A view of a strike on an Iranian military target, released Jul. 15, 2026. (CENTCOM via X)

1. The United States relaunched its blockade of Iranian ports and intensified strikes on Iranian military targets this week as Tehran attacked U.S. partners across the Middle East.

• Blockades and strikes: The Islamic Republic of Iran effectively ended the ceasefire last week when it renewed attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Now, Washington is responding. The renewed U.S. naval blockade is turning away ships headed to Iranian ports while U.S. forces protect commercial shipping in the strait, carrying out strikes on Iranian military targets for the sixth consecutive night on Thursday. Iran has also expanded its target list beyond commercial vessels, launching attacks on U.S. partners in the Gulf and Jordan. With the status of negotiations unclear, the United States may soon take the full dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program into its own hands. President Trump warned earlier this week that “we’re going to take out Pickaxe Mountain. Tell the Iranians to be ready.”
• What is Pickaxe Mountain? Deeply buried underground and potentially impervious to airstrikes, Pickaxe Mountain is more than just a centrifuge manufacturing facility. Tehran may also be building an undeclared uranium enrichment plant there, Western intelligence indicates. Recent satellite imagery has spotted construction activity inside the tunnel complex, which may pave the way for Iran to restart enrichment and weaponization efforts. FDD’s Andrea Stricker cautions that Trump “should not give Iran the opportunity to finish a hardened nuclear site” where it could resurrect these capabilities.
• Isolating Tehran: The renewed U.S. blockade will disrupt the regime’s rearmament, access to dual-use items, and eventually its oil revenue, explained FDD’s Max Meizlish. On top of the blockade, Washington also released three tranches of sanctions targeting the regime and its partners after Tehran renewed attacks on commercial shipping in the strait. To start, Treasury sanctioned a key Iranian financier responsible for diverting public wealth to regime elites, as well as exchange houses that move hundreds of millions of dollars for sanctioned customers or banks. This week, Treasury also unveiled sanctions against an expansive illicit shipping empire and a global network procuring weapons for the Iranian regime.
• Turn up the pressure: Recent sanctions and strikes have strengthened Washington’s position, but they will not produce durable negotiating leverage if limited in scope to simply retaliating for attacks in the strait. Meizlish recommends Washington take the initiative by establishing an allied counter-kleptocracy campaign to identify, freeze, and, where legally permissible, seize assets held abroad by regime insiders. “Treasury should also issue a proposed rule under Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act requiring enhanced due diligence for transactions through Hong Kong and the UAE with high likelihood of Iranian involvement,” adds Meizlish.
• Build on sanctions progress: Meanwhile, China’s independent refiners have turned to cheaper crude from Iraq, the UAE, and Qatar, leaving Iranian oil unsold at sea. FDD’s Miad Maleki explains that this is a sign U.S. sanctions are working: “The only buyers still taking Iranian oil are sanctioned teapots, because legitimate suppliers won’t touch them. They’re trapped in the evasion ecosystem by necessity, not just choice.” Rather than simply punishing these teapot oil refineries, Maleki instead recommends working to bring them into compliance. Treasury could offer them a structured path back into the rules-based system in return for cooperating, disclosing, and shifting to legitimate crude. By weaning the illicit refineries off Iranian oil, Washington could collapse the sanctions evasion network from the inside and deprive the regime of its only remaining oil market.

President Trump participates in a bilateral meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi in the Oval Office, Jul. 14, 2026. (Official White House photo by Daniel Torok)

2. President Trump and Iraqi PM Ali al Zaidi met in Washington this week. Yet as the prime minister touts wins on militia disarmament and combating corruption, Iran’s grip on the country remains firmly intact.

