The Iran War Rages On: Israeli Assassination Strikes, Steve Witkoff's Texts, and the Mounting Storm in the Strait of Hormuz
Drop Site LivestreamShow Notes
On Tuesday, Israel announced that it assassinated Iran’s top security official, Ali Larijani and the head of Irani’s internal security force and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is calling on Iranians to begin preparing to overthrow the government in Tehran. President Donald Trump and his senior aides claim that Iran’s ballistic missile and drone capacity has largely been decimated and that Iran is begging to negotiate an end to the war. Yet Iran continues to dominate access to the Strait of Hormuz and to launch strikes against both Israel and U.S. military outposts and bases across the Persian Gulf—and Iranian leaders say they will determine when the war ends. On Drop Site’s weekly livestream, Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grim discuss the latest developments on the 18th day of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, including yesterday’s reporting on how special envoy Steve Witkoff has been texting Iranian officials asking to resume talks, messages Iranian officials told Scahill they have ignored. The White House responded angrily to Scahill’s report, calling Drop Site “abhorrent,” and denouncing the publication as engaging in “America Last behavior.” Scahill then speaks to Dr. Foad Izadi of the University of Tehran about Larijani’s reported assassination, Iran’s current position in the war and the prospects for civil unrest or armed battles inside Iran. Finally, Grim speaks to Emran Feroz, a journalist and contributor to Drop Site, about the growing conflict on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and last night’s raid on a hospital in Kabul that killed 400 people and wounded about 250 others. Residents in the area told Drop Site News contributor Feroz that the hospital itself was struck during the attack. Pakistan has not immediately commented on the allegation. Follow Drop Site on X for breaking news updates. Read and subscribe at dropsitenews.com.
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Three years into Israel's genocide in Gaza, Palestinian human rights lawyer and legal scholar Noura Erakat argues that Donald Trump's Board of Peace is about more than Gaza: it's a blueprint for a new world order.Drop Site's Sharif Abdel Kouddous speaks with Erakat, a professor at Rutgers University, about her Boston Review essay, "Exit and Exception." Erakat argues that the Board of Peace matters less for whether it succeeds than for what it reveals: a political project, driven by market fundamentalists and a tech elite, to exit international law and popular democracy altogether. She traces that project from the charter cities and special economic zones championed by figures like Peter Thiel to Gaza, which the Board's charter designates as a special economic zone and where Palestinians are described as "Gazans" rather than a people with a right to self-determination. Israel, she argues, has long been the model, claiming that Palestine is a legal exception where the rules that apply everywhere else do not. Erakat also traces the Board's roots in the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, whose militarized aid sites became death traps for starving Palestinians. She also describes her arrest last month at a Palm Beach County public hearing, where she came to testify against the county's more than $1 billion investment in Israel bonds. Read "Exit and Exception" in Boston Review here. _________➡️ FOLLOW Drop Site News for more independent news on war and politics Stay INFORMED on our latest reporting: DropSiteNews.com LISTEN to the show as a podcast on Apple, Spotify, RSS, or wherever you get your podcasts. SUBSCRIBE to Drop Site News. Our reporting is FREE, and we are committed to keeping it that way. To help support our work, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription, it’s what fuels our reporting: https://www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe DONATE to support Drop Site's independent journalism. Help us continue our work with a tax-deductible contribution at donate.dropsitenews.com. Don’t like social media? We’ve got you covered. We launched a daily weekday newsletter, Drop Site Daily, which compiles the top stories our team is tracking throughout the day on social media, into one convenient, place: https://www.dropsitenews.com/s/drop-site-daily
On this week’s episode of the War Brief, hosts Sarmad Jawad and Murtaza Hussain break down the most critical military and foreign policy developments across the Middle East and Eastern Europe over the past week. In Yemen, Ansarallah, also known as the Houthis, continue their rapid advances across western Yemen, moving to encircle the city of Taiz and firming up their control control over the vital Bab al-Mandab Strait. As Saudi Arabia reportedly plans a major military offensive against the group with the support of regional countries, Ansar Allah is establishing facts on the ground in their battle to control Yemen. In Gaza, the Israeli military has continued to carry out strikes killing Palestinian civilians in Gaza—including deadly strikes targeting journalists and members of Gaza’s small Christian community. According to most recent figures, Gaza’s Health Ministry has recorded at least 1,431 Palestinians killed and 5,026 wounded since the October 2025 ceasefire. In Europe, Moscow has issued a direct warning to NATO, threatening the use of its full military arsenal—including nuclear weapons—if Western operations isolate the militarized exclave of Kaliningrad. Meanwhile in Iraq, U.S. allies in Iraq feel betrayed by Trump's withdrawal of forces from the country, even as many ordinary Iraqis celebrate the withdrawal. Despite claims from Donald Trump, Tehran firmly maintains control over the Strait of Hormuz, striking eight oil tankers in just five days. Iran is preparing contingency plans for an escalated conflict, including likely targeting of naval and aerial support bases like those on the Indian Ocean island Diego Garcia. LISTEN to the show as a podcast on Apple, Spotify, RSS, or wherever you get your podcasts.SUBSCRIBE to Drop Site News. Our reporting is FREE, and we are committed to keeping it that way. To help support our work, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription, it’s what fuels our reporting: https://www.dropsitenews.com/subscribeDONATE to support Drop Site's independent journalism. Help us continue our work with a tax-deductible contribution at donate.dropsitenews.com.
