Maritime Security

Brent has fallen 30.9% from its April war peak as deal headlines land and open interest flees. The physical strait is not back: visible tanker traffic is near three a day, many ships are dark, and the IRGC still has a tollbooth-shaped shadow.

The draft US-Iran memorandum now has terms, a Sunday signing claim, and an uppercase promise of open water. Iran says no final decision has been made, and Israel's strike in Beirut gave Tehran's skeptics a reason to slow the pen.

Washington and Tehran say they've agreed on the wording of a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. In the same 72 hours: US airstrikes, Iranian warning shots at a tanker, and a navy escorting oil out of the Gulf. There's a document. Nobody has signed it.

In one week, Iran, China, the US and the EU all reached for the same move: stop a ship, demand its papers, call it law enforcement. None of them called it war. That's the trick — and it isn't going away.