Speaker 1: Geopolitics, Daily Global News Briefing. I'm Jamie Caule. Thanks for
Speaker 1: joining me today. Why the Iran ceasefire collapsed In one week?
Speaker 1: The Iran ceasefire is over. What looked like a fragile
Speaker 1: but functional pause and hostilities has collapsed into sustained bombing campaigns,
Speaker 1: a naval blockade, and now attacks on commercial shipping in
Speaker 1: the Strait of Hormuz. Here's the basic sequence. A ceasefire
Speaker 1: agreed in the April five hundred period, held for roughly
Speaker 1: ten weeks. Then, starting July thirteenth, the U. S resumed
Speaker 1: strikes three consecutive nights, targeting Iranian coastal defense systems, missile sites,
Speaker 1: and maritime infrastructure at Boucher bandar Abbas and Greater tim Island.
Speaker 1: At the same time, the U. S. Navy deployed nineteen warships,
Speaker 1: including two aircraft carriers, to enforce a formal blockade of
Speaker 1: Iranian ports. The blockade began July fifteenth. The signal here
Speaker 1: isn't just that fighting resumed. It's that the character of
Speaker 1: the conflict shifted. A declared naval blockade is a significant
Speaker 1: escalation in legal and military terms. It moves the confrontation
Speaker 1: from periodic strikes to a sustained pressure campaign with direct
Speaker 1: consequences for global shipping. Iran's response came fast. Iranian missile
Speaker 1: struck two UAE tankers in the Strait of hall Moves,
Speaker 1: the Albahir and the Mambassa. One Indian crew member was
Speaker 1: killed eight others were injured. Iran described the vessels as
Speaker 1: rogue supertankers and claimed the strikes were justified. That matters
Speaker 1: because the Strait of hor Moves carries roughly twenty percent
Speaker 1: of the world's oil supply. It's not a symbolic target.
Speaker 1: It's the choke point, and global oil markets responded accordingly.
Speaker 1: Bent crewdes surged nine point five nine percent on the
Speaker 1: day the blockade was announced, the biggest single day percentage
Speaker 1: gain in over six years. The important distinction is that
Speaker 1: we've moved from a phase where the strait was under
Speaker 1: threat to a phase where it's actively contested. That's a
Speaker 1: different risk calculation for shipping companies, for energy markets, and
Speaker 1: for the Gulf States dependent on that corridor. Trump has
Speaker 1: signaled the campaign isn't close to finished. He stated the
Speaker 1: US will target Iranian power plants in bridges starting next
Speaker 1: week unless Rain returns to the negotiating table. He also
Speaker 1: declined to rule out deploying ground forces to remove Iran's
Speaker 1: enriched uranium stockpiles. Here's the thing. The phrase he used
Speaker 1: for the overall campaign was military stirmish, which tells you
Speaker 1: something about how the administration is framing this publicly. But
Speaker 1: the operational scope two carrier strike groups, hundreds of aircraft,
Speaker 1: a declared blockade, and now threats against civilian infrastructure doesn't
Speaker 1: fit that framing. The key implication is that Trump is
Speaker 1: using the escalation ledder as a negotiating instrument. Each step
Speaker 1: up is also an invitation to negotiate before the next one.
Speaker 1: Whether or On reads it that way or whether they
Speaker 1: calculate that conceding under military pressure sets an unacceptable precedent
Speaker 1: is the unresolved question.
Speaker 2: One development that's easy to man in this context. Trump
Speaker 2: on Iraqi Prime Minister al Zaidi agreed this week that
Speaker 2: US forces will leave Iraq by September thirtieth, twenty three
Speaker 2: years after the initial invasion. The timing is worth noting
Speaker 2: the US is simultaneously intensifying military operations against Iran while
Speaker 2: withdrawing the ground presence that has anchored its regional posture
Speaker 2: for two decades. US oil companies remain in Iraq. US
Speaker 2: combat troops do not consider this elsewhere. Russia issued an
Speaker 2: explicit warning that any METO troops deployed to Ukraine as
Speaker 2: peacekeepers will be treated as legitimate military targets. The Russian
Speaker 2: Foreign Ministry characterized such a deployment as foreign intervention. This
Speaker 2: comes as the European Commission and Ukraine signed a new
Speaker 2: joint drone production deal, the first EU wide agreement of
Speaker 2: its kind, with nineteen founding partners, and a planned of
Speaker 2: spansion into anti ballistic missile systems by twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 2: The EU is building a defense integration track with Ukraine
Speaker 2: that doesn't require an NATO membership, at least not yet.
Speaker 2: Russia's warning is designed to raise the cost of that approach.
Speaker 2: The practical test will come if and when any ceasefire
Speaker 2: in Ukraine produces a stabilization force proposal. That conversation is
Speaker 2: happening in Paris and on Western coalition numbers, and Moscow
Speaker 2: is putting its position on the record. Early one part
Speaker 2: of all and one one part of all. Two things
Speaker 2: matter most in the next seventy two hours. First whether
Speaker 2: a RAM signals any willingness to negotiate before Trump's threatened
Speaker 2: infrastructure strikes begin. Second, whether the HOMU situation produces further
Speaker 2: shipping casualties, because that's the variable most likely to drive
Speaker 2: a broader regional response from Gulf states in global energy markets,
Speaker 2: the ceasefire didn't just collapse. It collapsed into something with
Speaker 2: a harder edge than what came before. That's the frame
Speaker 2: to keep in mind. Thanks for listening. This podcast was
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