James Fite: Who’s Running Iran? Confusion and Chaos in the Middle East

The US military seized an Iranian cargo ship on Sunday after it tried to defy President Donald Trump’s naval blockade. The development comes after government officials from Iran said Friday that the Strait of Hormuz was open - but the military said on Saturday it was closed. What’s going on over there, and who’s calling the shots? Confusion and chaos seem the order of the day in the Middle East, but Trump isn’t waiting for them to figure it out.

Bob Edlin: The nuclear threat that has been obliterated and cut out like a cancer – so what next?

Is there a difference between a precision strike and a surgical one?

We ask because in June last year the White House declared: –

Iran’s Nuclear Facilities Have Been Obliterated — and Suggestions Otherwise are Fake News

Yep.

Obliterated.

Gary Judd KC: Lessons from Iran

The dangers of appeasement

There are lessons to be learned from what has happened to and in Iran. Without doubt there is more to be learned, and more will become apparent in the days, weeks, months, and years to come. One such lesson has been taught through history but is forgotten more often than remembered.

Appeasement, the attempt to avoid conflict and to maintain or restore peace, may sometimes be a virtue but is frequently capitulation to evil actors. Those who have the power but, for whatever reason, lack the inclination to stand up for what is right often find that visions of peace are a mere illusion or fabrication of the mind. They may find that the goodwill they thought to buy through appeasement is rewarded with aggression and the sacrifice of innocent victims to the whims of persons of authoritarian temperament who now have totalitarian power.

DTNZ: India comments on Strait of Hormuz talks with Iran

There is no “blanket arrangement” between New Delhi and Tehran on the movement of ships, Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar has said.

The Liberia-flagged Suezmax tanker Shenlong, carrying crude oil, among the first ships to reach India amid the Middle East crises, is seen at Mumbai Port on March 12, after sailing through the Strait of Hormuz. © Photo by Imtiyaz Shaikh/Anadolu via Getty Images

Talks with Iran are the most “effective way” to restart the passage of ships through the crucial Strait of Hormuz, Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar has said.

Simon O'Connor: We no longer recognise evil

As the Islamic regime in Iran begins to crumble, it is clear from comments of some politicians, academics, and activists that they no longer can discern between good and evil, right and wrong.

As United States and Israeli air strikes continue to decapitate the leaders and degrade the facilities of the Islamic regime - who for decades have held the Iranian people hostage to their mad religious ideology – I wanted to share a few reflections.

Melanie Phillips: The West’s pragmatic fallacy

When people are called pragmatic, it’s meant to imply reasonableness, the ability to compromise, occupying the sensible middle ground.

That compliment may often be justified. However, as the obverse of principle, pragmatism has also been the West’s progressive undoing.

US President Donald Trump is an arch pragmatist. His “art of the deal” is based on beating down the other side through negotiations in which he plays a superior hand.

Bob Edlin: What our PM and Chlöe Swarbrick have in common....

What our PM and Chlöe Swarbrick have in common – they are quiet about the protests and killings in Iran

It looks like Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick have something in common, when it comes to the issue of nationwide political demonstrations in Iran in the first weeks of the New Year and the Iranian government’s violent response.

Bob Edlin: NZ traders look likely to be hit by flak.....

NZ traders look likely to be hit by flak as Trump plays the tariff card to put Iran’s Ayatollah and his cronies in their place

Uh, oh. It looks like New Zealand traders might become collateral damage as US president Donald Trump’s flexes his muscle against Ayatollah Khamenei, who has been Iran’s supreme leader since 1989, and his theocratic cronies.

Besides threatening to launch military strikes, Trump has said countries that engage in trade with Iran will face a 25 per cent tariff on any business done with the US.

Tim Donner: Maduro - How His Daring Capture Will Change the World

This could stand as the most significant geopolitical event since 9/11

They got him. The nightmare of Nicolas Maduro’s illegitimate, murderous regime in Venezuela and the untold hundreds of thousands who have died at the hands of the lethal drugs pouring in from the South American narco-terrorist state has mercifully come to an end. After the daring capture of Maduro and his wife in the dark of night, the question quickly turns to what will happen next in once-prosperous Venezuela and, most importantly, how the success of this breathtaking military and law enforcement operation will change the geopolitics of not just the western hemisphere, but the entire world.

