Often overlooked, Oman also has a voice in how traffic flows through the Strait, and both Oman and Iran will have to reconcile their opposing visions for the future of Hormuz.
The agreement between Iran and the United States is exactly what it says it is, an understanding of the situation. Both sides, however, still have different ideas of how that situation should be resolved, generating only further uncertainty about the future of the Gulf.
Years of planning by the Islamic Republic for a theoretical war with the United States was finally put to the test. Now with the ceasefire, both Iran and the U.S. will look at what went right and what went wrong.
While many hope the U.S. and Iran are now aligned in regards to opening the strait, the reality is both countries have created two different realities that they refuse to compromise.
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has long described water as the "strategic commodity" of the Middle East, and the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran has highlighted how water has emerged as both a powerful potential weapon and also a durable drag on conflict escalation.
A special report for Intelligence subscribers that breaks down the positions and possible paths forward for over 20 countries trying to navigate around the U.S.-Israel-Iran war
The war on Iran's economy has been running for decades. U.S.-Israeli strikes on economic infrastructure in 2026 brought cascading effects on the country's economy. The result will not be collapse, but it is something more dangerous for ordinary Iranians than the war itself.
Decades of effort went into building the case for a U.S. war with Iran, and now it has finally arrived. But for Washington’s think tanks and policy circles, it is not what they had in mind.
As American and Israeli strikes reshape Iran’s military landscape, a parallel campaign is unfolding on screens and in exile capitals: the promise of a picture-perfect tomorrow.
The death of Ali Khamenei was expected to shake the Islamic Republic. Instead, Iran’s wartime succession and the rise of Mojtaba Khamenei reveal a regime that remains cohesive under pressure. National mobilisation, institutional loyalty and war dynamics may reinforce rather than weaken the system.
U.S. military escalation against Iran is reshaping energy geopolitics and exposing new risks for oil and gas investors across the Middle East. From Iraq and Syria to the Eastern Mediterranean, upstream opportunities created by geopolitics may prove far less stable than they appear.
