Welcome back to the MBN Iran Briefing. You can read it in Arabic here, and check out MBN’s flagship Arabic-language Alhurra news platform (also in English).
Nearly 60 entities joined the U.S. sanctions list Monday. China and others are showing no willingness to fall in line. Iranian traders aren’t waiting to see how the sanctions fight plays out: They’re already moving their money and their business out of the UAE.
Oman and Iran have put the outlines of a Hormuz framework on paper for the first time. And the machinery that has executed more than 900 people this year keeps running, claiming the life of a 21-year-old Afghan national as well as that of yet another protester from January’s demonstrations.
Find out more below, and share your thoughts, analysis, and predictions with me at ailves@mbn-news.com. If you were forwarded the MBN Iran Briefing, please subscribe.
Don’t forget to check out the latest Iran Briefing podcast. In this edition I’m joined by Farzan Sabet, Middle East expert at the Geneva Graduate Institute, and MBN Editorial Chair Matthew Kaminski, as we dig into whether Tehran actually wants this war to end or has decided continued confrontation serves it better.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
China’s cooperation with Iran is conducted within the framework of international law, thus should not be disrupted.
– Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian, when asked about China’s willingness to comply with U.S. sanctions.
TOP OF THE NEWS
1. Economic D-Day: A Warning Shot
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent unveiled Operation Economic Outcast on Monday. He warned that “[a]n economic engagement of any kind with this murderous regime will expose those responsible to the full reach of American power.” He termed the new measures “a warning shot.”
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned nearly 60 entities, individuals and vessels across multiple jurisdictions the same day. The announcement identified “[a] network of brokers, companies, and shadow fleet vessels operating across the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Switzerland, Europe, and other regions to transport Iranian oil and channel revenue to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC‑QF).”
Iran’s parliament speaker and chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, dismissed the rollout the same day in a post on X, saying that “Iran’s trading partners… have made it clear that they don’t take these statements into account anywhere.” China’s foreign ministry rejected the measures directly. At a press conference held Tuesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said that “China has made clear on many occasions its firm opposition to illicit unilateral sanctions that have no basis in international law or the authorization of the UN Security Council.” China is by far Iran’s largest oil customer. It accounts for roughly 90% of Iran’s oil exports. As I’ve noted in this briefing before, Iran relies on shell companies and a shadow fleet of re-flagged tankers and ship-to-ship transfers to obscure cargo origins and bypass restrictions. China’s willingness to keep buying Iranian crude in huge quantities is the primary reason the Islamic Republic has been able to sustain itself financially.
The UAE had already cut ties on its own, before the rollout even happened. As I wrote last week, it announced that “all trade, commercial exchanges, and financial transactions with Iran have been halted until further notice.” That came in response to missile strikes from Iran. Turkey has taken a different tack. It still draws roughly a fifth of its natural gas from Iran under a supply relationship (see below).
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr al-Busaidi in Tehran on Tuesday. Photo: AFP
2. Hormuz News
Iran and Oman have moved from talking about a Hormuz arrangement to putting a specific structure on paper. Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi and his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi met in Tehran on Tuesday and proposed a “phased framework.” In the first phase, a temporary navigational corridor through the strait as well a joint mine-clearing operation will be implemented. Then separate technical talks toward a permanent corridor and its longer-term administration will take place.
Under the temporary arrangement, ships will enter and travel through the Persian Gulf via Iranian waters and exit via Omani waters. As described yesterday by Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, the corridor will function in the manner of a two-way highway with a width of about seven miles. Gharibabadi also stressed that this is a temporary fix, with Iran and Oman needing to find a permanent solution in 30 to 60 days.
Pakistan army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir has concluded his one-day trip to Tehran, during which he met Ghalibaf, President Masoud Pezeshkian, Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni. No concrete outcomes were announced from the visit.
Executed: 21-year-old Afghan Ghaem (Arian) Hosseini. Photo: IranHR.net
3. Iran’s Execution Machine Grinds On
The Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran has documented the execution of over 900 people between January and July of this year.
