ERIK PRINCE: Off Leash update 25 September 2026

Off Leash update 25 September 2026

IRAN
•Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said Iran has proposed a plan for a seven-day ceasefire that would be followed – “if certain conditions are met” – by a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and a resumption of comprehensive talks for a lasting peace and nuclear deal.
•Araghchi noted that the terms of Iran’s latest proposal are in line with those proposed in the short-lived June memorandum of understanding. We now know that one unraveled – in part – because hardliners in the Iranian regime sabotaged it. They may do so again.
•U.S. officials seemed cautiously receptive to Iran’s latest proposal, which was delivered through mediators.
•Araghchi was speaking to reporters in New York, where he’s attending the UN General Assembly under the protection of the U.S. Secret Service. The NYT pointed out the irony in Araghchi and other Iranian officials enjoying Secret Service in the U.S. while the U.S. military targets them at home: “For Iran’s government that’s a symbolic win: We survived.”

YEMEN AND SAUDI
•Yemen’s Houthis lobbed at least six ballistic missiles towards the southern Saudi cities of Taif and Yanbu, in one of the rebels’ most significant cross-border attacks since their war with Saudi flared back up.
•Saudi air defenses easily intercepted all six incoming missiles, but air sirens around the holy city of Mecca shook residents for a second time in a week.
•Meanwhile in Yemen, Saudi-backed forces held off an overnight Houthi attempt to seize the Heijat Al-Abed Road connecting Taiz to the port of Aden and the rest of the territory the government still holds in the south. The Houthis are likely to try again.
•Saudi continues to seek allies’ help backing Yemeni government forces as the Houthis advance on them. So far none are willing to directly join the fray, but the UK previously said it would help refuel Saudi jets, and now France committed “soldiers, radars, and defense systems” to protect critical Saudi energy sites from Houthi fire.

VENEZUELA
•Venezuela’s exiled opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, tried to return home three times on Monday and Tuesday – all while interim president Delcy Rodriguez was away in New York for the UN General Assembly and a meeting with Pres. Trump, who deposed her predecessor and installed her in his place.
•One attempt by sea was apparently aborted because of mechanical issues, while the other two by air were thwarted by aviation bureaucracy. [Interestingly, while Machado’s team insinuates that the Venezuelan regime she opposes has been blocking her from returning, it was actually Dutch authorities who refused to issue her plane landing permits this week because of procedural problems with the paperwork.] •These were Machado’s fifth, sixth, and seventh attempts to return home since leaving in December 2025. She said she now intends to “move away from discreet routes and turn the return into a visible event” by inviting an international delegation to accompany her reentry to Venezuela.
•Venezuelans seem to want her back: local reports suggest hundreds of thousands of them turned out to rally for her return this week.
•Meanwhile, Delcy Rodriguez used her UN address to vaguely promise elections in Venezuela…”at the right moment.” She boasted that her government has already “initiated a dialogue in that direction,” but didn’t mention that the dialogue she was referring to excludes Machado’s real opposition and was essentially set up to fail.

MOROCCO
•Morocco’s Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) boasted the strongest showing in Wednesday’s parliamentary election – thanks, analysts say, to its recent recruitment of the popular head of the national football federation, Fouzi Lekjaa.
•Lekjaa is widely credited with the men’s national team’s historic rise from a ranking of 79th to winning the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations, reaching the FIFA World Cup semi-finals in 2022 and quarterfinals in 2026, and now co-hosting the next World Cup in 2030.
•Those successes also endeared Lekjaa to King Mohammed VI, who is a big football fan and anoints the Prime Minister from the ruling party’s ranks. PAM’s win thus means that Lekjaa is a strong contender to be Morocco’s next Prime Minister.

CHINA
•As expected, yesterday’s meeting between Xi Jinping and Pres. Trump produced no substantive progress on the big issues dividing the superpowers they lead.
•They enjoyed a nice dinner and a fabulous opera show alongside American tech titans like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Tesla SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, and Dell CEO Michael Dell – none of whom broached the touchy subject of international AI governance.