Month into Iran-US-Israel war: Ceasefire talks emerge as oil crisis deepens

A month has passed since the first missiles struck Tehran, and the Middle East has not settled into the shape anyone predicted. On February 28, American and Israeli forces unleashed over 1,500 strikes across Iran in a single day, a campaign designed to be swift and decisive. The planners believed that hitting hard and fast would collapse the Iranian state. They were wrong. The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, died in those opening hours, along with the IRGC commander and the defence minister. But Iran did not crumble. Instead, it bent, adapted, and struck back with a ferocity that caught Washington and Tel Aviv off guard.

The human toll has been staggering. More than 3,300 people have died in Iran, roughly 1,400 of them civilians. A single targeting error by the US military killed 175 people, mostly schoolgirls, at a primary school in Minab. In Lebanon, where Israel has reopened its conflict with Hezbollah, over 1,200 have died and hundreds of thousands have been displaced since early March. A US submarine—the first to conduct such an attack since World War II—torpedoed an Iranian warship returning from exercises in India, killing nearly 90 sailors. Sixteen countries have been drawn into the fighting. The war has metastasized across the region in ways that neither side fully anticipated.

What has proven decisive is not military might but geography. Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway through which one-fifth of the world's oil and gas flows. Within weeks of the opening strikes, Iran transformed the strait into a fortress, seeding it with mines, sea drones, and unmanned aircraft. It has become the fulcrum on which the entire conflict now balances. Iran has made deals with five friendly nations—including India—to allow safe passage. For others, the strait is closed. For those in between, there is what foreign media has called a "Tehran toll booth," with reports suggesting Iran has charged as high as $2 million per tanker for safe transit. The blockade has sent oil prices surging by more than 40 percent. India, which sources roughly half its crude oil through Hormuz, has felt the squeeze acutely. Cooking gas supplies have tightened. Panic buying has gripped the country. Some restaurants have shuttered temporarily, unable to secure fuel. Around 22 Indian vessels remain waiting for clearance to pass through.

The Iranian leadership structure, meanwhile, has fractured in ways that remain opaque. The Assembly of Experts appointed Mojtaba Khamenei, the late Supreme Leader's 56-year-old son, as his successor in the second week of the war. But Mojtaba has not appeared in public since. He issued only a written message promising revenge and emphasizing the blockade of Hormuz. Foreign reports suggest he was in a coma. The US Defence Secretary claimed he was likely disfigured. The IRGC and other military units appear to be operating without clear central command. On the diplomatic front, the Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf have emerged as the visible faces of Iranian authority.

By the third week, the conflict had escalated into what observers began calling an "oil war." Israel struck Iran's South Pars gasfield, the world's largest and the backbone of global liquefied natural gas supplies. The field handles 80 percent of Iran's domestic gas. Iran retaliated by attacking regional energy facilities, including Qatar's Ras Laffan LNG plant and Saudi Aramco's Samref refinery. The strikes exposed a rift between Trump and Netanyahu. The American President publicly warned the Israeli Prime Minister against targeting Iran's oil and gas infrastructure, admitting that the US had been caught off guard. There has been little communication between the two leaders in recent weeks, sparking speculation that Netanyahu may have been killed in Iranian strikes—though no evidence has emerged to confirm this.

As of late March, a possible off-ramp has begun to materialize. Trump paused strikes on Iran's power plants and extended the pause through April 6 to allow ceasefire negotiations. Iran, despite its devastation, has engaged in backchannel talks and has suggested that Vice President JD Vance could serve as an interlocutor. But the pause is fragile. Thousands of additional Marines and paratroopers have been ordered to the region, positioning the US for a potential ground invasion. American officials have indicated that Trump may seize Kharg Island, Iran's economic lifeline, which accounts for 90 percent of its oil exports. The US already bombed military sites there in mid-March but spared energy infrastructure. Seizing the island could force Iran to reopen the strait, but it would also represent a dramatic escalation.

Iran has repeatedly stressed that the war will end on its terms. Whether that proves true depends on the next few days. The ceasefire talks are proceeding, or stalled, depending on whom you ask. Trump's patience is finite. The world's energy markets are holding their breath. And Iran, battered but unbowed, controls the single most important waterway on Earth.