Eight months into the US-Iran war, the Strait of Hormuz is still contested—and the oil shock nearly everyone predicted never arrived. Gregory Brew, senior energy analyst at Eurasia Group and a historian of modern Iran, explains why crude sits in the $90–$110 band instead of $250: alternative pipeline routes, high global inventories, a steep cut in Chinese imports, and an oil market practiced at absorbing shocks. He also breaks down the US escort operation moving 9 to 10 million barrels a day through the strait—supertankers running dark through the Omani channel—and why he calls it a Band-Aid.Also: the attack on Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline, Iranian production down to 2 million barrels a day, record US diesel prices ahead of the midterms, and why Brew expects Tehran to escalate rather than capitulate. Drop Site News is an independent news outlet covering war and politics. Support our work: https://www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe Chapters: 0:00 Intro: Gregory Brew on the Oil War 0:22 Why the $250 Oil Catastrophe Never Came 4:59 7-Day Regional Oil Exports Average ~17 Million Barrels 9:18 Supertankers Going Dark Through the Omani Channel 11:41 How Long Can US Navy Keep Up Its Escort Operation Through Strait? 15:08 Qatar's LNG Problem 17:46 Yemen and the Attack on the East-West Pipeline 22:47 Iran's Oil Is Running Out — Will It Capitulate? 30:42 How Iran May Escalate 35:13 Diesel at Record Highs and PossibleExport Ban 39:37 Global Economy: Can it Absorb Another Year of This? 43:55 The Future of US-Iran Relations 48:55 A Divided GCC and the Case for Accommodating Iran 51:25 Closing ➡️ FOLLOW Drop Site News for more independent news on war and politics Stay INFORMED on our latest reporting: DropSiteNews.com LISTEN to the show as a podcast on Apple, Spotify, RSS, or wherever you get your podcasts. SUBSCRIBE to Drop Site News. Our reporting is FREE, and we are committed to keeping it that way. To help support our work, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription, it’s what fuels our reporting: https://www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe DONATE to support Drop Site's independent journalism. Help us continue our work with a tax-deductible contribution at donate.dropsitenews.com. Don’t like social media? We’ve got you covered. We launched a daily weekday newsletter, Drop Site Daily, which compiles the top stories our team is tracking throughout the day on social media, into one convenient, place: https://www.dropsitenews.com/s/drop-site-daily
Ryan Grim interviews Yemeni journalist Hussain Al-Bukhaiti on the state of the conflict in Yemen. Al-Bukhaiti told Drop Site that Saudi-backed forces in eastern areas of Al-Jawf are essentially driving around empty desert for the cameras and presenting it as an advance.“They just go to an open area and keep shooting at a hill or a small mountain, and there’s no one there,” he said, adding that the forces are also “sitting ducks” for Ansarallah fighters who hold all the key high ground in the west of the province.Albukhaiti also predicted that oil- and gas-rich Marib province will fall “exactly like Mocha,” saying it “could be easier” because Ansarallah has already sharply limited Saudi air cover. Subscribe on YouTube and wherever you get podcasts. 00:00–01:01 — Saudi Arabia and Ansarallah Escalate 01:02–03:09 — Advice for MBS & Why Saudi Arabia Broke the 2022 Truce 03:10–05:52 — Ansarallah’s New Demands for Riyadh 05:53–09:22 — What’s Happening in Al-Jawf 09:23–16:10 — Why Saudi-Backed Forces Collapsed on Yemen’s West Coast 16:11–20:41 — Why Ansarallah Went on the Offensive 20:42–26:00 — The Battle for Marib and Ansarallah’s Strategy 26:01–34:39 — Could Saudi Arabia Lose Territory? 34:40–35:52 — Iran, the U.S. and Ansarallah’s Regional Strategy 35:53–38:19 — Red Sea Shipping and Bab al-Mandab 38:20–43:17 — Why Ansarallah Is Detaining UN Aid Workers 43:18–43:42 — Journalism and Closing Remarks
Twenty-five years after 9/11, the United States is again fighting a major war in the Middle East. Drop Site’s Ryan Grim and Murtaza Hussain speak with Vali Nasr, professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins SAIS and a former senior adviser in the Obama administration, and Rob Malley, a senior fellow at Yale’s Jackson School of Global Affairs, former U.S. special envoy for Iran, longtime Middle East peace negotiator, and head of the Middle East program at the International Crisis Group. The conversation covers Ansarallah’s advance in Yemen, the battle over the Strait of Hormuz, Iran and the US duel strategies of economic pressure, the future of U.S. military bases in the Gulf, the collapse of the JCPOA, Iran’s nuclear calculations, and whether Washington has learned the lessons of Iraq, Afghanistan and the broader post-9/11 wars. 0:00 Intro: Oil Tops $105, Saudi-Backed Forces Collapse in Yemen2:35 How Ansarallah Swept Western Yemen, and Why Now5:23 Vali Nasr: Iran Will Break Trump’s “New Normal” Before the Midterms10:50 Can Trump Sustain a Low-Grade War for Two More Years?17:05 Gulf Disillusionment, From the Iraq War to the JCPOA20:45 Is American Protection in the Gulf Breaking Down?23:17 The Gulf’s Two Failed Wagers: U.S. Bases and Détente With Iran28:55 The Lessons of Losing Wars: Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran30:05 Who Warned Trump? A Broken Decision-Making Process33:44 What Iran Would Accept to End the War39:16 Why the 14-Point MOU Collapsed42:53 Malley: Failed Wars Have Heavier Consequences47:16 25 Years After 9/11: Has Washington Learned Anything?52:22 Malley: Why Iran May Now Want a Bomb54:45 Nuclear Debate Inside Iran 58:06 Is the U.S. Basing System in the Gulf Coming to an End?1:03:23 Closing Thoughts and Book Recommendations