‘Unprecedentedly dangerous': Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson on US strikes
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Esmail Baghaei spoke exclusively to CNN's Fred Pleitgen in Iran after the US attacked three key nuclear facilities in the country. Baghaei said the US' actions were 'unprecedentedly dangerous' and a 'betrayal of diplomacy.'
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Associated Press
10 minutes ago
- Associated Press
The Strait of Hormuz is a vital route for oil. Closing it could backfire on Iran
The war between Israel and Iran has raised concerns that Iran could retaliate by trying to close the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most important oil chokepoint due to the large volumes of crude that pass through it every day. The U.S. military's strike on three sites in Iran over the weekend has raised questions about how its military might respond. The Strait of Hormuz is between Oman and Iran, which boasts a fleet of fast-attack boats and thousands of naval mines as well as missiles that it could use to make the strait impassable, at least for a time. Iran's main naval base at Bandar Abbas is on the north coast of the strait. It could also fire missiles from its long Persian Gulf shore, as its allies, Yemen's Houthi rebels, have done in the Red Sea. About 20 million barrels of oil per day, or around 20% of the world's oil consumption, passed through the strait in 2024. Most of that oil goes to Asia. Here is a look at the waterway and its impact on the global economy: An energy highway in a volatile region The strait connects the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. It's only 33 kilometers (21 miles) wide at its narrowest point, but deep enough and wide enough to handle the world's largest crude oil tankers. Oil that passes through the strait comes from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, and Bahrain, while major supplies of liquefied natural gas come from Qatar. At its narrowest point, the sea lanes for tankers lie in Omani waters, and before and after that cross into Iranian territory. While some global oil chokepoints can be circumvented by taking longer routes that simply add costs, that's not an option for most of the oil moving through the strait. That's because the pipelines that could be used to carry the oil on land, such as Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline, they don't have nearly enough capacity. 'Most volumes that transit the strait have no alternative means of exiting the region,' according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Closing the Strait of Hormuz would send oil prices massively higher — at least at first If Iran blocked the strait, oil prices could shoot as high as $120-$130 per, at least temporarily, said Homayoun Falakshahi, head of crude oil analyst at Kpler, in an online webinar Sunday. That would deal an inflationary shock to the global economy — if it lasted. Analysts think it wouldn't. Asia would be directly impacted because 84% of the oil moving through the strait is headed for Asia; top destinations are China, India, Japan and South Korea. China gets 47% of its seaborne oil from the Gulf. China, however, has an oil inventory of 1.1 billion barrels, or 2 1/2 months of supply. U.S. oil customers would feel the impact of the higher prices but would not lose much supply. The U.S. imported only about 7% of its oil from Persian Gulf countries through the strait in 2024, according to the USEIA. That was the lowest level in nearly 40 years. Iran has good reasons not to block the strait Closing the strait would cut off Iran's own oil exports. While Iran does have a new terminal under construction at Jask, just outside the strait, the new facility has loaded oil only once and isn't in a position to replace the strait, according to Kpler analysts. Closure would hit China, Iran's largest trading partner and only remaining oil customer, and harm its oil-exporting Arab neighbors, who are at least officially supporting it in its war with Israel. And it would mean blocking Oman's territorial waters, offending a country that has served as a mediator between the U.S. and Iran. The US would likely intervene to reopen the strait Any price spike would probably not last. One big reason: Analysts expect that the U.S. Navy would intervene to keep the strait open. In the 1980s, U.S. warships escorted Kuwaiti oil tankers through the strait to protect them against Iranian attacks during the Iran-Iraq war. A price spike 'wouldn't last very long' and the strait would likely be reopened 'very fast,' said Kpler's Falakshahi. U.S. use of force to reopen the strait would likely be supported by Europe and 'even unofficially by China,' he said. 'Iran's navy would probably get destroyed in a matter of hours or days.'