• Wins on paper: Disarming Iran-backed militias and countering political corruption in Iraq are big priorities for Washington. But whether Zaidi’s professed wins will amount to substantial progress or merely messaging remains unclear. A month ago, Zaidi achieved a breakthrough when three Iran-backed militias, including two U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs), pledged to hand over their weapons and integrate into official security institutions. Soon after, Zaidi launched an anti-graft campaign that led to the arrests of dozens of senior officials and lawmakers for their alleged corruption and theft of public resources. Yet on closer look, both efforts conspicuously leave intact core pillars of Iranian influence in Iraq.
• Disarmament with a catch: The three militias’ pledges to disarm may have sounded like progress, but a month later, none of the groups have followed through. These and other Iran-backed militias still dominate the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), which has been a major vehicle for Iranian influence under the guise of financing an Iraqi government institution. Significant questions about this decoupling remain unanswered, note FDD’s Bridget Toomey and Behnam Ben Taleblu. While the militias say they will separate from the PMF, will this amount to genuine reform that excises Iranian influence? The progress Zaidi is touting on militia disarmament could turn out to be little more than a brand refresh, protecting the PMF and enabling the militias to keep advancing Iranian interests as before.
• Most corrupt still at large: Like Zaidi’s supposed progress on disarming Iran-backed militias, his anti-corruption campaign has thus far spared Iran’s main allies in Iraq. Toomey and Taleblu explain that the arrests have hit safe targets, including weak figures already out of power and others Tehran has little reason to lose sleep over. While the campaign is supposedly not over, it has yet to target Tehran’s partners who siphon off vast sums from Iraq’s coffers. Tellingly, “some of Iran’s allies who have been the biggest contributors to the systemic corruption have cheered on this anti-corruption effort—not a good sign,” reflect Toomey and Taleblu.
• Iran’s influence unmasked: The Iran-sized holes in Baghdad’s militia disarmament and anti-corruption efforts are no accident. Tehran’s roots in Iraq run deep, with Zaidi receiving the body of slain former Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, which was visiting Iraq’s holy cities before burial. This spectacle is a deliberate show of Iran’s popular support and its elite influence in Iraq, write Toomey and Taleblu. Sending a leader’s body abroad is itself abnormal, and the entire display is a dead giveaway that Iran’s influence still permeates the country. This warm embrace is the backdrop against which Zaidi’s professed wins must be observed.
• Go beyond adulation: During Zaidi’s meeting at the White House this week, Trump noted the pair’s “tremendous chemistry,” proclaiming, “This man is going to be a great leader in the Middle East.” Instead of congratulating the Iraqi PM on a job well done, Toomey and Taleblu recommend that Trump offer Iraq support for a daunting mission that is only just beginning… with certain conditions, that is. Zaidi hopes to deepen economic ties with Washington, but “President Trump should require the new government to materially demonstrate its commitment to confronting Iran’s malign influence before transforming the U.S.-Iraq relationship,” add Toomey and Taleblu. As for countering corruption, Treasury can also use Global Magnitsky sanctions to target Iraqi officials exploiting their positions to benefit militias and the Islamic Republic, Toomey explains.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivers opening remarks at the Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism in Washington, D.C., Jul. 16, 2026. (Official State Department photo by Freddie Everett)

1. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a campaign to dismantle the International Criminal Court (ICC) “brick by brick, if necessary,” laying out the threat the court poses to America’s sovereignty in the pages of The Wall Street Journal and the State Department’s Substack earlier this week.

• Dismantling the ICC: Secretary Rubio made the case for dismantlement, warning it would only be a matter of time before the ICC made good on its threats against U.S. officials and investigations into American servicemembers.
• History of ICC overreach: The ICC is prohibited by its founding charter (the Rome Statute) from proceeding in any case unless the relevant government is unwilling or unable to police itself. Indeed, the United States has a robust system for self-policing conduct by American personnel, but this fact did not prevent the ICC from launching an investigation in 2020 into alleged U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan.
• Bipartisan opposition: Since the ICC’s founding in 2002, every U.S. administration, of both parties, has refused to join the court, fearing the ICC’s politicization and misuse. Even before that, as Rubio noted, President Clinton refused to submit the Rome Statute to the Senate for ratification. Later, a bipartisan Senate supermajority passed the American Servicemembers’ Protection Act that authorized the president “to use all means necessary” to stop the ICC from detaining Americans.
• Biased and politicized: The ICC’s 2024 indictment of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and then Defense Minister Yoav Gallant exposed the institution’s politicization and anti-Israel animus. In its nearly 25 years, the court has taken no action against some of the world’s worst human rights abusers, including the People’s Republic of China, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Syria’s Assad regime, explains FDD’s Richard Goldberg. Yet it aggressively conducts lawfare against democratic nations with a robust and independent judiciary like the United States and Israel.
• Impose sanctions: Going after the ICC now will help protect American soldiers and government officials down the road, writes Goldberg. If the administration means business, it should target the ICC directly, not just individuals associated with the court. “Washington must act decisively by threatening financial sanctions against any bank that processes a transaction for or on behalf of the ICC,” Goldberg urges. “Its officials should face asset freezes and visa denials.” The ICC’s donors should be forced to choose between democratic nations and the terrorist sympathizers that wage lawfare against them.

The table at high-level U.S.-China trade negotiations, hosted at the residence of the Swiss Ambassador to the United Nations, Geneva, Switzerland, May 11, 2025.

2. The head of the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) confirmed Tuesday that the United States has sold advanced AI chips to China, days after the Commerce Department relaxed AI export control restrictions on the UAE.

