Wednesday, August 12, 2026

Iran's Military Command Reshuffle Digs In For 'Hardline' Confrontation


Iran's Military Command Reshuffle Digs In For 'Hardline' Confrontation: US Must Meet All Demands For Hormuz Opening
TYLER DURDEN


Pakistan started the day by floating optimistic reports of the warring sides reverting to 'moving toward peace efforts' - however that appears very short-lived, or really was probably never a reality, given soon on the heels of these claims a top Iranian official has reiterated that the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed until the US corrects its 'behavior'. According to fresh reports out of state media sources:

Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran Rezaei says Strait of Hormuz will not open until the US changes its behavior and accepts Iran's conditions.

This comes amid widespread reports that Iran has just undergone a significant military shuffling of top command leadership, which points to the ascent of the 'hardliner' crowd - as in those who are against signing an MoU deal with Washington...

The Wall Street Journal and others are picking up on Tehran's obvious shift away from negotiations, and toward a more permanent state of military resistance. It writes: "Now, the new supreme leader, Khamenei’s son Mojtaba, is putting his own stamp on the country’s national-security policy amid a confrontation with the U.S. that could last months or even years."

According to more of WSJ's analysis:

In a sweeping overhaul of the government’s top echelon on Sunday and Monday, Iran named seasoned hard-liners to run the country’s security policies and institutions of repression.

It marked the most significant government reshuffle under Mojtaba Khamenei, who hasn’t been seen in public since the war began. U.S. intelligence agencies say he is alive but severely injured, and top Iranian cabinet members say they have never met him since he took office. Iranian officials say he was injured but in good health.

Analysts said the appointments signaled Khamenei’s determination to hold fast in a showdown with President Trump, who is seeking concessions on Iran’s nuclear program and the Strait of Hormuz. 

“The regime is preparing for a more confrontational posture at home and abroad,”said Kasra Aarabi, an expert on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a powerful paramilitary force, at United Against Nuclear Iran, a policy organization that opposes Iran’s government.  


For some - especially the non-interventionists, it was obvious the war would take this course from day one.


Despite what are clearly ongoing attacks on international vessels in regional waters, suddenly mediators are feeling optimism again, and decided to float another apparent round of pre-US market open headlines suggesting peace could return.

Though there's as yet no evidence of this, the Pakistani Defense Minister has signaled that the US and Iran are close to some agreement and that the situation is moving towards peace. Oil prices promptly plummeted ahead of market open. Pakistan’s interior minister Mohsin Raza Naqvi, has also just arrived in Tehran for talks with Iranian officials amid going mediation efforts, according to Iran’s Mehr news agency.

This came ironically just as reports of more serious shipping incidents, at least one of them deadly, emerged in regional waters, but perhaps the brief 'peace is near' headline redux had its intended effect on markets.

And significantly, the US is clearly still enforcing its military blockade of Iranian ports - and so no, the warring sides do not seem 'close' to a return to deal-making, instead the ground reality is quite the opposite:

US forces reportedly fired on a Panama-flagged ship that attempted to run the American blockade of Iranian ports early Tuesday, according to WSJ citing a US official.

"A U.S. military helicopter fired at the rudder of the ship after its crew ignored warnings from American personnel working to enforce the naval blockade of Iran’s ports, the official said," The Wall Street Journal details:

"There were no immediate reports of any casualties in the incident, which took place before dawn on Tuesday. The U.S. official said the ship appeared to be attempting to transfer its crew to another civilian vessel after the attack," the report adds.

There's been a major deadly attack on a commercial ship in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandeb Strait region off Yemen on Tuesday, amid the ongoing escalation against Saudi shipping by the Houthis.

Yemen's internationally recognized government has announced that at least three people have been killed in a Houthi attackon an unidentified commercial ship in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, however there's been no immediate confirmation forthcoming from the Houthis themselves.

The small vessel has been identified as the Tanzania-flagged Tihamah, and reports say this marks the first deaths from Houthi maritime attacks since the start of the Iran war in February.

 More...