Business Insider
13 minutes ago
- Business Insider
How Russia's overheating war economy could get a boost if the Iran conflict sends oil prices even higher
Oil prices spiked in the wake of the US entry into the Israel-Iran conflict, a development that could give a much-needed boost to Russia's war-weary economy. Brent crude, the international benchmark, traded around $76 on Monday, a day after the US bombed nuclear sites in Iran. That's up 14% from its price on June 12, the day Israel first targeted Iran's military leaders and nuclear program. Brent prices have climbed 26% from their low in early May. West Texas Intermediate crude traded around $74 a barrel, up 9% from the day of Israel's first attack. WTI prices are up 30% from their low last month. The price of Urals oil, Moscow's flagship crude blend, also rose to around $63 a barrel on June 13, up 8% from its price on May 1, according to data from Argus Media cited by Bloomberg. A report from The Institute for the Study of War flagged the positive knock-on effects on Russia's economy, with oil being Moscow's top export — dnd the revenue that the Kremlin brings in from its energy trade is a key lifeline for its war effort in Ukraine. Russia put its economy on a war footing after the full-scale invasion, with President Vladimir Putin making moves to boost the output of the country's defense-industrial base. Production of key weaponry, like highly destructive glide bombs, drones, and missiles, has gone up since the start of the war. Russia has also increased contract bonuses and soldier pay to expand its invasion force upwards of 600,000 troops. "Continued rising oil prices following Israeli strikes against Iran may increase Russian revenue from oil sales and improve Russia's ability to sustain its war effort, but only if the price of oil remains high and if Russian oil does not come under additional international sanctions," the thnk tank said in a report last week, before the US entered the conflict over the weekend. Armed conflict between Israel and Iran — which the US joined on Saturday — also jeopardizes the Strait of Hormuz, a highly important passage for oil shipments in the Middle East. Russia is less reliant on this key transit route. The country has pivoted to selling its oil to Asian customers after getting hit with sanctions, and has rerouted more of its oil through the Suez Canal and the Strait of Malacca, according to the Energy Information Administration. "As long as the Straight remains at risk, political appetite for additional sanctions on Russian oil will remain low," The Royal United Services Institute, an independent British research institution, wrote in a note. The jump in oil prices comes at a pivotal time for Russia's economy, which has been bearing the cost of its war against Ukraine for over three years. In May, the nation said it would pull out another $5.5 billion from its liquid reserves to balance the budget deficit, which tripled in 2025. Russia's oil and gas revenue also dropped 35% year-over-year that month. According to the nation's Finance Ministry, the liquid assets in Russia's National Wealth Fund stood at 2.8 trillion roubles, or around $35.7 billion, in May. Calculations by Bloomberg show that's down 68% since the start of the Ukraine War. Meanwhile, the Trump administration's monthslong efforts to bring Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table for peace talks appear to be going nowhere. Kyiv has denounced Putin's terms as effectively amounting to an unacceptable capitulation.
Fox News
18 minutes ago
- Fox News
Ex-ICE chief warns Biden's border crisis likely fueled Iranian sleeper threat in US
The impact of the border crisis under the Biden administration likely added fuel to the fire of an Iranian sleeper cell threat domestically, according to a former top Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official who briefly led Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Following the strike on Iranian nuclear sites by the U.S. on Saturday, DHS issued a National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin warning about the risk of domestic terrorism from Iranian-backed or inspired perpetrators. "Definitely," former acting ICE director and Fox News contributor Jonathan Fahey said when asked if the Biden border crisis likely made matters worse domestically. "I think one thing that's really concerning about that: One, they weren't doing any really meaningful vetting in the last administration. The second part of it is, you know, we have probably 2 million known gotaways come through the last administration, and the people that went through the non-ports of entry, we knew they went through but nobody caught them, so we have no idea who went through," he added. Fahey noted that other countries were likely paying close attention to the heavy flow of people crossing into the country illegally. He briefly led ICE toward the end of Trump's first term and was the former deputy assistant secretary at the DHS. "But the thing that's concerning is all of our adversaries knew at the time that we basically, in all intents and purposes, had an open border. So, to the extent they wanted to send people in to spy, to collect intelligence, to do us harm, to plan to do us harm in the future, they had carte blanche to get anyone in that they wanted to with really little or no resistance," Fahey said. "That's what makes what Biden, the Biden-Mayorkas open border just so unconscionable," he said. Fox News reported that roughly half of the 1,500 Iranian nationals who came through illegally during the Biden administration were let go into the U.S. "The likelihood of violent extremists in the Homeland independently mobilizing to violence in response to the conflict would likely increase if Iranian leadership issued a religious ruling calling for retaliatory violence against targets in the Homeland," the DHS bulletin stated. "Multiple recent Homeland terrorist attacks have been motivated by anti-Semitic or anti-Israel sentiment, and the ongoing Israel-Iran conflict could contribute to US-based individuals plotting additional attacks," it continued. Other national security experts also doubled down that the releases and gotaways during the Biden administration continued to pose a risk. "We don't know where those thousand Iranians are and who knows how many others got across the border. We missed an opportunity when they caught and released those thousand. We missed the opportunity to gather intel by interviewing them and thoroughly vetting them. We just simply let them go, which is gross negligence on the part of the Biden administration," former FBI assistant director Chris Swecker told Fox News Digital. Border czar Tom Homan also sounded the alarm about gotaways on "Sunday Morning Futures" right after the Iran strikes. "We don't know who they are, where they came from, because they got away because border patrol is so overwhelmed with the humanitarian crisis that Biden created. Over two million people crossed the border and got away. That is my biggest concern. And that's what created the biggest national security vulnerability this country's ever seen," Homan said. When it comes to known releases, the Trump administration released nobody in May, compared with roughly 62,000 releases under the Biden administration last May, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.
