Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz open.
Oil fell below $90.00 a barrel, its sharpest single day drop
since the war began. The S&P 500 hit its third
consecutive record high, erasing every war loss.
Pakistan's foreign minister said the two sides have covered most
of the distance to a deal. The second round of talks is
confirmed from Monday in Islamabad, with allegations
arriving Sunday and Iran's new supreme leader appointed 6 weeks
ago. The son of the man killed on the
first day of this war has still not been seen in public.
It is Saturday, April 18th, 2026, day 50 of Operation Epic
Fury, half 100 days since the first bombs fell on Tehran,
since the supreme leader was killed in his sleep, since the
Strait closed and the world's oil supply contracted overnight.
The ceasefire has four days left.
The diplomacy has never moved faster.
And the question of who exactly is authorizing Iran's decisions,
whose signature, whose word, whose authority is behind the
concessions and the contradictions is 50 days in,
still unanswered. This is episode 50 of Epic Fury,
the US Iran war podcast. Follow on Spotify and Apple
podcast To stay with this story as it develops.
Let's get into it. Start with the Strait of Hormuz.
Because what happened on Friday is the most significant single
development since the ceasefire was announced 12 days ago.
And because within hours of the announcement, it became
complicated in exactly the way that everything in this conflict
becomes complicated. Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas
Arachi posted on social media on Friday that the passage for all
commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz is declared
completely open. For the remaining period of the
ceasefire, he said vessels must transit through a coordinated
route, as already announced by Iran's Ports and Maritime
Organization. He linked the opening explicitly
to the Lebanon ceasefire. The passage was being opened in
line with the ceasefire in Lebanon that is Iran, making the
diplomatic linkage explicit, public and irreversible.
Lebanon ceasefire equals Hormuz opening.
It is the confirmation that the 2 tracks were always connected,
regardless of what the US and Israel said publicly about their
separation and regardless of how many times Vance stated in
Budapest and in press conferences that Lebanon was not
part of the ceasefire. Iran's foreign minister just
wrote it on social media in plain language.
The linkage is now on the record.
Trump responded within hours by thanking Iran on Truth Social.
He said Iran has just announced that the Strait of Hormuz is
fully open and ready for business and full passage.
He called it a great and brilliant day for the world.
He then said the US naval blockade of Iran's ports remains
in full force until an agreement is reached.
That is 3 things happening simultaneously in the space of a
few hours. Iran opening the Strait, the US
thanking Iran for it, and the US simultaneously maintaining the
blockade that Iran says makes a full opening impossible.
The oil market processed all three at once.
Brent crude fell more than 11% to below $90.00 a barrel, its
lowest level since early March. The Dow erased all its losses
since the war began. The S&P 500 closed at a record
high for the third consecutive session.
Then the IRGC complicated the picture.
Iranian state media, citing IRGC affiliated outlets, said that
Arachi had misspoken that only civilian vessels authorized by
the IRGC would be allowed to pass through the shipping lanes
designated by Tehran. IRGC officials added that the US
blockade is itself a violation of the ceasefire and that they
would revoke their opening if it continued.
That sequence Arachi announces IRGC contradicts Trump thinks
anyway, happened within the span of a few hours on Friday
afternoon. And it illustrates with painful
clarity the structural problem that has defined this entire 50
day conflict. The Iranian Foreign Ministry and
the IRGC are not operating from the same script.
They have not been since the first day of the ceasefire.
Arachi is a diplomat operating from a framework of negotiated
commitments and international signaling.
The IRGC is a military organization that has been
running this war autonomously and that regards the hormones
closure as its most powerful remaining leverage.
When Arachi says the Strait is open, he's making a diplomatic
gesture. When the IRGC says it is not
open without authorization, it is asserting operational
control. Both statements are
simultaneously true within their respective domains.
The Foreign Ministry has the diplomatic authority.
The IRGC has the physical authority.
A tanker captain making a commercial decision about
whether to transit must somehow reconcile those two authorities
before leaving port for shipping companies.