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Iran Rejects US Pressure, Enters 'Survival Economy' As Mediators Cite 'Absolutely No Progress'


Iran Rejects US Pressure, Enters 'Survival Economy' As Mediators Cite 'Absolutely No Progress'
TYLER DURDEN


It has become beyond obvious that there is no broader peace process and that things are in a stalemated situation amid what's broadly seen as a Washington retreat from military confrontation, leaving Iran to press its own vision of management over the Strait of Hormuz with Oman.

While President Trump has settled into a waiting game which once again bets on sanctions and economic warfare to eventually force Tehran to bend, Iranian military leaders are declaring that "victory is on our side".


The Wall Street Journal has noted that the Islamic Republic has entered a 'survival economy' with the country’s rulers "taking time-tested steps to keep their chronically battered economy functioning just enough to resist a drawn-out campaign."

There's no doubt that infrastructure along with various key industries and the Iranian currency has been severely tested and battered, but the WSJ outlines strategies of this survival mode as follows:


Tehran is rationing scarce goods, limiting access to foreign currency, slashing investment and shifting more of the burden onto households while preserving strategic imports and the essential machinery of the state, analysts say. The result will be a deepening economic malaise that leads to rising poverty and dysfunction, but also more room for Iran’s leaders to stall talks with the U.S.

That leaves Trump’s strategy resting on a risky assumption that Iran will crack before Washington does. Mediators have warned their U.S. counterparts that Iran has been living under sanctions for years and betting that Tehran will compromise because of economic pressure won’t likely yield results. Instead, Iran will likely continue to escalate attacks to raise the price for Washington and its allies.

Such a 'risky assumption' was on display from even the very start of Operation Epic Fury nearly six months ago and nothing has fundamentally changed in terms of the Iranian system 'cracking'. Within merely the first two weeks of war back in early March, we highlighted some of Washington's persisting false assumptions in: Escalation Trap: Misreading Iran's Internal Power Dynamics.

Meanwhile, Gulf and regional mediators are still clinging to hope that some form of ceasefire can limp along and be put back in full force, also with efforts to get the US and Iran talking again. As a Wednesday, per Bloomberg:

Pakistan said the 60-day deadline for a US-Iran MoU may be extended, but the larger peace process has stalled. Earlier, Donald Trump said the US "totally" controls the Strait of Hormuz. Oil wavered. 

Neither of these things are true - at this point the MoU is dead with Iran weeks ago having already pulled out while declaring in null. Also, if the US military 'totally' controlled the strait then there would be no crisis that must be 'resolved' and global oil would be transiting at full tilt again.


The latest from Reuters further observes that "The US and Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis reported separate attacks on shipping as prospects for ending the Iran war appeared to dim, with Tehran saying the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed unless Washington accepts its conditions."

Mohsen Rezaee, the newly appointed head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, has informed China’s ambassador to Tehran, Cong Peiwu: "As long as America does not change its behaviour and does not accept Iran’s conditions, the Strait of Hormuz will not be opened."

But so far on Wednesday there's been an uneasy quiet, so at least the bombs have fallen silent. But on Wednesday Reuters while citing mediators has painted a grim picture: "There has been absolutely no progress on this issue," the [Pakistani government] source added...

"There is no talk of an extension because, from Iran’s perspective, there is ​no period that began and therefore nothing to extend. The ​United States violated the interim agreement 48 hours after it was reached and ‌withdrew ⁠from it a few days later," the source told Reuters.

In the agreement, the 60-day period refers to an extendable timeframe within which Iran and the U.S. were expected to reach a final deal ​limiting Tehran's nuclear ​program and lifting ⁠U.S. sanctions.

More....

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“Flesh shall rot away while they stand”: A modern outbreak meets an ancient prophecy?


“Flesh shall rot away while they stand”: A modern outbreak meets an ancient prophecy


A rare and often fatal “flesh-eating” bacteria has killed at least seven people along the Gulf Coast so far this year, with health officials in two states warning residents to stay cautious around warm coastal water through the rest of the summer.

