{"id":102,"date":"2026-05-26T06:12:01","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T06:12:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/interstatelogisticshubs.com\/?p=102"},"modified":"2026-05-26T06:12:01","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T06:12:01","slug":"the-new-barbary-pirates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/interstatelogisticshubs.com\/?p=102","title":{"rendered":"The New Barbary Pirates"},"content":{"rendered":"
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President Trump this week called Iran’s new leaders “lunatics,” because they just didn’t seem capable of making a deal.\n\r\nAs he told Fortune <\/em>magazine, “[T]hey make a deal, and then they send you a paper that has no relationship to the deal you made. I say, ‘Are you people crazy?'”\n\r\nThe latest Iranian response to the U.S. was “leaked” to the Saudi daily al Arabiya<\/em> on Thursday, and it’s as much a non-starter as every other Iranian “plan” to end the war. The U.S. makes all the concessions, and Iran gets all the goodies.
\n
\r\nIf you read the details, it doesn’t even mention Iran’s nuclear weapons material, its enrichment capabilities, or its missiles. Talk about arrogant!\n\r\nAt the same time, the Iranians were telling the Saudi media of their agreement to guarantee freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz they published their own map, which showed them claiming the entire Strait — right up to the shoreline of the United Arab Emirates and Oman\u00a0—\u00a0was in Iran’s territorial waters.\n\r\nThey are behaving like the Barbary Pirates.\u00a0\n\r\nRemember them? They were the ones who prompted President Thomas Jefferson in 1802\u00a0to dispatch the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps because they were raiding U.S. commercial ships plying the Mediterranean and taking U.S. sailors as slaves. So we landed “on the shores of Tripoli,”\u00a0and the rest is history.\n\r\nI say it’s time to treat the Iranian regime the same way. Let’s call it \u201cthe shores of Kharg and Lavan Island.\u201d\u00a0\n\r\nLeader Mojtaba Khamenei reportedly told his followers that there was no way he would agree to send\u00a0Iran’s stockpile of highly-enriched uranium (HEU) out of the country.\n\r\nPresident Trump said that’s not what the negotiators told him. But alas, all he knows is what the negotiators tell him.<\/br><\/br><\/p>

Read more Illegal Is Legal, Immoral Is Moral<\/a><\/p>\n

The Iranians are clearly not negotiating in good faith, and in my view — I know my Iranians — they never will. Why? Because they are terrorists.\u00a0\n\r\nThe only good news this week has been reports from inside Iran of growing tensions between the IRGC and the\u00a0artesh,<\/em>\u00a0Iran’s conventional army. How credible those reports are, alas, is anyone’s guess. But they are persistent.\n\r\nSo is the recent video of Hamid Resai, a cleric and member of parliament, who questioned the government decision-making process and even the legitimacy of the new Supreme Leader in a public address.\u00a0 \n\r\nSo what is the plan?<\/p>\n

The president seems willing to give the Iranians a bit more time to come to their senses. How much is anyone’s guess.<\/p>\n

They have already filled the oil storage tanks at Kharg Island and have been bringing thirty-year old crude carriers out of mothballs to serve as floating storage so they can keep on pumping oil.<\/p>\n

The Saudis called the president this week and asked him to delay any return to hostilities until the end of the annual hajj (the pilgrimage to Mecca) which begins on May 25) and extends through Friday, May 29.<\/p>\n

The Iranians have said they are preparing to launch a pre-emptive strike — presumably against the UAE, Israel, and Saudi Arabia — if they sense the U.S. and its allies are preparing to resume hostilities.<\/p>\n

Perhaps they don’t know what the centuries-old U.S. military term “locked and loaded” means.<\/p>

Read more A Case against Bad News<\/a><\/p>\n

The president has indicated that we have been learning a trick or two from the Ukrainians, and that our forces used the past month’s ceasefire to install Ukrainian (and U.S.) counter-drone technology in theater to protect the oil fields, refineries, storage tanks, and pipelines on the Arab side of the Gulf.<\/p>\n

Presumably, those protections will extend to the Gulf Arabs’ massive desalination plants as well.<\/p>\n

Those desalination plants could present an even more tempting target than the oil fields to an Iranian regime that sees itself going down. If they were taken out, it would be a catastrophe of Biblical proportions.<\/p>\n

Such an attack by Iran would just solidify the impression that they have become the Barbary Pirates of the 21st century. It would also unify all the Gulf Arabs with the United States and Israel against them.<\/p>\n

Ken Timmerman’s 14th book of non-fiction, <\/strong><\/em>The Iran House: Tales of\u00a0Revolution, Persecution, War, and\u00a0Intrigue,<\/strong> can be ordered from\u00a0Amazon.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>

Read more Globalism Seeks to Kill the Nation-State<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Image: U.S. Navy<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Trump this week called Iran’s new leaders “lunatics,” because they just didn’t seem capable of making a deal. As he told Fortune magazine, “[T]hey make a deal, and then they send you a paper that has no relationship to the deal you made. I say, ‘Are you people crazy?’” The latest Iranian response to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":100,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[48],"class_list":["post-102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-foreign-policy","category-iran","tag-related-topics-iran-strait-of-hormuz"],"yoast_head":"\nThe New Barbary Pirates - Interstate Logistics Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/interstatelogisticshubs.com\/?p=102\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The New Barbary Pirates - Interstate Logistics Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"President Trump this week called Iran’s new leaders “lunatics,” because they just didn’t seem capable of making a deal. 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