Iranian missiles and drones came down on Kuwait on September 3, two days after American aircraft struck roughly a hundred positions along the Hormuz coast and across western Iran, including a strike that killed five people at a wedding party in Sirik.
asserted
that → come → Sirik
The confrontation has continued since, with US forces striking Iranian oil tankers and Iran targeting shipping in and around the Strait of Hormuz.
asserted
Iran → continue → Hormuz
Brent is trading around $97 a barrel.
asserted
Brent → trade → 97
On September 12, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian lands in New Delhi for the BRICS summit.
asserted
Pezeshkian → land → summit
So do Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, along with at least eight of the eleven BRICS heads of state and government.
asserted
Jinping → do → state
The United Arab Emirates, which has spent six months under Iranian fire, will be in the same hall.
asserted
which → spend → hall
Western commentary has already filed the summit under photo opportunity, a bloc too broad to agree on anything.
asserted
commentary → file → anything
That reading skips an awkward fact about the past six months.
asserted
reading → skip → months
Every ceasefire this war has produced was assembled by BRICS members and their partners.
asserted
war → produce → members
Not one was assembled in Washington.
asserted
one → assemble → Washington
On March 31, Beijing and Islamabad issued a five-point initiative calling for an immediate ceasefire and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
asserted
Beijing → issue → Hormuz
A week later, Iran accepted a two-week truce.
asserted
Iran → accept → truce
Direct American and Iranian delegations then sat down in Islamabad on April 11, the highest-level contact of the war, in talks run by Pakistan’s Shehbaz Sharif, with his army chief Asim Munir shuttling to Tehran twice.
asserted
chief → sit → Tehran
What came out of it was the Islamabad Memorandum, signed on June 17 by Trump at Versailles and Pezeshkian in Tehran, with Qatar, Oman, Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Egypt carrying pieces of it.
asserted
Qatar → come → it
It expired on August 17 after the two sides read Articles 1 and 5 differently and no mediator could force a common text.
The document failed.
uncertain
document → expire → text
The machinery that built it did not.
asserted
that → build → it
It is the only machinery this war has produced and most of it will be inside one building in Delhi on September 12.
asserted
most → produce → September
China’s share of that record deserves more than the shrug it usually gets.
asserted
it → deserve → shrug
Beijing buys more than 80 percent of Iran’s exported crude.
asserted
Beijing → buy → crude
It also buys heavily from the Gulf states Iran has been shelling and its Gulf imports fell 25 percent year on year in March.
asserted
imports → buy → March
No other major power is losing money on both sides of this war at once.
asserted
power → lose → war
That exposure is what made its proposals legible in Tehran and tolerable in Abu Dhabi.
asserted
proposals → make → Dhabi
None of which makes Beijing clean.
asserted
Beijing → make → which
Chinese firms have supplied Iran with dual-use components, radar and navigation equipment, and a commercial reconnaissance satellite; Washington says the list runs longer and Beijing denies the sharper items.
asserted
Beijing → supply → items
China has also said almost nothing about the Kuwaiti and Bahraini civilians killed and Qatari civilians injured by Iranian missiles, which is a real cost to its standing in the Gulf and one the Gulf has noticed.
asserted
Gulf → say → Gulf
The argument is not that China has behaved well.
asserted
China → behave → ?
Opportunism that produces a signed ceasefire outperforms conviction that produces nothing.
asserted
that → produce → nothing
And Washington now produces nothing by choice.
asserted
Washington → produce → choice
The United States has burned through nearly 80 percent of its THAAD interceptors and virtually all of its ATACMS and Precision Strike Missiles, and Trump says he prefers near-total control of the strait to any agreement.
asserted
he → burn → agreement
Six months in, that is attrition with no terminal point and the states absorbing it are not American.
asserted
states → absorb → it
Kuwait has taken strikes on its airport, its refineries and its bases since the first day of the war.
asserted
Kuwait → take → war
Oman drew the compromise shipping lanes.
asserted
Oman → draw → lanes
Qatar kept a channel open after being hit itself.
asserted
Qatar → keep → channel
These are not spectators to be arranged around a Chinese or Russian argument and any Delhi text that treats them that way will die the way May’s did.
uncertain
that → arrange → them
Iranian inflation runs near 70 percent and the IMF expects a contraction above five percent this year.
asserted
IMF → run → percent
Bombs did some of it.
asserted
Bombs → do → it
Exclusion from dollar payment infrastructure did more, as it did to Russia, Venezuela and Afghanistan before it.
asserted
it → do → it
That exclusion is now repricing itself in public.
asserted
exclusion → reprice → public
China’s cross-border payment system posted a single-day record of 1.22 trillion yuan, about $178.5bn, and March average daily volumes ran 50 percent above February.
asserted
volumes → post → February
Standard Chartered’s chief economist for Greater China put the war down as a likely catalyst, mostly through oil settlement.
asserted
economist → put → settlement
…and 22 more, not listed.
The Aporia
