casualties. Also, a government facility in northern Kuwait was hit. Not clear the context around that. I could find very little details online when I was looking into it. But yeah, I'll just put that out there that Iran did send some stuff out over the weekend. We've also seen some action in the Strait of Hormuz. So on Friday, and I think this was after Henry and Lottie recorded two attacks on ships off Oman in the Strait of Hormuz. A projectile struck and disabled an LNG carrier, the GasLog Shanghai and another tanker reported a near miss 90 minutes earlier after a projectile hit the water just 5 meters from the ship. And then on Sunday we had two more attacks. So this was the Egypt Prosperity. Reported receiving threats over the radio claiming to be from Iran's Separ Navy. It had a loud explosion at a considerable distance from the vessel's starboard beam, changed course and proceeded back towards Dubai. Vessel and crew reported safe. And then a second vessel may have been targeted. It reported multiple warning shots in its vicinity and an explosion near its port quarter. So none of these things hit the ships, but okay, warning shots, projectiles fired at the waters around the ships. Clearly Iran still trying to say straightforward moves is not completely open yet. We have seen the 10 day moving average. This is according to Kepler, falling to four a day down from the pre war average of around 100 vessels a day. This was last week. So a 10 day moving average just sort of things going up and down. But around four vessels a day, that's very low and I think they're nearly all going via the Iranian route.

[Roland Oliphant]

Right. Have you been looking at this? Talk of a new. Because Baghairi today, he said we're talking to the Americans, but we're talking to Oman about opening the strait or something about managing the Strait of Hormuz. And these details have emerged I think over the weekend while I was still recovering from holiday. I hope you'd be read into it more than me, but there was a map I saw on our website that suggests that there is a deal between Oman and Iran that might open the strait in some way to share it.

[Venetia Rainey]

Yeah, so there's a suggestion that going in through the Strait of Hormuz, so going into the Persian Gulf from the Arabian Sea you would go via the Iranian route and exiting back out of the Strait of Hormuz you would go via the Omani route. It's not clear who would charge north side in for what? North side in, south side out. Exactly. So both sides get there. Share if you like. I guess the Omani route would still be the western approved route, but you would still have to enter in through the Iranian route.

[Roland Oliphant]

So what does it mean about the whole question of the Tehran tollbooth? Does this plan involve everyone paying fees?

[Venetia Rainey]

It's a really good question. I haven't seen anything specifically linked to this plan, but as we know, Iran has passed legislation around this and they've been pretty clear that they want to keep control of the Strait of Hormuz, presumably so that they at least have the option to exact financial gain from it. We'll wait and see. There's a lot still to be ironed out. Those talks between Iran and Oman, they're ongoing, so that seems to be the only talks, as far as I can tell, that are actually taking place at the moment. We're going to take a short pause now. Coming up after the break, what's been happening in the Bab El Mandeb Strait?

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[Venetia Rainey]

I want to take you over to the Bab El Mandab Strait because that's the other waterway, global choke point that we've been following over the last few weeks, traffic seems to be fairly steady through there. Fell on Sunday to 18 from 27 on Saturday and 28 on Friday, but that might just be a Sunday. Two of the boats that passed through over the last few days are two Saudi oil tankers. And I mentioned that because of course, the Houthis are supposed to be blockading Saudi oil. These tankers have been let through. The Suez Max tanker Lesvos, carrying 1 million barrels of Saudi crude, and the very large crude carrier Desh vaibhav, also carrying 1 million barrels of Saudi crude oil. And they exited the Red Sea with their transponders off. Also interesting, because of course, that's what we started to see in the Strait of Hormuz. Ships trying to go dark in order to be able to get out. And maybe that's starting to happen in the Bab El Mandab Strait as well. We've also had reports that the Houthis would charge a toll for transiting the Bab El Mandab Strait. They've come out and denied that. Make of that what you will. Okay, but interesting. They're trying to make it very specific to their fight with Saudi Arabia. They're not trying to say this is against the whole global maritime shipping system. It's just supposed to be against Saudi Arabia. We've seen lots of Chinese ships, for example, carrying goods to China or from China going through. That hasn't been an issue. So they are trying to keep it quite tailored. One more thing to mention, the Bab El Mandeb. Last week, Saudi Arabia announced the creation of a multinational maritime defence coalition aimed at safeguarding freedom of navigation, international trade in the Bab El Mandab Strait, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, similar to what we've heard in the Strait of Hormuz. It's purely defensive in nature and it involves mainly Middle Eastern and North African countries. I also saw, and I didn't know this before. Tell me, if you'd seen this, that there's an EU naval operation escorting vessels through the Bebe El Mandeb Strait. Definitely involves Italian and Greek frigates, possibly French as well as that is a hangover from a previous round of conflicts. It was launched in February 2024 to protect those waterways from the Houthis, but clearly still going and might become of increased importance, I suppose, going forward. Any other stories on your radar that we should flag?

