By Ingrid "Shortwave" Frost
The talking and the shooting are happening at the same time. That is the uncomfortable state of the Iran standoff this weekend, as Oman and Iran continue negotiations over the Strait of Hormuz even as attacks on shipping keep coming.
The United Arab Emirates said Saturday that Iran struck a state-owned oil vessel transiting the strait for the third time in a week, according to the Washington Examiner. Two ships owned by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company were hit by drones on Thursday — a late-week escalation that has not been fully explained by either government and should be read with that caveat: Tehran has not offered a public accounting of the strikes, and the UAE's claims have not been independently verified by this paper.
Separately, and in a different but related theater, Israel carried out its deadliest day of strikes on Lebanon since a June truce, killing 11 people, Al Jazeera reported. The Israeli military hit the Nabatieh district of southern Lebanon again on Sunday, hours after that deadliest round, sending families fleeing north. The State Department, for its part, has been fielding questions about the broader Iran conflict and about the hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals whose U.S. visas have been revoked amid the tensions, spokesperson Tommy Pigott told NPR.
The through-line: a strait that carries roughly a fifth of the world's oil trade is being used as a pressure valve, and the people paying for it first are sailors on tankers and families in Lebanese border towns. Talks continuing is not the same as talks working.
FILED FROM SOMEWHERE WITH BAD COFFEE -
— Compiled from reporting by the Washington Examiner, Al Jazeera and NPR.
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