The Islamic Republic today offered to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and OPEC's number three oil producer just said "Sayonara!" to the decades-old price-fixing organization.
I believe seismic events like these are what people in the Middle East now call "Tuesday."
Let's take these in increasing order of importance.
Tehran says that it is finally pinky-swear ready to reopen the Strait, but wants to table the nuclear discussion for another time — "Three days after never would be good, thanks" — and this time they mean it.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said today's offer is "better" than past ones but still not good enough. NBC News reported that "there was little sign that Washington might be willing to abandon its naval blockade and accept the offer."
Well, yeah. It's a terrible offer — it's disingenuous and fails to deal with our number one security concern.
As previously discussed, reopening the Strait is much further down the White House's priority list than eliminating the Islamic Republic's nuclear weapons program. If that's off the table, so is relaxing the blockade.
Or as Rubio put it, "Suffice it to say that the nuclear question is the reason why we’re in this in the first place."
Meanwhile, the countdown clock winds quickly down on the regime running out of places to store its excess oil production, and having to make painful, expensive, and perhaps permanent reductions in oil output.
So I only mention Tehran's faux peace offer in order to dismiss it.
The United Arab Emirates' leaving OPEC as of May 1 is a much bigger deal.
And Another Thing: I tried to shift gears today, I really did. Had this story about Bari Weiss' latest shakeup at CBS News in mind and was getting my research organized — when this new earthquake hit the Middle East. I'll get back to the CBS News thing ASAP, I promise.
"The UAE has spent billions boosting its production capacity to 5 million barrels per day," analyst Jesús Enrique Rosas reported today, but under OPEC quotas limiting the Emirates to 3.5 million, "they were essentially being told to leave that expensive machinery gathering dust."
Dubai also has itself a nice little pipeline bypassing Hormuz. They must have looked at that pipeline operating at just 70% capacity — with oil prices recently doubled (!!!) — and heard whatever is the opposite of "Ka-CHING."
UPDATE: The figures I found this morning for UAE's current and potential production weren't the most up-to-date, if this item is correct.
UAE OPEC+ quota: 3.5MMb/d
UAE output now: 2.2MMb/d
Going forward, UAE energy minister al-Mazrouei says “we can go to 6 million if the market requires”— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 28, 2026
If ZH is correct, then UAE is both more hobbled by OPEC, and has more capacity to make up for lost production in Iran. And now, back to the rest of the column as originally published.
With the Islamic Republic still dug in, the threat grows daily that Operation Epic Fury will escalate to attacks on Iran's energy infrastructure, currently producing about 3.5 million barrels per day. And there's the UAE, capable of pumping out five million barrels a day, free and clear of both Hormuz and OPEC quotas.
Nifty, eh? OPEC has lost members before, but never one with as much muscle to flex as the Emirates. And never at a time when another member was at serious risk of getting its production knocked out for months or even years.
"The UAE likely sees this as the end of Iran as a major market competitor for years to come," Rosas concluded, and so the Emirates "are moving to fill that supply gap permanently."
After Tehran launched one missile and drone barrage after another on the Emirates' oil facilities, why shouldn't they kneecap the Islamic Republic while they can?
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