[Roland Oliphant]

Yeah, well, look, just one reason to believe that talks may not start today is that Abbasarakchi apparently has just gone to Iraq for the Shia festival of Arbaeen.

[Venetia Rainey]

Arbaeen.

[Roland Oliphant]

Arbaien 40, which is 40 days after Asura, the death of Hussein. Big festival in Najaf and Karbala, the Shiite holy cities. And we've had word from an Iranian man who made that same trip just over the weekend, just ahead of Iraqi and a little bit of interesting color. So he crossed the border down near Basra into Iraq. He said when he was queuing one of the IRGC men, kind of this long queue of people waiting to cross. When the IRGC men border comes along and goes, brothers and sisters, I think you better be just be ready for martyrdom in case the Americans bombed the border post, which didn't happen. I suppose this was over the weekend, while everyone was expecting this enormous escalation. The actual quote was something along the lines of the child killing, American enemy may bomb us. But he basically told those queuing there, you know, just, you know, you might want to go the toilet, make sure you got some snacks in the car, and you might get bombed. Anyway, he gets over the border into Iraq. He said the roads all the way from the border to Najaf and Karbala seem to be under the control of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization forces. And this is that Iraqi militia. It's not. Oh, God. It's an umbrella force of about more than 60 Shiite militias, some of which are basically controlled by Iran and have been acting for Iran in this war, and whose bases were bombed by both the Saudis and the Americans last week after they attacked Jordan and Saudi Arabia. So fascinating stuff. And on that note, Akhtar McCoy, our brilliant Iran Focused correspondent, published over the weekend a piece really breaking down the structure of the popular mobilization forces, that kind of 60 plus different militia groups, which ones are loyal to Baghdad, which ones are loyal to Iraqi clerics, which ones are actually basically working for Iran. Really interesting talk. Anyway, this guy said basically, as far as he could tell, that outfit was controlling the roads all the way there. Incredibly crowded. Massive turnout this year for this festival. He said basically the people in the buses, he described it as basically being assaulted by people trying to force food down your gullet. Because in Shia Islam, if you feed someone, provide sustenance for someone on their way to Kabula or Najaf, it's a good thing to do. So it got a bit being harassed. But the other thing that really stood out to me actually was from this Iranian guy's short kind of holiday in Iraq and kind of riffing off my own Holiday in Italy. In Italy, I found it was 40 degrees in central Florence and it was like being in an oven. Well, he said down there it's 50, 50 Celsius in a day. I've just checked today. And it's like that down there in southern Iran right now. And it's been hovering around that mark consistently throughout.

[Venetia Rainey]

Is that a livable temperature?

[Roland Oliphant]

Well, no, not really. This is a big thing. This is a big thing. So power outage is going off, air conditioning going off and so on. And it's climate change has really been hitting Iran, not just Iran, but that whole area really hard for years. I'm hopefully going to get someone to talk about the drought in the coming days. And it's another thing that actile flag, just watching kind of irgc, kind of social media or that kind of low level chatter that doesn't often get into the news.

[Donald Trump]

But

[Roland Oliphant]

one of the issues inside Iran and the Iranian kind of control is kind of IRGC men manning missile units

[Jake Stauch]

down

[Roland Oliphant]

on the Strait of Hormuz saying why the hell should I listen to these bastards back in Tehran who are sitting in their nice air conditioned offices while I'm out here in 50 degree heat defending the Islamic Republic. So yeah, the temperature incredibly, incredibly punishing down there. Oh, one more thing about Iraq, if I may, very, very briefly. I was checking the Iranian wires earlier this morning. There are reports of a fatal drone attack on an Iranian army base, not irgc, the regular army up in northwestern Iran. And that's being blamed on a Kurdish separatist group. Whether or not that came across the border, we don't know. But the Iranians have been hitting Kurdish, Iranian, Kurdish bases in Iraq. So that part of this conflict continues to bubble as well.

[Venetia Rainey]

Interesting. Well, another story that I wanted to quickly talk us through is polling in America. Just one in three Americans support the war on Iran. That is the lowest since the conflict began. And the reason that most people gave is that Trump hasn't explained his goals well. Okay, we don't understand it either. The poll found that 69% of Americans, including 4 in 10 Republicans, which is obviously very significant. Think Trump has not clearly explained the goals of US Military involvement in Iran. Approval of the conflict has fallen below 40% since the war began. And that's very different from other wars. Trump repeatedly says, you know, this war is so much shorter than the Iraq War, the Afghanistan war. It's nothing, it's a drop in the ocean. He likes to share graphs occasionally of how short this is compared to the other wars. The Iraq War in 2003 had the support of about 70% of Americans in its early months, the early days of the Afghanistan war had the backing of 90% of the country. So you can really see that, you know, the efforts that the American presidents at the time went to to explain why they were going to war and get the country behind them significant and paid off in that kind of support.

