The war benefited Iran in at least one aspect: The overt attention given to Iran for the last 50 days has completely shattered the fabricated image that Israeli-affiliated media had crafted of the country for decades.

Many people have now realized that:

1- Iran is not run by mad apocalyptic “mullahs”. Many Iranian officials are sophisticated technocrats, steeped in political science, literature, mathematics, international relations, and philosophy. They hold PhDs and strong academic credentials from renowned universities, and have actually authored books on Immanuel Kant, negotiations and governance. In fact, they are much more sophisticated than their Western counterparts. For one, none of them ever appeared on the Epstein list. That is precisely why they do not have to bend or bow before Israel or its network of lobbies.

Nadaljujte z branjem→

Kot se reče – imena oseb so izmišljena, da bi zaščitili nedolžne. Lepo zapisana zgodba. Tudi če bi bila samo fikcija.

I have three monitors on my desk. The left one shows the order book. The middle one shows Truth Social. The right one shows the investigation queue.

On April 21st, the left screen moved first.

I am a Senior Surveillance Analyst at a commodities exchange. I have held this position for nineteen years. My job is to monitor trading activity for suspicious patterns and generate compliance reports. I am employee of the quarter. I have a mug.

At 19:54 GMT on April 21st, someone placed 4,260 sell orders on Brent crude futures. They did this during post-settlement. The window after the market closes when daily volume is typically in the dozens. Sometimes single digits. Sometimes I watch the screen and nothing happens for forty minutes and I think about whether my daughter is happy.

On April 21st, someone placed $430 million in directional bets in 120 seconds during that window. One hundred and twenty seconds. I timed it on my watch because the system clock rounds to the nearest minute and I have found, in nineteen years, that precision matters to no one but me.

At 20:10 GMT, the President posted on Truth Social that he was extending the Iran ceasefire.

Brent dropped from $100.91 to $96.83.

I flagged the trade. I flag a lot of trades. I want to tell you what happens to my flags.

My flags go into a system called TRACE. Trade Review and Compliance Evaluation. I did not name it. The system generates a report. The report goes to a committee. The committee has a name I am not allowed to share but I can tell you it meets quarterly and the conference room has a credenza with bottled water that is sparkling because someone once put still water in the room and a managing director sent an email about it that was longer than most of my surveillance reports.

The committee reviews my flags. The committee has reviewed all of my flags. Here is the complete record of actions taken on my flags in 2026:

Reviewed.

That’s it. “Reviewed” is a status. In compliance, a status is the absence of an action that has been given a name so it looks like one.

Let me show you my flags.

March 9th. Someone bet millions on oil falling at 18:29 GMT. Forty-seven minutes later, a CBS reporter posted that the President said the Iran war was “very complete, pretty much.” Oil dropped 25%. Forty-seven minutes. I flagged it.

March 23rd. Someone sold 5,100 lots of Brent and WTI crude futures between 10:49 and 10:50 GMT. Fourteen minutes later, the President posted on Truth Social about a “COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION” to hostilities. Oil dropped 11%. Over 13,000 contracts traded in sixty seconds after the post. Fourteen minutes. I flagged it.

April 7th. Someone established a $950 million short position in oil futures at 19:45 GMT. Three hours later, the President declared a two-week ceasefire. Nine hundred and fifty million dollars. I flagged it.

April 17th. Someone placed $760 million in bearish bets twenty minutes before Iran’s foreign minister confirmed the Strait of Hormuz would reopen. Seven hundred and sixty million. I flagged it.

April 21st. The $430 million. Fifteen minutes. I flagged it.

That is $2.1 billion in directional oil bets in April alone. Every one of them landed on the correct side of a presidential announcement. Every one of them was placed in a window so narrow you could measure it in bathroom breaks. I flagged every single one.

Nadaljujte z branjem→

After predicting the world’s biggest risks for over 25 years, Geopolitical Expert Ian Bremmer reveals the top 10 risks for 2026, and why the AI job threat is far bigger than people think!

Bremmer:

What are the most important subjects of the top 10 risks that you think we should talk about today? I think that there are three that are really big. Um, the first is that the United States has become the biggest driver of risk, the biggest driver of geopolitical uncertainty in the world. And we see that with the tariffs. We see that with Venezuela. We see it with Greenland. We see it with Iran. I mean, if there was that level of uncertainty in a smaller political system, and that happens all the time, we wouldn’t care as much because the global impact would not matter. But everyone out there is affected by even small changes in the United States. Suddenly, big changes in the United States. The Americans are saying, “We no longer want to play by the rules that we set up historically. We don’t want the free trade system that we put together. We don’t want to be the global policeman that is paying for the collective security. We don’t want the open borders that used to welcome so many people from around the world. We want a very different set of rules. It’s the American system is not being challenged by the Chinese saying we don’t want the Americans themselves and the leadership are saying we refuse to be the leader that we used to be.

