Iran’s Intransigence

Iran really wants that maritime traffic: “Iran’s Foreign Ministry denied Monday that its negotiators would be meeting with U.S. officials in Qatar on Tuesday after President Trump announced the talks would resume at Tehran’s request,” reports CBS News. “Both sides exchanged strikes over the weekend, testing the fragile ceasefire.”

Meanwhile, Iranian official Kazem Gharibabadi told state TV that the regime really wants to work out a deal with Oman (which borders the south of the strait) to oversee ships passing through Hormuz, but that “if for any reason Oman is not interested in doing so,” Iran will move forward, doing its own.

“We have warned the Omanis that other countries have no right to interfere in this matter,” he added.

“Under the memorandum of understanding signed with Washington on 18 June, substantive talks over Iran’s nuclear programme do not need to start until the lifting of the blockade of the strait—something Iran is required to use only ‘its best endeavours’ to achieve,” writes The Guardian‘s Patrick Wintour. “Iran is adopting a maximalist interpretation of the memorandum, decreeing that it alone can lift the blockade. Jealously guarding this prerogative, it has been resisting the involvement of any other country or institution in opening the strait.”

“But Oman, a neutral nation by temperament and practice, is in a delicate diplomat spot. It knows that if it ignores Iran’s objections, Tehran is less likely to agree to Oman’s plan for the future of the strait,” adds Wintour. “But if Oman does not take the initiative in helping the humanitarian operation to release thousands of trapped sailors, the less likely it is that its proposals for the strait will be accepted by the region or by the UN—and the more likely it is the US will return to all-out war.”

A deal that means very little: “A security deal between Israel and Lebanon risks entrenching a stalemate rather than resolving Israel’s underlying conflict with Hezbollah by tying Israel’s ​pullout from southern Lebanon to the Iran-aligned group’s disarmament,” reports Reuters. “At its core is a bargain few see as workable: Hezbollah ‌has flatly rejected disarmament, and no Lebanese government has the power to enforce it.”

Late last week, the Lebanese Ambassador Nada Moawad and the Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter signed a trilateral agreement with the U.S. in Washington, D.C., agreeing to peace between Israel and Lebanon; if Hezbollah—which is distinct from the Lebanese government and backed by Iran—fails to disarm, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israeli troops can occupy southern Lebanon once again.

Of course, Hezbollah has very little reason to actually do so, and the Lebanese government is not really the party the Israelis must find common ground with here. The fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which has been going on since Hamas’ infamous October 7 attack on Israel, shows very few signs of truly stopping. And the Lebanese state isn’t powerful enough to curb Hezbollah in a meaningful way.

Scenes from New York: Now look, I know you can’t turn America-celebratin’ into a whole entire week, but forgive me for trying! Where are YOU celebrating America this week and weekend? Tell me in the comments/via email/on X.

dispatches from rockaway (God’s country) pic.twitter.com/V6zS1qiHYW

— Liz Wolfe (@LizWolfeReason) June 29, 2026

Other plans on the docket: a “best of the Midwest” dinner party co-hosted with a few friends (from St. Louis and Chicago) since I’m obsessed with casseroles and toasted ravioli right now; possibly a Founding Fathers–themed reading/house party here in Brooklyn; and, of course, Tex-Mex and surfing and maybe an American flag cake.

QUICK HITS

• “It’s a yawn,” said President Donald Trump about the housing bill Congress was hoping he’d sign into law. Trump said “he would sign the bill only if Congress would first pass another bill, the SAVE America Act, which would impose stricter voter ID rules that would make it harder to vote,” per The New York Times.
• The story of some 52-year-old soup.
• The writer Richard Hanania thinks that Jerusalem Demsas (formerly of Vox) “might be the most successful living journalist” by commissioning “articles that take the right-wing position on some policy debate” for The Argument. “This makes me optimistic,” continues Hanania. “It indicates that the reason smart people reject conservatism is that it has the stench of MAGA, racism, conspiracy theorists, and religious fundamentalists. Trump supporters and Republican voters generally want trash content. This repulses smart people.” (Hanania too carries some stench; takes one to know one?) But more to the point: You’d have to be very liberal to think that The Argument‘s arguments are especially right-wing. They seem most like Abundance Agenda centrists, which is distinct from conservative.

Is there a market for smart, right-wing content?

I’ve gone back and forth on this.

But I’m now convinced that Jerusalem Demsas might be the most successful living journalist in terms of bringing right-wing arguments to a large, highly educated audience that wouldn’t otherwise… pic.twitter.com/dJHjYkmzWY

— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) June 28, 2026

• “The Rent Guidelines Board, on which I serve, has just voted to freeze rents on New York City’s roughly 1 million rent-stabilized apartments, fulfilling a key campaign promise by Mayor Zohran Mamdani,” wrote Arpit Gupta—the lone dissenter. “This settles what will happen to rents this October, but raises the question of whether the rent-stabilized stock is still going to be standing, habitable and occupied in 2046. On its current trajectory, a large share of it will not be—especially if Mamdani and his appointees on the Board follow through on the mayor’s pledge to freeze rents every year of his term.”
• Interesting:

Sharp observation by @stephmurrayyyy:

“[America] ranks somewhat high on the list for both male-breadwinning AND female breadwinning. It is equal-earning couples that the U.S. lacks.”https://t.co/NorShXxz57 pic.twitter.com/6ho3dhRVTg

— Leah Libresco Sargeant (@LeahLibresco) June 29, 2026