Dr Will Jones: Protests Calling for “Death to the Dictator” Erupt Across Iran

Mass protests have erupted across Iran calling for “death to the dictator” over the regime’s economic crisis, as Donald Trump threatens military action if the country rebuilds its nuclear or missile programmes. The Telegraph has more.

DTNZ: Iran vows to rebuild nuclear facilities

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has pledged to rebuild the country’s damaged nuclear facilities following coordinated airstrikes by the United States and Israel earlier this year.

DTNZ: Iran agrees to resume nuclear talks with European states

France, Germany, and the UK are threatening to reimpose sanctions on the Islamic Republic unless it agrees to a deal in August.

Iran, France, Germany, and the UK have agreed to resume talks regarding Tehran’s nuclear program next week, Tasnim News Agency reported on Sunday, citing an anonymous source.

Matua Kahurangi: Stuff sinks to new low as convicted thief Golriz Ghahraman becomes their voice on Iran

Stuff has just confirmed what many Kiwis already suspected. The line between journalism and activist propaganda has all but disappeared. In its latest farce, Lloyd Burr and the Stuff editorial team have handed a megaphone to none other than Golriz Ghahraman, the disgraced former Green Party MP and convicted serial shoplifter, to lecture New Zealanders on the state of democracy in Iran.

Olivia Pierson: Trump Acted to Fulfill a Long-Term Promise

Since 2016, President Trump has conducted somewhere in the vicinity of 900 political rallies, an astronomical number befitting the man’s colossal energy and courage.

At nearly all of them, he has consistently maintained that he will never let the Islamic Republic of Iran acquire nuclear weapons. This is simply because he knows that the regime will use them on Israel and the United States. At these same rallies, Trump has consistently stated that he will not involve the U.S in new “forever wars,’ the force of his focus being America First.

JC: Trump Puts the World on Notice

Donald Trump should be taken at his word. Both domestically and internationally Trump is carrying out his promises. He is the one (probably the only), leader on the planet who stays true to his word. He has said time and time again, even before he entered politics, that Iran should never have nuclear weapons. Last weekend he translated his words into action.

Ian Parmeter: The US has entered the Israel-Iran war - Here are 3 scenarios for what might happen next

After prevaricating about whether the United States would enter Israel’s war on Iran, President Donald Trump finally made a decision.

Early Sunday, US warplanes and submarines struck three of Iran’s nuclear sites at Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow, where the Iranians have a uranium enrichment plant buried about 80 metres beneath a mountain.

Point of Order: A bad day for America’s enemies

The American strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities may end up being a bad day for a lot of people – but with luck, mainly for the autocrats, appeasers and anti-democrats.

There is a smidgen of sympathy for the Iranian regime. Every child with a stick eventually learns it’s not a good idea to keep provoking. But who would have thought that Donald Trump – the great peace president – would be the one to accept the informal declaration of war issued by the Iranian regime’s precursors on 4 November 1979.

DTNZ: Iraq warns of $300 per barrel oil

The escalating conflict in the Middle East could send the commodity skyrocketing – Foreign Minister.

Escalating tensions in the Middle East and a potential closure of the Strait of Hormuz could drive oil prices up to USD $300 per barrel, Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein warned during a phone conversation with German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul.

Ian Parmeter: Netanyahu has two war aims - destroying Iran’s nuclear program and regime change

Netanyahu has two war aims: destroying Iran’s nuclear program and regime change. Are either achievable?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities could last for at least two weeks.

His timing seems precise for a reason. The Israel Defence Forces and the country’s intelligence agencies have clearly devised a methodical, step-by-step campaign.

Dave Patterson: Trump Arranging the Chess Pieces for Upcoming Talks With Iran

During an Oval Office visit with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on April 7, President Donald Trump announced that talks were set between the United States and Iran. It was the first anyone had heard of a Tehran-Washington meeting. Tensions have been high between the two countries, particularly since the US chief executive has made it clear that America has no more patience with Iran trying to build a nuclear weapon and fomenting conflict in the Gulf region.