Iran war ceasefire incoming?🇮🇷🇺🇸

Just as WTI started approaching $92 again, surprise surprise, the “Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff are working on a one-month ceasefire” headline drops. Let’s look at:

👉The deal on the table

👉The dynamic between the parties

👉What I think happens next

The deal on the table

After the morning headline that the Pentagon is deploying 3,000 82nd Airborne soldiers, the US had to do something to steady the WTI tanker. So a headline broke that Kushner&Witkoff are working on a 15-point plan to be negotiated during a one-month ceasefire. Oil complied and dumped to $87. Mission accomplished.

The plan in question: x.com/NicoleGrajewski/s…

I do not believe this is even remotely acceptable, let alone basis for a start to serious negotiations. But I’ll get to that in a sec.

The dynamic between the parties

Let’s take a look at the ‘cards’ each player is currently holding:

🇺🇸US incentives:

👉Seek an end to the war to stop the market and approval rating bleeding, tout progress at every step to control the narrative.

👉Continue to position for a possible failure of negotiations by increasing your military options (aka boots on the ground).

👉Deal with new supposed ‘Iranian Delcy’ Ghalibaf, whose profile (corrupt, RE background) has similarities to Trump’s.

🇺🇸US constraints:

👉Key objectives still not accomplished: Iran’s uranium, Mojtaba as supreme leader (though Trump has backed off here, saying the regime has practicall changed hihi).

👉Very tight timeline with 3 weeks left on the MO, market being held together by gaslighting, approval ratings inversely correlated to gas prices, and a can of worms of global supply chain problems.

👉Emotional management of Israel’s/GCC’s needs

🇺🇸US bias:

👉’Negotiating with bombs’, and ‘the war has been won’ means only total PR victory is acceptable (while checking off the final objectives)

🇮🇷Iran incentives:

👉Keep the US bear trapped and Hormuz open for its own tankers, squeeze US public opinion and MSM messaging on the war.

👉Offramp at the right time to cash in on the new status quo and go back to enriching and dashing to a bomb without the annoying fatwa by previous management.

👉Dare US to escalate and drag GCC into the war or invade Iran, which both would double tap public opinion and stocks.

🇮🇷Iran constraints:

👉Don’t overplay your hand and risk economic/bottom-up pressure that exposes this massive structural weaknesses by the regime and endangers its survival.

👉Keep China/Russia away from the negotiation table and in tacit support/indifference mode.

🇮🇷Iran bias:

👉Regime survival above all, strong and credible deterrence a close second: anything that can be framed as successful resistance within the regime’s red lines (missile program, uranium custody) is a win worth taking.

🇮🇱Israel incentives:

👉Keep bombing while Trump is trying to offramp, sabotage where possible without angering him.

👉Stirring chaos in Iran is challenging but desirable, finding a way to align the US with regime change objectives would be the goldilocks scenario.

🇮🇱Israel constraints:

👉Overpressing and overmessaging on hawkish posture risks loss of Trump’s support.

👉A ‘weak deal’ that does not press key demands like limits on/eradication of missile program — Trump won’t go to war again.

🇮🇱Israel bias:

👉War aligns with key objectives and parties supporting or tolerating the war are to be supported. SoH status is irrelevant.

☪️GCC incentives:

👉Finish the war ASAP, return SoH to previous status (challenge: impossible).

👉Keep Trump’s eyes on the ball (SoH!!) but weaken Iran just enough, though not so much the regime falls and a power vacuum follows.

☪️GCC constraints:

👉Limited influence over US policy (outside of Saudi) despite significant real stakes (trade) and imaginary stakes (investment in US).

👉Sidelined as mediators.

☪️GCC bias:

👉Don’t agree on everything, but Iran cannot get away with this.

What I think happens next

I see the rush to a ceasefire as another grotesque inversion of the Russia-Ukraine war: imagine Putin had invaded Ukraine but Russian oligarchs got angry and restless and had the means and influence to voice their opposition to force an end. Putin proposes a ceasefire in return for unrealistic demands (half of Ukraine) and flowery promises (lots of trade, peace in our time).

I don’t see why Iran would accept this proposal and grant Trump the market relief he desperately seeks, all the while sending infantry into the theater. Yes, Iran may benefit from an operational pause maybe more than the US. But at what cost?

What security does Iran have the US will not just break the ceasefire at its earliest convenience? They have attacked twice during negotiations and were the party to reach out with a proposal first. There’s no need to fall into their frame.

Even if Iran keept SoH closed for the duration of negotiations (presumably unacceptable to the US since it defeats the purpose of the ceasefire), it would frame Iran as the intransigent party at negotiations that was duly punished, even though its red lines are miles apart from the US’ starting offer.

Iran’s newly-found leverage would be undermined by that since the Islamic Republic can’t have an interest in oil deflating. In fact, it has won more sanctions relief with its current strategy than with negotiations with Trump. Never change a winning team they say.

Plus, what are the US’ alternatives?

👉Rally the GCC troops and explain them ‘Hormuz tariffs’ (=Iranian leverage) will soon be a thing but it will all work out fine?

👉Move to brute force a Hormuz opening? (in progress)

👉Escalate by attacking Kharg/infrastructure/invasion and risk asymmetrical retaliation against soft energy targets?

Imo a combination of all will be how the war ends. That’s not to say Iran has all the cards and will try to press endlessly. But the one card it holds so far trumps Trump’s entire hand, as long as he is not willing to bear the costs of playing all of it.

I expect no short-term ceasefire yet. Proof of work on Polymarket attached.