The latest episode of Hold Your Fire with my colleague Ibrahim Yahya provides a very useful update on the surprise developments in Mali and offers some ideas about what they may portend for the Sahel. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/h...

And the coming economic cliff if the war continues. People haven’t fully come to terms with what worst case scenarios would look like.

I don’t think this is sustainable in light of the economic ramifications of continued closure/blockade of Hormuz. Somehow the coming economic cliff continues to be underestimated.

The pivot to the Middle East continues apace.

I assumed for a long time that economics and global competition would eventually win out in the U.S., and it remains shocking that U.S. industry has effectively ceded initiative to placate the parochial, culture war impulses of the right.

yeah, so this is the thing about the iran war. regardless of whether there is shooting or not, the strait is closed, and that is the central problem for the global economy. iran realizes this and no amount of bluster will change it www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Post-war force posture in the Middle East is really an open question, both because of the physical realities in Hormuz that may complicate access and the state of U.S. facilities. Restoration likely comes with a big price tag.

NEW from me in @justsecurity.org. My dissection of the Trump administration's latest legal defense of its war on Iran. "This defective and overly permissive justification risks further eroding legal constraints on the use of force." www.justsecurity.org/137097/state...

In extending the ceasefire Trump further underlines the dead-end he now finds himself in. He doesn’t know how to end the war on terms that he believes would save face.

If Trump lifts the U.S. blockade on Iranian ports to facilitate further diplomacy it will be a helpful step away from an ill-conceived policy that threatens to tip the parties back into unrestrained war.

NEW BRIEFING NOTE | Iran Crisis Monitor In this weekly update, Crisis Group experts take stock of developments in the Middle East war and the progress of efforts to end it. www.crisisgroup.org/bnt/middle-e...

NEW Q&A | Iraq in the Vice Despite declaring neutrality in the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, Baghdad has been unable to keep Iraq out of the fray. @lahibhigel.bsky.social explains how the conflict is harming Iraq.

From my colleague Lahib Higel on the political and economic effects of the Iran war on Iraq. The war will likely reshape US-Iraq relations and may hasten plans for downgrading US military and diplomatic engagement. www.crisisgroup.org/qna/middle-e...

Reposting given Trump’s renewed threats to attack all of Iran’s bridges and power plants.

Sweeping conclusions aren’t about today though. Arsenal were fine and unlucky not to get a result. But there’s lots to be said about needing a result today at all based on where Arsenal were a few weeks ago and the very very sub-standard form of Liverpool and the sub-standard form of City this year.

Yes, exactly! Up the Reds!

Trump still retains the capacity to temporarily move the markets with his empty rhetoric on the Iran war, but each episode only serves to further underscore his impotence in the face of the realities his war has created.

This is instructive. There should be no doubt about the nature of U.S. influence and leverage when it chooses to exercise it.

Trump’s inability to countenance serious diplomatic bargaining and his belief that stepped-up coercion will force Iranian capitulation are likely to lead back to where this started: a decision whether to restart/escalate the war. In the meantime, the blockade may force Iran’s hand in that regard.

Trump announced a truce—then Israel accelerated attacks on Lebanon. Trump negotiated—then blockaded Hormuz. Trump declared victory—but it looks like America lost. Reality check from @chehayebk.bsky.social @mwhanna.crisisgroup.org @centuryintl.bsky.social Listen: www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZAD...

This strikes me as a very weird thing to claim! www.nytimes.com/2026/04/10/o...

This piece makes the important point that a blockade of Iranian ports is an act of war. Enforcement means the ceasefire is over. Without a change in the approach of U.S. diplomacy or an Iranian capitulation, the broader war will restart.

Our update of the war and preview of the Islamabad talks remains quite relevant, with nothing resolved over the weekend. www.crisisgroup.org/pod/middle-e...

This is pure, unadulterated preference falsification under authoritarian rule — @timurkuran.bsky.social getting it right yet again… www.nytimes.com/2026/04/13/o...

The economic pain of the Iran war is already having political effect, and I have to imagine that a U.S. decision to restart the war would be even costlier, particularly as the available military options remain dismal.

After six weeks of war, the U.S. and Iran have announced a ceasefire. An important question remains. What will happen now in the Strait of Hormuz after its closure sparked economic crises in countries near and far? We explain in our new Q&A. www.crisisgroup.org/qna/global/i...