Kot pišem v sosednjem komentarju, Trumpova odločitev, da 2-tedensko premirje z Iranom enostransko podaljša (v neskončnost), pomeni, da se bo energetska kriza zaradi vojne proti Iranu in dvojnega zaprtja Hormuza zdaj razvila v polni razsežnosti. V zadnjem komentarju glavni ekonomist IMF Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas predstavlja posodobljene napovedi IMF glede globalne gospodarske situacije in eksplicitno prikazuje učinke negativnih scenarijev zaradi vojne na Bližnjem vzhodu.

Če je globalno gospodarstvo ob koncu 2025 kazalo presenetljivo odpornost in je predvidena rast znašala 3,4 %, pa je ameriško-izraelski napad na Iran in razširitev vojne na Bližnjem vzhodu, zlasti zaprtje Hormuške ožine, to dinamiko prekinil. Gre za strateško ključno točko globalne oskrbe z energenti, zato motnje v transportu in uničenje infrastrukture neposredno vplivajo na svetovne energetske tokove. Gibanja cen energentov jasno kažejo izrazit skok cen, ki v osnovnem scenariju dosega približno 19-odstotno rast, kar predstavlja klasičen negativni ponudbeni šok.

Nadaljujte z branjem→

Bom kratek:

• Trumpova odločitev, da 2-tedensko premirje z Iranom enostransko podaljša (v neskončnost), je posledica tega, da se predstavniki Irana niso niti hoteli pogovarjati z Američani.
• Ker ZDA nimajo nobene druge opcije (ne upajo si na polno napasti Irana, ne upajo narediti desanta na Hormuz ali na iranski naftni terminal na otoku Kharg, ker bi sicer Iran pognal v zrak vso energetsko infrastrukturo v zalivskih državah), ZDA ostane zgolj poskus pomorske blokade Hormuza iz varne razdalje.
• S pomorsko blokado želi Trump preprečiti Iranu, da bi izvažal nafto (Trump govori o izgubljenih 500 mio dolarjev dnevno za Iran).
• Vendar s tem ZDA ne morejo preprečiti Iranu izvoza nafte v Kitajsko, kajti Kitajska bo (je že) poslala vojaške ladje, ki bodo (že) spremljajo tankerje z iransko nafto za Kitajsko. Ameriške sile si ne bodo upale napasti teh ladij, ker si ne upajo tvegati vojaške eskalacije s Kitajsko. Iran torej v tej ameriški blokadi ne izgubi kaj prida.
• Hkrati pa ima ameriška blokada bistven in ogromen stranski učinek: deluje kot dvojna blokada za izvoz (in uvoz) za zavezniške države – za zalivske izvoznice energentov in surovin in uvoznice hrane ter za vse ostale države uvoznice zalivskih energentov in surovin. Trump je s podaljšanjem pomorske blokade samo dvakratno zaklenil Hormuško ožino. V škodo zaveznikov.
• In tudi v svojo škodo, kajti cene nafte se oblikujejo globalno. Nekega dneva tudi manipulacije na terminskem trgu trčijo na zgornjo mejo – pomanjkanje fizične nafte.
• To pomeni, da se bo energetska kriza zaradi vojne proti Iranu in dvojnega zaprtja Hormuza razvila v polni razsežnosti. Razvija se najbolj negativni scenarij IMF, Goldman Sachsa itd.
• To pomeni višje cene energentov, višje cene surovin, višje cene komponent in višje cene hrane – to pomeni inflacijski šok. In nekateri že pozivajo, da naj ECB preventivno začne dvigovati obrestno mero, da bi zajezila inflacijo (glejte spodaj).
• Toda kdor pozna osnove makroekonomije (in tisti del okrog Phillipsove krivulje in pričakovanj), ve, da je cena zniževanja inflacije na način, da centralne banke vodijo dezinflacijsko politiko prek dvigovanja obrestnih mer, recesija oziroma stagnacija. Ob visoki ravni inflacije to pomeni stagflacijo.
• Se lahko temu izognemo? Ja, vsaj v določeni meri se še vedno lahko. Vendar le, če Trump pristane na 4 temeljne iranske zahteve.
• Iran lahko preživi dlje časa izoliran kot lahko Trump in njegova baza zdržita visoke cene nafte, inflacijo in stagnacijo.