Florida’s Department of Health confirmed a second death from Vibrio vulnificus this year in data posted August 6, alongside 14 additional confirmed cases. Louisiana has recorded five deaths and nine total cases in 2026, every one of them a hospitalized patient who contracted the infection through a wound exposed to seawater and who had an underlying health condition. That marks a sharp jump for Louisiana specifically: the state had averaged seven cases and one fatality a year over the past decade, before 2025 alone brought 26 cases and five deaths.

Vibrio vulnificus lives naturally in warm, brackish coastal waters, the mix of salt and fresh water found where rivers meet the ocean, and belongs to a family of more than 80 Vibrio species, most of which are harmless or cause only mild foodborne illness. V. vulnificus is the dangerous exception. People contract it either by eating raw or undercooked shellfish, particularly oysters, or by exposing an open wound, including small cuts, fresh tattoos, or piercings, to contaminated water. Once in the bloodstream, it can cause sepsis, blistering skin lesions, and organ failure within hours, and roughly one in five people who contract it die, sometimes within a day or two of the first symptoms. The nickname “flesh-eating bacteria” refers to necrotizing fasciitis, a severe infection that kills the flesh around a wound, though the CDC notes a different bacteria, a type of Streptococcus, is actually the most common cause of that condition nationally.

The trend line is climbing well beyond this year’s headlines. Maryland’s confirmed Vibrio cases have more than doubled since 2018, from 100 to 260 last year, and Virginia’s have nearly doubled over the same stretch. A 2024 study found a 39% rise in per capita Vibrio infections in Maryland between 2006 and 2019, and separate East Coast research found that wound infections specifically caused by V. vulnificus grew eightfold between 1988 and 2018. The bacteria have also been detected this spring in water samples off New York’s Long Island, well north of its traditional range. Scientists attribute the spread directly to warming water: V. vulnificus thrives once water reaches 64 degrees and has moderate salinity, conditions the Chesapeake Bay now meets for a longer stretch of the year after its average temperature rose 1.8 degrees over the past three decades.

Health officials in both Florida and Louisiana are urging the same basic precautions: cook seafood thoroughly rather than eating it raw, wash hands after handling raw shellfish, and avoid salt or brackish water entirely if you have an open wound, a recent piercing, or a fresh tattoo. Anyone who develops redness, swelling, warmth, or discoloration around a wound after exposure to coastal water is advised to seek medical care immediately and inform the provider of the exposure. People with chronic liver disease, cancer, diabetes, HIV, or conditions requiring immunosuppressant treatment face a substantially higher risk of severe illness or death if infected.



One detail in the outbreak has drawn attention from a different direction entirely. Rabbi Rami Levy, an end-of-days lecturer based in Jerusalem, told Israel365 News that the clinical description of a Vibrio vulnificus infection, flesh that appears to rot away around an open wound, tracks closely with a plague the prophet Zechariah assigned to the enemies of Jerusalem in the End of Days: As for those peoples that warred against Yerushalayim, Hashem will smite them with this plague: Their flesh shall rot away while they stand on their feet; their eyes shall rot away in their sockets; and their tongues shall rot away in their mouths. (Zechariah 14:12)


“The prophet described a disease that would accompany the War of Gog and Magog,” Rabbi Levy said. “The current outbreak is exceptional and appears to fit the prophet’s description, but it is not nearly on the scale of what we will see before Moshiach.” He was careful to draw a real distinction rather than claim a direct fulfillment. “The plague that comes after Gog and Magog will be even worse than the Bubonic Plague the world saw in the Middle Ages, destroying a significant part of the world population,” he said, “but it will afflict specifically the people who came out against the Jews.” Referring separately to earlier flesh-eating bacteria cases reported in England, he added that those specific cases “do not seem to fit the description of the striking of people who came out against Jerusalem,” a distinction that keeps his reading of the Gulf Coast outbreak narrower than a blanket claim about any flesh-eating illness anywhere.




