There’s no way to fight the Empire without bypassing its control of the international financial system.

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All hell is already breaking loose when it comes to probing what is exactly taking place related to the latest, definitely murky U.S.-linked movements in Pakistani land and sea. After an initial assessment at Transition Protocol – which avowedly did not provide all the necessary answers – we dug deeper into a way more comprehensive examination supported by several sources.

What we are watching across several nodes of extremely sensitive Iran-Pakistan overland connectivity is not a blanket border shutdown; but a surgical, two-track balancing act by Islamabad between Washington’s tremendous financial vise and Tehran’s strategic lifeline.

So here’s where it all stands – compounding the verified record with our latest consultations.

The key point: the regulatory trigger was a banking sanctions move, not just border security.

While provincial officials in Balochistan publicly framed Saturday’s halt at two key nodes, Taftan and Gabd–Rimdan, around security, counterterrorism, and anti-smuggling, what matters most is the exact mechanism around a memorandum issued last Friday by the Pakistani Ministry of Commerce.

That immediately revoked an October 3 extension of the Electronic Import Form (EIF) waiver for goods imported from Iran, and coincided with Islamabad’s instruction to close the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) immigration gate at Taftan.

What is key is that without the EIF waiver, Pakistani importers must process Iranian purchases through formal Pakistani banking channels – which U.S. sanctions, of course, make absolutely impossible.

Peyman Sanandaji, head of the Transportation Commission at the Tehran Chamber of Commerce, confirmed on the record that it is banking sanctions compliance (ditching the EIF) that halted Iranian exports into Pakistan.

The immediate shock at the formal gates was quite something: more than 4,000 tons of daily Iranian LPG imports through Gabd–Rimdan are at risk. Former Quetta Chamber of Commerce president Ayoub Miryani reported that over 2,000 containers are stranded at Gabd–Rimdan alone, with hundreds more freight trucks backed up at Taftan.

So why is this happening now? Because of the nasty convergence between the October 7 IMF tranche Pakistan had to pay, and the imperial U.S. Treasury “Operation Economic Outcast”.

Under Operation Economic Outcast, Washington gave third countries a “defined timeline to shut down” Iran-related commercial lifelines or face expulsion from the U.S. financial system. That was followed by OFAC’s October 1 designations against Iran’s overland rail and industrial networks and October 8 actions against 17 shadow-fleet tankers.

But then, on October 7 – only nine days before the Ministry of Commerce revoked the EIF waiver – Islamabad reached an agreement with the IMF on the Fourth Review of its Extended Fund Facility to unlock $1.21 billion. That still requires IMF Executive Board approval.

Of course there is no public document showing a direct U.S. or IMF order to close Iran-Pakistan borders. But sources in Islamabad stressed that leaving an open-ended banking-instrument waiver on the books ahead of the IMF Board vote had become an untenable sanctions vulnerability for Pakistan.

Islamabad sources are adamant that the move was paired with genuine counter-sabotage concerns and quietly coordinated between Islamabad and Tehran (italics mine) so the pause would not rupture bilateral ties.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei publicly called the disruption a temporary pause due to “technical issues” and “precautionary measures”.

Pakistani official sources, for their part, insisted that the tightened controls are a joint counterterrorism measure reflecting “mutual understanding” with Tehran after a spike in Sistan-Balochistan attacks; highway ambushes; and an October 11 maritime attack on Pakistan Coast Guard boats off Jiwani – which Pakistani officials attributed to “foreign actors” seeking to sabotage Pakistan’s mediation of the Iran peace deal.

Back to the same old pattern of Salafi-jihadis weaponized and manipulated by the usual suspects.

The only publicly confirmed telephone call between Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi took place on Sunday, October 18 – two days after the October 16 memorandum – and its official readouts mention only regional diplomacy and the Baghdad OIC meeting.

So prior coordination at the Dar–Araghchi Foreign Minister level and specific sabotage arrests therefore are part of our own reporting.

Asymmetric food exports and informal routes

In a nutshell, stuff is still moving across borders. Islamabad deliberately left alive Pakistani perishables and food exports to Iran. Essential perishables – including tomatoes, potatoes, and onions – continue to move, alongside traditional oil and fuel flows across the porous 909-km border.

The regulatory record explains why: 8 months ago, Pakistan enacted a separate banking-instrument waiver specifically for 10 food exports to Iran by land (explicitly listing rice, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, meat, and fruit) plus pharmaceuticals.

Tehran’s Chamber of Commerce confirmed this past Saturday that while Iranian exports to Pakistan are stalled by the EIF rule, imports from Pakistan into Iran are continuing, and informal fuel and border trade across Balochistan already operates at an estimated $800 million to over $1 billion annually outside formal customs.

Special attention should be placed on the ports of Gwadar and Karachi, and the overall China–Iran Transit Architecture. Third-country and China-Iran transit through Pakistan, according to our sources, remains protected.

