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Trump said the MoU was due to be signed tomorrow, yet the rhetoric in his post pointed in a very different direction. Iran had already said it wouldn’t be signed. This piece examines the tone, signals and framing of Trump’s post; and why they don’t sound like words chosen on the eve of an MoU. Originally published on X on 13 June 2026. I don’t know what Trump’s love language is, but his peace language could use serious work. In a Truth Social post today, he says he expects th

The IAEA’s latest censure vote has triggered the collapse of the last inspection mechanism on Iran’s nuclear programme. Tehran’s response was immediate, predictable and strategically significant. Here is what happened and why it matters for the war. VIENNA, The United Nations watchdog’s 35-nation IAEA Board of Governors passed a US-backed resolution on Wednesday, 10 June, to censure Iran for failing to clarify the status of its 60% enriched uranium stockpile. The vote was exp

March 20, 2003 sits in the British memory not only because the date reads the same forwards and backwards, but because it marked the first time in living memory that a UK government took the country into a war the public did not want. Polling showed only 26% supported the Iraq War. Most people simply did not believe the government’s case that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) [1]. Many believed ministers were deliberately shaping intelligence to justi

Mojtaba Khamenei’s Hajj message, his first major public statement since succeeding his father, is a deliberate public artefact; a written manifesto fusing devotional language with geopolitical proclamations. As such, it reveals much about his worldview and how he sees peace unfolding in the region. It reads as a self‑portrait of a leader shaped by siege, yet determined to put right the wrongs as seen from Iran’s point of view. It shows how he sees Iran, its enemies, its allie

An Old Doctrine in a New Context Earlier this month, Israel’s Channel 13 featured Turkey’s Blue Homeland Doctrine (Mavi Vatan). The timing was striking: Israel is fighting the resistance on several battle fronts, so why become concerned with a Turkish maritime strategy from 2006? [1] The doctrine itself isn’t new – so why now? The report did not treat Blue Homeland as an abstract map or a dormant idea. Instead, it framed Turkey as a state that is “no longer just drawing maps”

Blue Homeland (Mavi Vatan) is Turkey’s contemporary maritime doctrine, first articulated in 2006 by Rear Admiral Cem Gürdeniz and later formalised and operationalised by Admiral Cihat Yaycı between 2015, when he wrote about it in his book "Basic Maritime Law" and 2019, when it was acknowledged in a memorandum of understanding with Libya and operationalised in the first Blue Homeland annual navy drill of the same year. It is not international law, nor is it recognised under UN

What is UNCLOS The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is also called the Law of the Sea Convention or the Law of the Sea Treaty. It is an international treaty that establishes a legal framework for all marine and maritime activities. As of October 2024, 169 sovereign states and the European Union are parties. Interestingly, however, neither Turkey, Iran, Israel nor the United States have ratified this treaty. UNCLOS is often treated as a universal framew

Do we need to rewrite international maritime law to bring peace to the Strait of Hormuz? Many observers see repeated Israeli commentary, such as former intelligence operative Danny Citrinowicz's claim on CNN, "No deal is better than a bad deal!", as evidence of Israel’s limited interest in negotiating with Iran. Some attribute this to expansionist ambitions and a refusal to recognise Iran as a rising regional power. While such debates matter, they may distract from a deeper s