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More cases reported of police officers using Flock cameras to spy, stalk, track innocent people


More cases reported of police officers using Flock cameras to spy, stalk, track innocent people


I reported last week that three employees at my local Sheriff’s Office in Coweta County, Georgia, were forced to resign when it came to light that they were using the county’s Flock surveillance cameras, which have literally blanketed the area over the last five or six years, for their own personal use in violation of department policy.

Well, that was just the tip of the iceberg in Georgia. Since that article was posted last Friday there have been several more cases of law enforcement officers in the state using Flock’s AI spy cameras not just for official police business but for their own personal mischief.

Check out the August 8 article from the Atlanta CBS affiliate WSB-TV Channel 2, below:


A former Polk County police officer who once worked with a multi-agency drug task force has been charged after investigators said she improperly accessed a license plate reader system for personal reasons.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced Friday that former Polk County Police Department Officer Tracey Royston, 51, of Cedartown, is facing four misdemeanor counts of misuse of a license plate reader System.

Channel 2 Action News has previously reported on several officers in metro Atlanta and in the state who have been fired and arrested over misusing the cameras, including most recently in Coweta County, Savannah and Habersham County.

According to the GBI, the investigation began July 31 after the PCPD requested assistance looking into allegations involving the Cedartown Police Department’s Flock Safety System, a network of cameras that captures and stores license plate information.

Investigators said Royston previously served as an agent with the Northwest Georgia Drug Task Force, which is managed by the GBI. Because of that role, she had access to the Cedartown Police Department’s Flock Safety System.

Investigators say Royston accessed the system multiple times between 2024 and 2025 for purposes unrelated to law enforcement, according to the GBI.

Royston was arrested Thursday and booked into the Polk County Jail.

The investigation remains active and ongoing. Once completed, the case will be turned over to the Tallapoosa Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office for prosecution.

That’s quite a list of abuse from just one state. It’s likely that Flock receives more coverage in Georgia because the company is based in Atlanta. Other states are likely just as riddled with abuse from law enforcement but they are able to keep it under the radar.


American citizens are being illegally surveilled while the company is fleecing the taxpayers to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. It’s time we hold our city councils and county commissions accountable for these abusive Orwellian systems.


Meanwhile, Flock Safety keeps expanding into new and more invasive ways of tracking and spying on American citizens, making sure we have no way of escaping their watchful eyes.


It was reported that Flock was working on a deal to place its AI-powered spy cameras in Uber and Lyft rideshare vehicles and delivery vehicles, turning them into rolling spy cams everywhere they go.

Cybernews reports:

A leaked document shows that Flock Safety, the company behind the highly controversial network of automatic license plate readers across the US, was planning to convert 350,000 Uber, Lyft, and delivery cars into a sort of mobile extension of its surveillance system.

As of today, Flock only employs smart pole cameras across America. But the company has more ambitious plans.

Despite growing protests, the Lancaster Police Department in the state of New York is planning to start using Flock drone cameras in September, for example. They would fly over designated areas to provide rapid response capabilities.

And according to a leaked Flock presentation obtained by 404 Media, the firm recently pitched an idea to expand its surveillance network by equipping rideshare vehicles with dashcams that can scan license plates along their routes.

According to 404 Media, the pitch, shared with the news website by Jason Hunyar, a Georgia resident who obtained it through a public records request, shows that Flock was actively marketing the idea to prospective customers last year.

It’s unclear whether those hundreds of thousands of rideshare drivers would have known their cars were collecting data from passing vehicles.



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Iran’s Economy Is Unraveling


Iran’s Economy Is Unraveling


Iran International reports that the average advertised monthly rent in Tehran has climbed to 723 million rials, or about $389 at the open-market exchange rate. Many Iranian workers earn only 200 million to 250 million rials per month, equivalent to $108 to $134. A worker must now surrender nearly three months of wages to pay one month of rent. That is the destruction of an entire population’s standard of living.

Rents have reportedly risen between 70% and 100% in parts of Tehran, despite the government’s 25% ceiling. Even Alireza Novin, a member of parliament’s construction committee, admitted that “the 25% rent increase is clearly not being observed.”

