Trump wants to put Iran behind him; Bibi won’t get out of the way

(Originally published June 17 in “What in the World“) Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.

That warning may come to haunt Trump after saying Tuesday he hoped to put the Iran war in his “rearview mirror.”

The terms of his latest ceasefire agreement with Iran, due to be signed Friday, remain secret. Iran’s foreign minister said Tuesday that among them is a requirement that Israel not only stop attacking Hezbollah in Lebanon, but that it withdraw forces from Lebanon, notably the territory in southern Lebanon it has seized since the war began. “Without the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territories they occupied during this war, the war has not fully come to an end,” Iran’s Abbas Araghchi said. But that’s something Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday he absolutely would not do.

Even if the agreement is signed, prices for oil and other petroleum products—notably gasoline and fertilizer—aren’t likely to ebb as fast as consumers may hope nor might they fall to pre-war levels. It will take months for supply chains to get back to normal and years to restore the infrastructure destroyed during the fighting. The CEO of Mitsui OSK, which operates more tankers than any other company, said the U.S. and Iran would need to demonstrate that the re-opening of the Strait of Hormuz is “material” before shippers would take the risk of resuming normal traffic.