Larry Johnson kept pulling it back to the exact wording.
Clause 5 says Iran, and only Iran, makes the arrangements for safe passage.
Not Iran and Oman, not Iran and Washington.
So when Iran stops a ship that skipped its protocol and ran the Omani route, he argues, Iran is enforcing the agreement, and the U.S. strikes answering those stops are the real violation.
He read the rest of the scorecard the same way.
Sanctions waivers, clause ten, already issued.
But the frozen assets, the troop drawdown, the Lebanon clause, all unmet.
The delegation heading to Doha isn't there to negotiate, in his telling, but to hold Washington to what it already signed.
On the proxy fronts, he splashed cold water on the easy read of Yemen: that mobilization isn't Saudis massing on the Houthis, it's Saudis against the Emiratis' own faction, and nobody who watched 18 months of failed US strikes thinks the Houthis can be dislodged from Bab el-Mandeb.
His verdict on the weekend stuck with me.
After all the chest-thumping, the U.S. stood down rather than answer Iran's last strike.
To Larry, that silence says everything about who actually holds the leverage.
@NewSonof