The IMF now projects that Iran’s economy will contract 5.4% in 2026, the worst annual decline in decades. Consumer-price inflation is projected to reach 68.9%. Estimates indicate that unemployment rose from 7.6% in the first quarter to 9.1% in the second, while industrial destruction and economic disruption may have eliminated around one million jobs.

The rial traded near 70 to the dollar at the time of the 1979 revolution. Iran International’s housing calculations now use an open-market rate of 1.86 million rials to the dollar. Iran’s government may issue a 10 million-rial banknote or remove zeros from the currency, but changing the numbers printed on the paper cannot restore the savings that were destroyed.

Food and beverages have risen 113.8% from the previous year, according to figures attributed to the Statistical Center of Iran. Bread and cereals increased 140%. Red meat and poultry rose 135%. Dairy products climbed 116.8%, while oils and fats surged 219%. Fruits and nuts increased more than 104%.

Rural inflation has reportedly reached 86.5%, compared with 69.3% in urban areas. The poorest citizens are being hit hardest because food, transportation, and household necessities consume nearly all their income. They do not own stocks, foreign property, or offshore bank accounts. Their entire wealth is their labor, and the government has destroyed the value of that labor.

Real income per person has fallen by approximately 47%, pushing the average Iranian’s purchasing power back toward levels last seen in the late 1990s. Poverty is estimated to affect about 36% of the population nationwide and as much as 50% in deprived regions. Iran is creating millions of working poor—people who still have jobs but can no longer afford to live.

The diet of the Iranian people is shrinking. Red meat supply has reportedly fallen to approximately 623,000 metric tons, about 20% below 2024 and nearly 39% below its 2010 level. Dairy consumption has declined to around 40 kilograms per person, roughly one-third of the global average. Families are not changing their diets for health reasons. They are abandoning meat and dairy because they cannot afford them.

Grocery workers have reported increasing theft of bread, cheese, butter, and meat. Medical patients are postponing treatment because they cannot afford medication. People are moving back in with their parents, sharing apartments with strangers, or fleeing Tehran for poorer outskirts.

Tindex estimates that the average advertised home in Tehran now costs more than 240 billion rials. A worker earning 250 million rials per month would need 80 years of gross wages to reach that price, assuming he never spent anything on food, rent, clothing, or taxes. Homeownership has become mathematically impossible for much of the population.

The war turned Iran’s prolonged decline into an active crisis. Factories, power plants, railways, airports, bridges, and industrial facilities have been damaged. Oil exports, the financial lifeline of the government, have reportedly fallen as much as 70% during periods of severe disruption. Some estimates place the economic cost of the blockade near $435 million per day.

The cumulative cost of the war has been estimated at around $144 billion, equivalent to roughly 40% of Iran’s prewar GDP. Whether every estimate proves exact is secondary to what Iranians can see: businesses closing, wages vanishing, investment stopping, and entire industries struggling to obtain materials or transport goods.

The government has compounded the damage by restricting the internet. Iran’s own communications ministry estimated that shutdowns cost the economy around 5 trillion rials per day at the official exchange rate. Other estimates placed the direct and indirect losses much higher. Online businesses lost customers, workers lost income, and private commerce was sacrificed so the state could suppress information.

Meanwhile, Iran’s rulers continue spending on missiles, proxies, internal surveillance, and political repression. The people are told to sacrifice for the revolution while those connected to the state preserve access to hard currency, property, and protected markets. The ruling class rarely eats the consequences of its policies. The people do.

The neocons believe that enough bombing and deprivation will force Iran to surrender and produce a friendly democracy. They made the same argument in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and Syria. Economic misery can produce revolution, but it can also produce repression, military rule, fragmentation, or civil war.

A government can manipulate inflation statistics and threaten landlords. It cannot hide an empty refrigerator or convince a worker that three months of wages should equal one month of rent. Many have turned to military service for survival, but what happens when the government cannot pay its troops? Iran’s people are watching their economy unravel in real time. Their wages have become scraps of paper, their savings have disappeared, and the idea of building a future is slipping beyond reach.

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