On a legal level, a document detailing Pakistan’s transit of goods established six designated overland transit corridors linking Gwadar, Karachi, and Port Qasim to Gabd and Taftan for third-country cargo bound for Iran under a bank guarantee.

And a Federal Board of Revenue’s notification this past June formally designated Taftan railway station as a Land Customs Station, with Iranian and Pakistani ministers pitching the rail corridor to link China to Iran and Europe.

However, two very complicated operational constraints remain in place.

The Quetta-Taftan rail modernization is still listed officially as a planned upgrade; and OFAC’s October 1 designation of the Islamic Republic of Iran Railway Company (RAI) was explicitly designed to choke Tehran’s shift from blockaded sea lanes to rail.

To sum it all up: it takes supreme skill to face The Empire of Piracy. Islamabad has executed a classic, calibrated maneuver: visibly revoking the formal EIF import waiver at Taftan and Gabd–Rimdan to insulate its pending $1.21 billion IMF tranche and Pakistani banks from U.S. Treasury secondary sanctions.

And all the while keeping Pakistani food exports, informal border valves, and third-country transit frameworks alive with Tehran.

Whether this remains a brief administrative reset or hardens into a longer choke point will be decided by three indicators over the next fortnight:

1. A modified EIF or barter notification from the Commerce Ministry.
2. Separate customs clearance for Gwadar/Karachi transit cargo.
3. Documented freight movements across the Taftan–Zahedan rail link.

May the lesson be imprinted on rare earths for the whole Global South to ponder: there’s no way to fight the Empire without bypassing its control of the international financial system.

Marco Rubio has brought nearly 300 American business representatives to Uzbekistan for a meeting with representatives of the five states of Central Asia. But Daniel N. Rosenblum, a former US ambassador to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, cautions that investment faces major obstacles.

Par Veerle Daens

Mes chers compagnons d'Absurdistan, ce lundi à midi, les maires de France vont défendre leur mairie. Pour cela, il leur faut d'abord la permission. Enfin, pas une permission : une déclaration. En France, la nuance a fait carrière.

L'affaire est simple. Samedi, des mairies ont été saccagées, à Marseille, à Lille, à Bordeaux, et l'hôtel de ville de Limoges a brûlé. L'Association des maires de France appelle donc élus, conseils municipaux et forces vives à se tenir sur le parvis de leur mairie. C'est un geste très ancien : on se tient devant sa maison quand quelqu'un y a mis le feu.

Seulement voilà. Un rassemblement sur la voie publique est une manifestation, et une manifestation se déclare, trois jours francs à l'avance. Dans une commune sans police d'État, la déclaration se dépose à la mairie, qui la transmet au préfet.

Récapitulons. Qui déclare ? Le maire. Où ? À la mairie. Qui reçoit ? Le maire. Qui peut interdire ? Le maire. Et s'il ne le fait pas ? Le préfet. Et le délai ? L'appel est parti dimanche pour lundi midi. Trois jours francs, cela fait jeudi dernier. Le maire est donc, à midi une, l'organisateur d'une manifestation n'ayant pas fait l'objet d'une déclaration dans les conditions fixées par la loi. Tarif théorique : six mois de prison et 7 500 euros d'amende. Pour avoir défendu sa mairie, devant sa mairie, avec son écharpe.

L'écharpe, parlons-en. Le maire la porte. L'adjoint la porte s'il le remplace ou le représente. Le conseiller municipal, seulement s'il le remplace. Trois rangs, trois règles, sur un parvis de quinze mètres. Et la banderole ? Elle doit respecter la neutralité du service public. « Non aux violences » passe. « Non à la vie chère » peut être retirée. Par qui ? Par le maire, toujours lui.

Miljaardedju, mes amis du Pays-des-Cartésiens, vous avez inventé l'homme qui se dépose une demande, se l'instruit, se la transmet, et se surveille lui-même pendant qu'il manifeste. Breughel en aurait fait un tableau grouillant. Votre administration l'a écrite en un seul article.

Ajoutez la touche finale, apportée dimanche à 20 heures. Le président a annoncé que les préfets, en lien avec les maires, pourraient aller jusqu'à interdire certains rassemblements afin de protéger les bâtiments publics. Le rassemblement qui protège un bâtiment public est un rassemblement. Il est donc, en bonne logique, interdisable pour protéger le bâtiment qu'il protège.

Le plus beau reste l'asymétrie. Samedi, des émeutiers sont entrés dans des mairies sans rien déclarer à personne. Lundi, ceux qui veulent seulement se tenir devant doivent remplir un formulaire.

Une dernière question, mes chers lecteurs sans tableur. Le maire de Limoges veut lui aussi se rassembler devant son hôtel de ville. Limoges est en zone de police d'État : sa déclaration ira donc à la préfecture. Heureusement. Le guichet de sa mairie sent encore la fumée.