The bloodbath continues this month. Majid Adineh, a young man from Karaj arrested in January during the wave of protests that swept Iran, was hanged before dawn on Sunday after a “revolutionary court” in Alborz, west of Tehran, convicted him of “taking operational action in favor of hostile countries against national security and interests.” Per the official website of Iran’s judiciary, Adineh was “one of the agents of the American-Zionist coup and was affiliated with terrorist groups residing in a neighboring country.” According to the Iran Human Rights NGO, he was the 29th person executed in connection with January’s protests.
Adineh’s death came a day after Isfahan Central Prison hanged Ghaem Hosseini, a 21-year-old Afghan national and cousin of a protester executed in the same case the month before. He was the fifth defendant and second Afghan national executed in the “Alikhani Square” case, which involves the killing of four police officers during the January protests. Hosseini was accused of kicking the officers’ bodies after they were attacked, not of causing their deaths.
This is not the first time Iranian authorities have accused Afghan migrants of “spying for Israel.” State media has used dehumanizing language against Afghans. More than a million Afghans have been deported back to their Taliban-controlled homeland since early 2025, nearly 600,000 of them forcibly, and roughly a quarter of them children. In the words of a prominent Iranian human rights lawyer, “given the scale, violence, and systemic nature of these deportations, there may be grounds to consider them as potential crimes against humanity.”
4. Iranian Traders Are Already Fleeing Dubai for China
Ali Shariati, a member of the board of the Tehran Chamber of Commerce, posted on X that Iranian merchants are opening companies and bank accounts in China and shifting their operations there after the UAE’s trade freeze cut off their accustomed business channels.
In an earlier interview with the Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA), he stressed that the UAE had already lost its significance as a trade hub for Iran since the war started.
Dubai and the wider UAE are not a marginal market for Iran. Bilateral trade runs close to $30 billion annually, the UAE accounts for roughly 90% of Iran’s trade with Gulf states, and about 40% of its trade with all neighboring countries. More than 200 flights a week connected the two before the start of the war.
There’s much discussion in Iran now about what to do with the loss of the UAE connection. Majidreza Hariri, president of the Iran-China Chamber of Commerce and Industry, stated his view succinctly in a post on X: “Iran’s foreign trade dependence on the UAE is replaceable.” In an interview with IRNA, he reiterated that “it is easy to replace the UAE with another place.” In a discussion program aired on Iranian television, a panelist stressed that “Iran, with its vast land geography and numerous neighbors, can meet its essential pharmaceutical needs from alternative countries (such as China) via safer land routes.”
5. Turkey Might Be the Next Test of Washington’s Sanctions Squeeze
Turkey’s 25-year gas supply agreement with Iran expired at the end of July. Ankara has given no sign it intends to cut off the roughly 18.6% of its natural gas imports that still come from Iran. Turkey is Iran’s third-largest trading partner, after China and the UAE.
Turkey has already absorbed direct U.S. sanctions over a strategic relationship without backing down. In December 2020, Washington sanctioned Turkey’s own defense procurement agency for buying Russia’s S-400 surface-to-air missile system. Turkey kept the S-400 nonetheless, and accepted expulsion from the F-35 program rather than give it up. Last month U.S. president Donald Trump said he’d lift those sanctions, saying that “We don’t want to sanction friends. It’s very simple,” but Congress has yet to act.
People shop at a local market in Bandar Abbas, Iran, on Tuesday. Photo: Reuters.
ESSENTIAL READING: THE U.S. AND IRAN SANCTIONS
“Experts react: Will Trump’s Operation Economic Outcast Isolate Iran?” – Atlantic Council, August 24, 2026. A roundup of regional and sanctions experts weighing in after Bessent’s rollout.
“Iran’s Renewed Aggression Should Spur U.S. To Revive Maximum Pressure Campaign” – Foundation for Defense of Democracies, July 2026. Written after Iranian attacks on Hormuz shipping and U.S. forces, the case for pairing renewed strikes with a full economic squeeze rather than partial measures.
Iran, the United States and Sanctions – Congressional Research Service, updated 2026. A nonpartisan primer on the legal architecture behind U.S. Iran sanctions.
“An Iran Containment Strategy Takes Shape” – The Washington Post Editorial Board, August 24, 2026. “As the vise tightens, Tehran’s new leaders will probably lash out militarily. Trump will need to respond forcefully to such attacks without allowing every provocation to drag the United States back into an open-ended war. Containment is a process, rather than an end state – a marathon, not a sprint.”
