The US and Iran have agreed to a basic framework. Whether this formal consensus translates into a concrete agreement is an open question. While Iran has officially declared the end of the war, Israel insists “our struggle has not yet ended”. Between these two statements lies all the space the spoilers need. The ceasefire was made possible by pragmatists. It will be threatened by apocalypticists. In Washington and Jerusalem, there are people at the helm of affairs who do not read this war as a security crisis to be resolved but a scheduled event — one that a ceasefire can delay but not, in their theology, prevent. For them, a deal is not a solution. It is an obstacle. And obstacles, in the eschatological imagination, are not negotiated around. They are removed. A changed world Whether the framework holds or collapses, one thing is clear: the West Asian security structure that existed on the morning of Feb 28, 2026, has ceased to exist. Firstly, South...
Oil prices tumbled further Thursday after US President Donald Trump and his Iranian counterpart signed off on a deal to end their war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz to tanker and cargo traffic. European and Asian stock markets were mixed, with some major indexes retreating after steep falls on Wall Street after the Federal Reserve raised its inflation forecast and projected higher US interest rates this year, boosting the dollar. “Politics and economics are front and centre for markets,” said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell. “The US and Iran have signed an initial deal to end the war, causing oil prices to fall further,” he said, but the Fed’s hint at a rate increase “took the market by surprise and caused a wobble” on Wall Street and elsewhere. Kevin Warsh, the new Fed chief, vowed to “deliver price stability” after chairing his first policy meeting, even though Trump has repeatedly called for lower rates. “Persistently high prices are a burden for the American peop...