That ambiguity is nearly as operationally costly as a full
closure. You cannot put a 100,000 ton
super tanker through a waterway whose status is simultaneously
declared open by the foreign minister and conditionally
closed by the military organization that controls the
mines, the fast attack craft and the shore based missile
batteries. The result is that Friday's
Arachi announcement, despite its genuine diplomatic significance,
did not produce A rush of tankers toward the Strait.
Pakistan's foreign minister IS Shakhtar, speaking at the entire
diplomacy forum in Turkey on Friday alongside Prime Minister
Sharif, delivered the most specific public statement yet
about where the negotiations stand.
He said the deal is more than 80% complete, but that both
sides need to show flexibility on the remaining issues.
He said Pakistan will leave no stone unturned in its efforts to
achieve peace. He added that what Pakistan
wants is not an extension of the ceasefire but a permanent end to
the war. The 80% figure aligns precisely
with what the source involved in Islamabad talks told Reuters
earlier this week that the parties came very close and were
80% there before running into decisions that cannot be settled
on the spot. 2 independent data points converging on the same
figure from different sources suggests that number is real
rather than diplomatic approximation.
The remaining 20%, the nuclear commitment and the Hormuz
governance question, is not a small residual, it is the core
of the dispute. But 80% is nevertheless A
remarkable place to be 50 days into a war that began with the
United States announcing major combat operations and Trump
threatening a whole civilization's death.
That last star phrase, not an extension but a permanent end,
is a statement of ambition rather than a realistic short
term target. But it reflects Pakistan's
framing of the Islamabad process is something more consequential
than a ceasefire management exercise.
Pakistan has invested its international reputation, its
prime minister's political capital and its army chief's
personal credibility in this process.
It is also demonstrated through Munir's Tehran mission, a
willingness to put its most senior military official
directly in play as a personal envoy.
Pakistan is not going to accept being the facilitator of a 60
day ceasefire extension and nothing more.
It wants a permanent result and it is working every diplomatic
instrument it has to achieve one.
The second round of talks is now confirmed.
Iranian officials told CNN on Friday that the next round of
meetings between US and Iranian negotiators is expected to take
place in Islamabad on Monday, with delegations arriving
Sunday. Iran's ambassador to Pakistan
Reza Miri Mogadam had already made the venue emphatically non
negotiable, saying publicly we will do talks in Pakistan and
nowhere else because we trust Pakistan.
That is not a casual diplomatic preference and it is not a
statement made for comfort. Iran conducted the pre war
nuclear talks through Oman, through Geneva, through Vienna.
It chose not to return to many of those channels for the
ceasefire negotiations. It shows Pakistan specifically
because Pakistan delivered the ceasefire when Oman could not,
and because the personal relationships built through
Munir shuttle diplomacy have created a level of institutional
trust that no other country currently has with both
Washington and Tehran simultaneously.
The composition and mandate of the second rounds delegation is
the critical operational unknown.
The first round failed specifically because the Iranian
delegation arrived in Islamabad without the authority to make
final concessions on the nuclear question and on Hormuz
governance. When those issues were reached
after 20 hours of talks, the delegation had to stop.
They cannot say yes. They needed to go back to
Tehran. Munir spent three days in Tehran
this week specifically to establish whether Iran would
send a delegation to the second round that has already received
that authority before boarding the plane.
The Arachi Hormones announcement on Friday, linking the straight
opening explicitly to the Lebanon ceasefire suggests Iran
has already moved on one of the two remaining sticking points.
Whether the delegation arrives Monday with the authority to
move on the nuclear question is what the second round will
reveal if it does. Monday ends differently from
last Sunday. The world gets a deal, or the
framework of one if it does not. If Iran's delegation arrives
again without the final authority, Pakistan's 80% figure
stays at 80%. The ceasefire expires on April
22nd without agreement, and Trump must decide between
extending it, allowing it to lapse or returning to combat
operations. The markets are betting yes.
The S&P 500 at a third consecutive record high.
The Dow erasing all war losses, Brent crude falling more than
11% in a single session to below $90.00.
These are not the market signals of a negotiation heading toward
failure. They are the market signals of a
negotiation whose participants believe is heading toward a
deal. CNN's Fear and Greed Index,
which had plunged to extreme fear in March as the war
escalated, was trading in greed on Friday.