• Relaxing restrictions: At a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Undersecretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Jeffrey Kessler admitted that Chinese firms have purchased a limited but undisclosed number of Nvidia’s advanced H200 AI chips. He even left the door open to further sales, downplaying security concerns given the small volume of shipments.
• The UAE-China connection: The disclosure came only days after Commerce relaxed export controls on advanced technology for the UAE and certain UAE-based firms. That includes granting the Emirates’ flagship AI firm, G42, not only license-free access to advanced AI chips, but also the rights to reexport them despite concerns about diversion to China. As recently as 2022, G42 reportedly transferred technology to sanctioned Chinese firm Huawei, which in turn passed it on to the Chinese military to enhance its air-to-air missiles. This raises “profound and unresolved concerns over Abu Dhabi’s relationship with Beijing and its capacity to secure emerging technologies,” FDD’s Jack Burnham tells us.
• All roads lead to Beijing: Even limited direct chip sales will benefit Beijing’s AI sector and military by narrowing the quality gap between the chips available to Chinese firms and America’s most advanced processors, explains Burnham. Rather than deepening China’s dependence on U.S. components as some argue, these shipments allow Beijing to reduce strain on leading Chinese firms tied to its defense industrial base. This actually buys time for China to transition to domestically produced chips that could challenge American AI dominance. Beijing’s indirect procurement routes also raise equally significant concerns.
• More export oversight: The high-end technologies critical to AI systems are essential to U.S. economic and military strength. Their export must be controlled as closely as the sales of bombs and bullets. To mitigate risk, “any sale should be closely monitored by Washington for potential diversion to America’s adversaries, which are seeking any possible advantage to undermine U.S. technological leadership,” Burnham tells us. Beyond demanding greater oversight of high-end chip exports to China, Congress should pass bipartisan legislation, including the AI OVERWATCH Act (H.R. 6875 / S. 4456), Chip Security Act (H.R. 3447 / S. 1705), and the MATCH Act (H.R. 8170 / S. 4281), to strengthen controls over foreign AI-related sales and maintain America’s technological edge.

FBI Headquarters Building, Washington, D.C., Mar. 2012. (Carol M. Highsmith, Photographer Library of Congress)

Counter fictitious Chinese consulting firms.

A wide network of suspicious consulting websites has continued to target Western security analysts despite U.S. efforts to curb suspected Chinese virtual espionage, FDD’s Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation (CCTI) found. These findings come just weeks after the FBI seized 13 fake consulting and nonprofit websites that it assessed Chinese intelligence had employed to recruit American security clearance holders. The four websites investigated by CCTI match a known Chinese intelligence tactic where fake consulting firms and websites offer paid “research” opportunities online before soliciting nonpublic information. Notably, the websites all used an AI-enabled website builder, illustrating how AI can accelerate the creation of new malicious infrastructure.

To counter these suspicious firms in the early stages, FDD’s Max Lesser and Thomas Crehan recommend that Washington:

• Pair proactive outreach with infrastructure analysis. This case shows how quickly a single flagged website can be traced into a broader network, enabling the early disruption of malign infrastructure, possibly before recruitment succeeds. By pairing open-source, social-listening tips from analysts and journalists with technical infrastructure analysis, Washington can identify and disrupt related front operations early.
• Partner with others. Building partnerships with foreign governments and the private sector can help enable early-stage detection and disruption. This is especially true when it comes to professional networking, freelancing, and website-hosting and -building platforms.
• Continually brief officials. While disrupting infrastructure is necessary, it is not sufficient on its own. The United States needs to continually brief current and former government officials. It should also brief private and nonprofit professionals, like think tank analysts, who frequently interact with government to build awareness of the threat and warn of the costs of witting cooperation.

A solar panel extends from the side of Katalyst Space’s LINK robotic servicing spacecraft in orbit, Jul. 9, 2026. (Katalyst Space)

🚀 Space rescue mission: NASA has begun a mission to save a quarter-billion-dollar space telescope from falling out of the sky. In under a year, engineers designed, built, and launched a robotic spacecraft with one job: catch a 22-year-old satellite before it burns up.

• Swift’s mission-critical data: Initially launched in 2004, the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has spent more than a generation observing gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful forms of energy since the Big Bang. The bursts were thought to be caused by the merger of two neutron stars and the collapse of large stars, creating a black hole. But now scientists have found bursts that broke the pattern, and they are hoping Swift’s data will reveal a new understanding of something they had thought impossible… if they can catch it in time.
• Houston, we have a problem: While the satellite ordinarily orbits Earth at an altitude of 370 miles, atmospheric drag has slowly pulled Swift down to 210 miles and falling, putting it on target to reenter the atmosphere and burn up in a matter of months. The 2024 solar maximum, when the sun reached its most energetic point in its 11-year cycle, hasn’t helped any. It puffed up Earth’s atmosphere, creating extra drag that pulled Swift down even faster.
• NASA to the rescue: Don’t worry, NASA is on its way to save its $250 million investment. An L-1011 Stargazer jet, carrying a Pegasus rocket under its belly, successfully launched last week from the Marshall Islands. At an altitude of about 40,000 ft, Pegasus released a refrigerator-sized satellite called LINK into orbit. Link will soon rendezvous with Swift, take hold of it, and carry it 100 miles higher, enough of a boost for Swift to remain in orbit for another decade.

🧑‍🚀 Follow along: NASA is chronicling every step of Link’s journey to Swift. Check their blog here for updates as the two spacecraft slowly close the gap, 200-some miles above our heads.