It’s stating the obvious, but the confusion surrounding ceasefire diplomacy and the shifting U.S. positions at any given moment are a huge obstacle for negotiations. And that’s setting aside the substance of the talks and the changed strategic positions of the parties.

Highly unusual indeed. Also worth noting that these strikes were almost certainly conducted with US-origin warplanes—thus implicating US legal restrictions on arms exports.

It is a choice for Trump to allow Netanyahu to continue prosecuting the Israeli war in Lebanon. Ultimately, that may be the undoing of the ceasefire he thought he had agreed to. If so, it’s another moment of political peril for Israel as it will be seen by many as undercutting U.S. interests.

Not to mention the physical state of U.S. bases. It’s now an open question if the U.S. military footprint in the region can be reconstituted.

The ceasefire won’t magically come into force at this point unless the U.S. and Iran work diligently to make it so. Lots of ways in which it could still come undone. And Lebanon may figure into that equation.

It is one thing for the U.S. to end the fighting before having resolved the situation in Hormuz and quite another to recognize or formalize these arrangements.

The scenes in Lebanon are harrowing. These areas in Beirut are densely populated and were given no prior warnings. These Israeli attacks may put pressure on the U.S.-Iran ceasefire coming into force.

We shouldn’t assume interim arrangements on Hormuz will endure, but I’ll note that accepting a strategic setback is far preferable than barreling into catastrophic military escalation. I of course think it’s fair to point out the self-defeating nature of this war but i’s not a reason for continuing.

One important question on the deal is whether it is region-wide and includes Lebanon.

We should never have gotten to this point. And hopefully Pakistan and others can help find an exit ramp. but we need to be realistic about the severity of this moment. I'm not sure Americans fully appreciate it.

With the NYT story again raising the issue of Israel/Netanyahu’s influence on Trump and its role in the decision to go to war, I’ll go back to where I started. The war is unimaginable without Netanyahu’s campaign to convince Trump, but Trump wanted this war and ignored warnings about its risks.

Regardless of Trump’s intent with his stream of threats, the pertinent fact is that he’s not fully in charge of how this evolves. He may find himself in an escalation spiral that he is unable to arrest.

The US is delaying Japan’s Tomahawk missile purchase as the Iran war burns through stockpiles. I’ve warned that the high use and slow replenishment of TLAMs would create a gap. The readiness bill is now due and allies are bearing the cost. My comments: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

The current war with Iran is diminishing U.S. power, but it’s worth noting that the costs of such a war are largely unrelated with the relative strength of the U.S. as opposed to the nature of the undertaking itself.

ok but shooting down airplanes with surface to air missiles and IR sensors isn't asymmetric anything

Iran still has multiple options to deepen global economic spillover from the war and further escalate the conflict. And this is one that when combined with the existing situation in Hormuz would be catastrophic.

This is very true. And accordingly, Gaza is also totally obscured by events elsewhere while zero progress is made implementing the ceasefire. It’s one reminder of the massive opportunity costs of this war.

Such strange framing. What challenge? This man is the Pope not an American political figure. There can only be one answer to these questions from his perspective.

Egypt had just barely gotten by after the price shocks following Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the pressures of the Gaza war and thought it had finally begun to get a handle on the macroeconomic situation.

As the #Iran war stretches into a second month, a campaign that may have started with hopes of quick and decisive wins now leaves the U.S. has three options: Escalation, degradation, and negotiation. My latest for @nytopinion 👇 tinyurl.com/hexfnyje

Escalatory pressures abound with Iran hitting energy infrastructure and a desalination plant in Kuwait and a reported Iranian shoot down of a U.S. fighter jet. Regardless of Trump’s intentions, it will only get harder to contain this spiral.

“Dated Brent, the price of shipments bought and sold in the North Sea, on Thursday hit $141.36 per barrel, up from $128.46 a day earlier, according to S&P Global, a research group.” This can obviously go much further as disruption persists. www.ft.com/content/a121...

I suppose the Iraq War was a while ago, but it’s striking how much recent history has been forgotten. This is a great thread on a few important dynamics that seem to have grown out of that conflict.

This will have the added benefit of extending all the uncertainties of the current moment and producing periodic shocks to the energy markets. And, also, tough break for INDOPACOM.