[Roland Oliphant]

It's interesting. And that will presumably have fed into this cabinet meeting on Friday about this big strike and those reported tensions that the American media are citing between people who are apparently saying let's hit them one more time, maybe we can crack it. And those presumably focused on boreholes on the polls, presumably as. And Lottie and Henry talked about this at length on Friday, the midterms on

[Venetia Rainey]

November 3, which is not that far away now. I remember us asking people about it right at the beginning of the war and they were like, ah, it's more than six months away, it doesn't matter. But you know, we're now three to four months away from it and it is going to start to matter. I think when people come back from summer holidays they will start really focusing on it.

[Roland Oliphant]

Well, I was struck listening to Lotte who is in Washington, just how much things are seen through the prism of the US electoral cycle. I suppose the rest of us who don't spend our time focused on America can kind of forget that. But it was a. I found that useful corrective actually thinking to that that is always at the back of the mind of American politicians.

[Venetia Rainey]

Understandably, I suppose it reminded me just quickly something lighthearted. An Iran war participation trophy was installed in New York City Foley Square last week. A plaque on the base awards Trump the award. It's a participation trophy for his enthusiastic involvement in the Iran war. And it's designed by the anonymous art collective, Secret handshake, some light hearted stuff. But you know, Trump likes awards so he's got a big gold medal for that.

[Roland Oliphant]

He does. I just want to finish, if I may with, with the markets and the economic news because I think there's a. I kind of gently referenced this today but off the back of this news it just. He illustrates to me how every utterance about this war, even when it's, when something doesn't happen, kind of numbers go up and down, things change and, and

[Venetia Rainey]

how purposeful is that?

[Roland Oliphant]

Well, I don't know how purposeful it

[Venetia Rainey]

is but it is at the back of my mind.

[Roland Oliphant]

So oil prices plunged off the decision to call off the strike. So Brent crude international bank Rod sank as much as 9.5% early on Monday to less than $82 a barrel. That sent the cost of government borrowing lower over hopes it would ease inflation. So the yield on 10 year UK gilts benchmark for what the treasury pays to borrow money dropped from 5.05% to 4.98%, while the equivalent US bonds dropped from 4.74% to 4.69%. Stock markets in Europe also rose FTSE 100, up 0.2%. The CAC 40 in Paris and up 0.3. And yet once again, there's a story in the paper this morning talking about how if this disruption in hormones carries on, the UK is going to be headed for a recession next year. And we've been waiting for that economic shock for so long. I suppose my takeaway, I suppose I've been off for two weeks and I've unashamedly not followed the news. I've lived as a civilian and I've come back. I'm struck by how much this seems familiar from the past two weeks. And yet, and yet.

[Venetia Rainey]

Well, and yet, you know, we're on this rinse and repeat cycle and I think you're right. We could have pre recorded a lot of the sort of top newslines. And yet the world is slowly shifting. And we were talking about this in our morning meeting. You know, plans for new oil pipelines that go around, that go through the Middle east to avoid the Strait of Hormuz exit point. There is a food security shock already baked in. We're having those issues, the geopolitics of it all shifting around the Middle East. You know, America's standing and what it will do with its military bases that have come repeatedly under attack by Iran, to what extent is it going to be able to fully staff these going forward? Saudi Arabia developing its own civilian nuclear program with the help of America, something that wasn't previously granted. A lot of this will feel familiar and like deja vu and like it could just sort of flip on a dime and just sort of keeps coming and going. But there are things that are being, that are becoming permanent. There are changes that are becoming permanent and this war is slowly reshaping the region. And you're right, it's hard to sort of get your hands on it day to day. And particularly when you talk about sort of markets moving up and down, it feels like these numbers just, I don't know, go up and down constantly based on what Trump has said or whether he's selling his advance access to his truth social statements. Did you see that market moving information. But there are bigger shifts occurring and that's what we will continue to try to cover on this podcast along with the daily stuff, because this war is reshaping the world as we speak. Welcome back to Iran the Latest well,

[Roland Oliphant]

with that, with that, that, with that. That was Iran the Latest. We'll be back tomorrow. Until then, goodbye.

[Venetia Rainey]

Goodbye. Iran the Latest is an original podcast from the Telegraph, created by David Knowles and hosted by me, Venetia Rainey and Roland Oliphant. If you appreciated this podcast, please consider following around the latest on your preferred podcast app. And if you have a moment, leave us a review as it helps others find the show. To stay on top of all of our news, subscribe to the Telegraph, sign up to our Dispatchers newsletter, or listen to our sister podcast Ukraine the Latest we're still on the same email address battle linestelegraph.co.uk or you can contact us on X. You can find our handles in the show. Notes the producer is Max Bauer. The Executive Producer is Louisa Wells.

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