The NASDAQ is on its longest winning streak since 1992.
Eleven consecutive days of gains for the NASDAQ through a naval
blockade. RG Siarachi public contradiction
on the straight, a war powers Resolution defeated by a single
vote, and 50 days of the most economically disruptive military
conflict of the 21st century. What the markets are pricing is
not the the current situation. They are pricing the expected
outcome. A deal in the next four to seven
days that ends or extends the ceasefire allows the Strait to
fully reopen, lifts energy prices from their war inflated
levels back towards something approximating normal, and
removes the existential geopolitical risk premium that
has been embedded in every asset class since February 28th.
Whether that pricing is correct depends entirely on what happens
in the Serena Hotel in Islamabad on Monday and on whether the
Iranian delegation walks in with a different mandate than the one
it carried the first time. Former NATO Secretary General
Jens Stoltenberg noted that even if the war ends and the Strait
opens immediately, there will be some lasting consequences from
the significant reduction in oil and gas supply the world has
absorbed over 50 days. The global economy will not snap
back instantly, but the direction of the market bet that
a deal is coming is the clearest single data point available on
where informed money thinks this is heading.
There is one detail from Friday's diplomatic activity
that deserves specific attention.
Galibaff, Iran's parliament speaker and the head of the
Iranian delegation at Islamabad, met with Munir in Tehran during
the Pakistani delegation visit. That meeting is the pre
negotiation negotiation. Munir is sitting across a table
in Tehran with a man who will lead Iran's side in Islamabad on
Monday, 2 days before the delegations arrive.
He is not delivering a message to an intermediary.
He is speaking directly with the principal.
Whatever Munir conveyed from Washington in that meeting, the
revised terms, the nuclear framework, the Hormuz governance
proposal, and whatever Gallibaf told Munir about what Iran is
and is not able to accept constitutes the most recent
direct exchange of substantive positions between the two
negotiating structures. In diplomatic terms, that
meeting is as important as Monday's formal session.
It establishes whether the 20% gap that closed the first round
is still 20% or has been narrowed by the Lebanon
ceasefire, the Iraqi Hormuz announcement and Pakistan's back
channel work. The second round in Islamabad
does not start cold. It starts from wherever the
Munir Galabaf conversation in Tehran ended.
The question of Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran's new Supreme
leader, has become one of the strangest subplots of the entire
50 day conflict. CN NS Isabel Young reported on
Friday that nearly six weeks after his appointment as Supreme
leader, Mojtaba Khamenei has still not made a single public
appearance. He has not been photographed.
He has not delivered a statement.
He has not been seen by any independent media.
The Assembly of Experts announced him and Iranian state
institutions confirmed the succession, but his physical
presence, his health, his capacity to function as supreme
leader and his direct role in the ongoing diplomatic process
are all unconfirmed by any source outside the closed loop
of the Iranian state. This matters because every
significant decision in the ceasefire process, the original
acceptance of the Pakistan mediated framework, the
Islamabad talks, the Arachi Hormuz announcement requires
Supreme leader authorization. Khamenei is the person whose
approval Vance said the Iranian delegation needed to go back to
Tehran to obtain before they could close the remaining gap.
He is the person whose decision about the nuclear question will
determine whether Monday's second round produces a deal,
and he has not been seen in public in six weeks.
The circumstances of his appointment were already
unusual. Mojtaba Khamenei is the son of
Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader killed in the first strike of
Operation Epic Fury. His appointment was announced by
the Assembly of Experts, but attracted significant internal
controversy. Iran's constitution was
specifically designed to prevent dynastic succession, and placing
the son of the previous supreme leader in the same position was
widely described, even by sympathetic analysts, as a sign
of the Islamic Republic functioning as a theocratic
monarchy. Whether Mojtaba has the
religious authority, the political constituency, and the
personal capacity to govern at this level of complexity,
managing a defeated military, a collapsing economy, a ceasefire
process, and the IRGC simultaneously, is simply not
known from outside Iran. His continued absence from
public view six weeks after appointment is not easily
explained by any benign or routine costs.
