The Ceasefire That Isn't

This is YegerPod. I'm Yeger. It's Thursday, June fourth — Day ninety-seven of the US-Iran war. Today's episode: The Ceasefire That Isn't.

So. It's been a while. We went quiet in mid-April, around Day forty-eight. Today I want to catch you up on what's actually changed — not rehash old fronts.

And the short version is this. There's a ceasefire on paper. On the ground, the US and Iran are still trading fire almost every week.

Let me set the scene fast. The war started February twenty-eighth, with joint US and Israeli strikes on Iran. A two-week ceasefire was announced around April seventh. Then talks in Pakistan, on April nineteenth, fell apart. Since then, nobody's signed anything. The fighting just kept going under a different name.

Here's the state of play in thirty seconds. Iran still controls the Strait of Hormuz — running what the Institute for the Study of War calls a protection racket, charging ships to pass. The US is still blockading Iranian ports. And per a Foundation of Martyrs figure reported back on April nineteenth, at least three thousand four hundred Iranians have been killed. That's the floor, not the ceiling.

Now to what's new. And the biggest thing is what happened this week.

On Tuesday and Wednesday — June second and third — the Associated Press reports Iranian drones hit the main passenger terminal at Kuwait International Airport. One person was killed, an Indian national. Sixty-three were wounded. Kuwait shut the airport, then partially reopened it.

The US military says Iran also fired two missiles at Kuwait that broke up in flight, and that it downed multiple drones aimed at American forces there.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard acknowledged targeting the headquarters of the US Navy's Fifth Fleet — that's in Bahrain. Per the AP, Bahrain's defense ministry says it intercepted three missiles and a number of drones.

On the American side, CENTCOM says it struck an Iranian ground control station on Qeshm Island, in the strait. Iran's foreign ministry says a telecommunications tower was hit, and called it — quote — an act of aggression that violated the ceasefire.

Both sides say they were retaliating for the other. That's the pattern now.

This isn't the first time. Per Reuters and ISW, on May twenty-fifth the US hit Bandar Abbas — Central Command said it targeted missile sites and Iranian boats trying to lay mines. That came after strikes near three US warships transiting the strait: the Truxtun, the Peralta, and the Mason. CENTCOM called it self-defense — quote — while using restraint during the ongoing ceasefire.

On diplomacy — this is the real shift. Iran's Fars and Tasnim agencies, both close to the Guard, reported this week that Iran has stopped communicating with the ceasefire mediators. A regional official told the AP that Tehran wants the separate Lebanon ceasefire enforced first.

President Trump called those reports — quote — false. He says talks are continuing, and that they've gone, in his words, very well.

And per the House of Commons Library, Iran's now saying it won't accept any more temporary ceasefires. Its ambassador to China floated the idea of international guarantees — backed by China, Russia, Pakistan, and Turkey. So the diplomacy, if it's happening, is widening well past Washington.

Now the part that hits everyone, everywhere — oil.

The story of the last seven weeks is a rollercoaster. In April, after Iran briefly said the strait was open, Brent crude fell to around eighty-eight dollars — that's BBC. By May twelfth, with the deal looking dead, CNBC had Brent back up at one hundred and seven. Then a hopeful patch in late May — CNBC put it near ninety-two by month's end.

And now? After this week's strikes, the New York Times reported Brent jumping more than four percent on Monday. As of Tuesday, Fortune had it at one hundred and one dollars a barrel.

Remember — sixty percent of Gulf oil goes east, not west. So India, China, Japan, Korea feel this first. Bloomberg reported back in March that diesel and jet fuel in Asia had spiked, the first real signs of demand destruction. That pressure hasn't gone away.

Now — the prediction markets. Because this is where you can read the room in numbers.

On Polymarket, the contract for a permanent US-Iran peace deal by June thirtieth is sitting at about twenty-four percent. By July thirty-first, around forty percent. You have to go all the way out to December thirty-first to get above seventy percent.

So the market's saying — a real deal, soon, isn't likely. Eventually, maybe.

And there's a Hormuz contract too. It asks whether shipping traffic returns to normal by the end of June, based on IMF Portwatch data. That one's at about fifteen percent. The smart money says the strait stays choked through the month.

So here's where we are on Day ninety-seven. A ceasefire that both sides cite while striking each other. Talks the Iranians say have stopped and the US president says are going well. A waterway still half-closed. And oil back over a hundred dollars.

The fronts haven't moved much. But the floor under the whole thing — the idea that a deal was close — that's what's eroded since April.

Sources today. The Associated Press and ABC News for the Kuwait and Bahrain strikes. The Institute for the Study of War for the Hormuz protection racket. Reuters for Bandar Abbas. The New York Times, CNBC, BBC, and Fortune for oil. The House of Commons Library for the diplomacy. Polymarket for the odds. And Wikipedia's casualty and ceasefire trackers for the timeline.