Iran's Shadow Tanker Fleet Has Officially Run Dry, and So Has the Lifeline Keeping the Regime Afloat

Townhall 

Iran’s seemingly unlimited offshore oil stockpile is officially depleted. 

For months, Iran has kept its economy afloat and maintained its grip on power by drawing on a fleet of “shadow tankers” off the coast of Asia. Those vessels collectively held about 135 million barrels of oil, which Iran has steadily sold to China throughout the war that began in February. That revenue allowed the regime to withstand the U.S. Treasury’s Operation Economic Fury alongside the American military's blockade of its imports and exports. 

But according to The Wall Street Journal and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, that financial lifeline has now run dry.

The Iranian regime will now feel the full effect of Operation Economic Outcast working in tandem with the American military’s blockade. The country has already taken a severe economic beating over the last several months, and with its offshore oil lifeline gone, the pressure is only expected to intensify.

What that means for bringing a swift end to the war is unclear, but promising.

"Before: tankers filled Iran’s main oil-loading terminal. After: no crude tankers in sight. Kharg Island is now nothing more than a monument to the one thing the Iranian regime can still produce: failure," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote in a statement on X Thursday. "The regime’s arrogance and belligerence continue to punish ordinary Iranians. Operation Economic Outcast is cutting off the regime’s oil lifeline, denying it resources to fund terrorism, nuclear procurement, and the lavish lifestyles of the IRGC elite."

Three and a half weeks ago, Treasury Secretary Bessent gave the Iranian regime just two weeks “to make their final deliveries of oil to China,” warning that afterward, “they will have nothing.” His timeline was off by just a week and a half. His warning, it appears, was not.

A Far-Left Network Is Trying to Reshape the Democrat Party, and We Should All Pay Attention

Townhall 

Far-left PACs have raised millions of dollars for candidates aligned with both the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in just a matter of four months. Now Canary Mission has laid out this network and busted the narrative that the midterms are a revolt against AIPAC and big money.

Their goal is to take over the Democrat Party from within, and that should alarm us all.

Leaders of the far-left saw October 7, 2023 as an "unprecedented opportunity" to reshape the Democrat Party from within.

"Gaza supplied the moral urgency," the video said. "AIPAC supplied the villain."

In 2024, rejecting AIPAC was a "litmus test" for new PACs and 501(c)(4)s and the election of Zohran Mamdani as New York City Mayor in 2025 proved the model. This tracks with what we learned last November about Mamdani's campaign. His support was never grassroots; it was bankrolled by CAIR. Canary Mission pointed out then that it was a trial balloon for a radical socialist takeover of America and CAIR-affiliated activist Linda Sarsour admitted as much. "The PACs that have supported Zohran, or a particular PAC that has supported Zohran is probably over 80% of Muslim American donors in this country. High net donors, grassroots donors. And I want to make the point that the Unity and Justice Fund PAC, which is the CAIR super PAC ... was the largest institutional donor to the pro-Zohran PAC in New York," she said at the time.

The 2026 midterms were an opportunity to scale up.

This isn't run by a single organization. The power comes from "stacking support": Super PACs, progressive groups, labor groups, Muslim civic groups, and DSA volunteers all work together to back the same candidates.

At the center of all of this is American Priorities, a super PAC launched in February of this year. It has raised more than $6.3 million by mid-July. Of that $6.3 million, $2.55 million came from three donors with AppLovin — Omer Hasan, Tariq Afaq Ahmed, and Mohammad Waqas Javed.

The Institupe for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) Policy Project, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit sent $935,000 to Justice Democrats; the filings name the nonprofit and not its donors.

And here's where the hypocrisy and contradiction come in. Several left-wing candidates, including Darializa Avila Chevalier (NY-13), promise to fight super PACs. Chevalier received more than $1.3 million from the American Priorities Super PAC for her primary win. Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed told voters his campaign is 100 percent funded by people like you. His father-in-law gave $300,000 to the super PAC Fighting for Michigan, which backs El-Sayed.

That means the money goes to the super PACs and not candidates, so they can deny taking the donations but still benefit from the donations.

This group isn't stopping with the 2026 midterms, either. They plan to work this scheme for the 2028 presidential election, too. According to Axios, American Priorities is preparing to challenge nine House Democrats in two years.

Here's more:

Orchestrated by Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)-affiliated political strategist, Linda Sarsour, the network promotes: open borders, abolishing the police and prisons, shutting down the Senate and seeks to “bring down the U.S. empire.”

CAIR and its network of affiliated PACs and nonprofits sit at the heart of the political machinery examined in this report. The organization has been designated a terrorist organization by Texas and targeted for similar designation in Florida, amid longstanding allegations of ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The network scapegoats the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as a way to distract voters while it pushes through its anti-American agenda. It took advantage of and even fomented changing public sentiment towards Israel to advance its primary agenda of transforming the Democratic Party.

2026 mid-term spending focused on races in Michigan, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, North Carolina, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, Florida and Maine.

You can read the entire report here.

This is something we should all pay attention to, because the radicalization of the Democrat Party is a threat to America. These far-left candidates and groups, as the report said, want to open our borders, shred our Constitution, abolish the Senate, and "bring down the U.S. empire." They plan to use the network and infrastructure of the Democrat Party to do it, and they've already laid the groundwork.

1983 Beirut barracks bombings

 On October 23, 1983, two truck bombs were detonated at buildings in Beirut, Lebanon, housing American and French service members of the Multinational Force in Lebanon (MNF), a military peacekeeping operation during the Lebanese Civil War. The attack killed 307 people: 241 U.S. and 58 French military personnel, six civilians and two of the attackers. 

 

 Early that Sunday morning, the first suicide bomber detonated a truck bomb at the building serving as a barracks for the 1st Battalion 8th Marines (Battalion Landing Team – BLT 1/8) of the 2nd Marine Division, killing 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers, making this incident the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II and the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States Armed Forces since the first day of the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War. Another 128 Americans were wounded in the blast. Thirteen later died of their injuries, and they are counted among the number who died. An elderly Lebanese man, a custodian/vendor who was known to work and sleep in his concession stand next to the building, was also killed in the first blast. The explosives used were later estimated to be equivalent to as much as 12,000 pounds (5,400 kg) of TNT. 

 

 Minutes later, a second suicide bomber struck the nine-story Drakkar building, a few kilometers away, where the French contingent was stationed. Fifty-five paratroopers from the 1st Parachute Chasseur Regiment and three paratroopers of the 9th Parachute Chasseur Regiment were killed and 15 injured. It was the single worst French military loss since the end of the Algerian War. The wife and four children of a Lebanese janitor at the French building were also killed, and more than twenty other Lebanese civilians were injured  

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Beirut_barracks_bombings