The Supreme Leader is constitutionally required to
function as the ultimate authority of the Iranian state.
Whether he is ill, whether he is governing from secure,
undisclosed locations, whether decisions are being made by
consensus within the SNSC using his nominal authority, or
whether his invisibility is a deliberate communication about
the post war nature of Iranian governance is a question no
outside observer can currently answer.
Iran's leadership gap is the most consequential and most
underreported unknown of the 50 days of this war, and it sits at
the center of every major decision that the second round
of talks requires. The oil price move on Friday
deserves its own analysis because an 11% single session
fall in Brent crude is extraordinary.
To put it in context, oil have been near $100 a barrel as
recently as Wednesday. It fell below 90 on Friday.
That is a $10 per barrel fall in 48 hours.
The trigger was the Arachi Hormuz announcement.
Markets interpreted it as the effective reopening of the
world's most important oil choke point.
The fact that the IRGC contradicted Arachi within hours
did not fully reverse the price move.
That suggests traders believe the Arachi announcement is more
likely to survive in the IRGC. Contradiction that the foreign
minister's statement reflects a policy decision at the supreme
leader level that the IRGC will ultimately have to implement
regardless of its protests. For consumers, a $10 per barrel
fall and crude translates over weeks, not days, as petrol
prices adjust into meaningful relief at the pump. the US
average was at $4.13 per gallon before the Arachi announcement
of $1.14 since the war began. If the Strait genuinely reopens
and the US blockade is eventually lifted as part of a
deal, analysts expect petrol prices to fall toward $3.50 or
lower within weeks. That is $100 million daily
saving for American drivers, visible immediately at every
pump in the country. That is a political gift to
Trump of the most direct and quantifiable kind.
Lower petrol prices are the single most visible and most
immediately felt economic relief.
The resolution of this conflict can deliver to the American
public every day. The straight is open and the
price falls is another data point in Trump's argument that
Operation Epic Fury achieve its objectives.
Trump, speaking at a Turning Point USA event in Phoenix on
Friday evening, called the Hormuz opening a historic moment
and said it would be wonderful for the entire world.
He spoke about the war in terms of civilizational stakes.
Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.
The world would be in trouble if they did and described the
blockade as amazing. That speech to a large domestic
conservative audience in Arizona is Trump already framing the end
of this war as a comprehensive victory achieved on American
terms. The straight open, the nuclear
threat neutralized, the blockade successful.
He's already communicating the narrative of conclusion.
Iran opened the straight. the US kept.
The pressure on. A deal is coming.
The political structure of that narrative requires a deal to
materialize. If Monday's second round fails
and the ceasefire expires without agreement, Trump will
need to explain why something amazing did not happen, why the
brilliant day was premature, and why the amazing blockade did not
produce the agreement it was supposed to compel.
His Phoenix framing raises the political stakes of Monday's
failure considerably. The ceasefire expires on April
22nd. That is 4 days from today.
The second round of talks begins Monday in Islamabad, with
allegations arriving Sunday. The Strait has been declared
open by Iran's foreign minister, contradicted by the IRGC and
thanked for by Trump, even as the US blockade continues in
full force. Pakistan's Foreign Minister Darr
says 80% of the deal is done, but both sides need flexibility.
The markets are pricing a deal. 3 consecutive S&P 500 record
highs. The Dow are racing all war
losses. Oil below $90.00.
Iran's new Supreme leader has made no public appearance since
his appointment. Munir has been in Tehran for
three days meeting Galabaf, and Pakistan, which has been the
structural backbone of this entire diplomatic process, is
now running 3 simultaneous diplomatic tracks.
Its army chief in Tehran, its Prime Minister and foreign
minister in Italia, all working to ensure that when the
delegation sit down on Monday, the remaining 20% is small
enough to close in a single session.
If this podcast is helping you make sense of what is happening,
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This has been episode 50 of Epic Fury, the US Iran War podcast.
Episode 5050 of The War the Straight has been declared open
with conditions. The deal is 80% done.
Second round talks confirmed for Monday.
Iran's supreme leader has not been seen in six weeks.
Four days left on the ceasefire clock.
We will be back very soon.