US Begs Iran to Reopen Strait – The Tuesday AM Quickie 6/23/26
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ON THE SHOW TODAY
6/23: Sam and Emma are in the studio today and their guest is Rick Perlstein, historian, journalist and publisher of the Rickipedia newsletter on Substack, discussing his piece on Alan Greenspan entitled “Speak Ill of the Dead - Early and Often, Please.”
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Today you’ll read about the following. Alan Greenspan? Dead. US aid to Africa? Conditional. Healthcare for Americans? Unaffordable. Elon Musk? Serial killer.
THE BIG NEWS
US Begs Iran to Reopen Strait
Trump temporarily lifted oil sanctions against Iran yesterday, the New York Times and PBS reported, a day after he and his genocidal ally Benjamin Netanyahu sabotaged peace talks so completely that Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and the Iranian delegation simply walked out of their meeting with JD Vance in Switzerland.
Trump’s “sharp reversal” means that Iran can now sell oil in US dollars for the first time in decades, rather than be forced to sell in other currencies at a discount. Under the terms of the agreement, Iran may sell its oil and petrochemicals in USD until August 1, Al Jazeera reported, thereby making a boatload of cash money. Iranian officials also said the US had agreed to release $12 billion in frozen funds.
What to make of this? Well, to me it seems again that Iran is using its globally significant leverage to win against the incompetent and dithering Trump administration. It seems to me that someone in the Trump administration recognized that Mistakes Were Made and now they have to beg a little bit to get Iran to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. At the moment, the US claims it is open. Iran says no it isn’t. To the question of “what is happening,” NBC News helpfully offered that “The answer is not straightforward.”
Also unstraightforward is Vice Bootlicker JD Vance’s claim that Tehran agreed to allow UN inspectors to visit Iran’s nuclear sites, which he called “a major milestone for the American people and the first step in permanently ending a nuclear weapons program in Iran.” But Iranian officials said they’d made “no new commitments” on that point.