Op-Ed: U.S.-Iran Ceasefire Deal is a Costly Return to Prewar Conditions
The deal does not address the nuclear issue, and further negotiations on Iran's uranium enrichment will be as fraught as ever
[By Farah N. Jan]
Shehbaz Sharif, the prime minister of Pakistan, which served as the key negotiator between the U.S. and Iran, announced on June 14, 2026, that the two sides had agreed on a deal to end the war. It will be officially signed on June 19 in Switzerland.
President Donald Trump announced it on Truth Social as a triumph, claiming that the Strait of Hormuz is open for everyone, the U.S. blockade has been lifted, and the oil is flowing again. What Trump did not mention was Iran’s nuclear program and what happens to its enriched uranium stockpile, one of the main reasons cited for starting the war. The nuclear issue – along with core issues such as ballistic missiles and Iran’s proxies – has been deferred for 60 days.
This raises two important questions: What was the war actually for? And what did the U.S. achieve? As an international and nuclear security expert, I believe the answer is nothing – and in the process the U.S. lost credibility as a negotiating partner.
Why the nuclear question is the hardest
The “rationalist theory of war,” as developed by political scientist James Fearon in 1995, identifies three problems that drive states to war when they would prefer to reach a deal: incomplete information about each other’s resolve; the inability to credibly promise a deal or commitment; and what international relations scholars call the indivisibility problem – when the thing in dispute cannot be split or shared, because it leaves no middle ground to settle on.
The war clarified the first reason. Each side saw what the other would actually do – how much force the U.S. was willing to use and what Iran could absorb while still staying in the fight. What the war could not solve was the nuclear commitment problem. And this goes far back between the U.S. and Iran.
Iran adhered to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA], the landmark nuclear deal that restricted Tehran’s nuclear program. The International Atomic Energy Agency verified that Tehran kept uranium enrichment to 3.67% and its stockpile under 300 kilograms – a concentration used to fuel a power reactor but far too low for a weapons program.
But the U.S. walked away in 2018, and Trump later called it “the worst deal ever” over its sunset clauses and on its silence on Iran’s ballistic missiles. Iran returned to negotiations in 2025, and the U.S. and Israel bombed Iran while those talks were still taking place. Similarly, in February 2026 the negotiations were ongoing and a deal was within reach when Israel and the U.S. struck Iran – killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and lead negotiator Ali Larijani.
The U.S. has demonstrated a record of reneging on its deals and breaking the negotiating process. Which is why Iran now insists on guarantees and demands sanctions relief before signing a deal, and not just good faith.
A state that previously kept its commitments and was still bombed has little reason to accept promises of relief in the future. For this reason, I believe the 60-day deferral is a window for Tehran to watch whether the U.S. and Israel will hold the ceasefire on all fronts, including Lebanon.
The third problem of indivisibility – when the thing or issue in dispute can’t be split or shared – is why the nuclear question is the hardest. Most disputes can be split. Sanctions, for example, can be lifted by degrees. Even a nuclear program can be split, which the world saw in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action deal, with centrifuges counted, enrichment capped and a stockpile metered.
What cannot be split is the U.S. demand for zero uranium enrichment and Tehran calling uranium enrichment a sovereign right.
A deal, a war and a ceasefire
The 2015 nuclear deal also limited Iran’s centrifuges – the machines that do the enriching – and placed Iran’s nuclear program under the most intrusive inspections, all in exchange for sanctions relief. The nuclear question was not part of the 2015 deal – it was the actual deal.
During the June 2025 negotiations with Iran, and again in February 2026, the U.S. position was about the nuclear program, but in the opposite direction from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. It was not about limits but the total elimination of Iran’s nuclear program.
In both rounds of talks in 2025 and 2026, Washington’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, demanded zero enrichment and the dismantling of Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan – Iran’s three most important nuclear sites. Iran called enrichment a sovereign right and refused.
Both rounds of negotiations ended in bombings.
The current deal to be signed on June 19 does not put a cap on Iran’s enrichment, nor does it discuss the elimination of its nuclear program. It ends the fighting, reopens the Strait of Hormuz and consigns enrichment, the stockpile, missiles and Iran’s regional proxies to 60-day negotiations.
In a recent New York Times interview, Trump said he was in no rush to remove the near-bomb-grade fuel still buried under the bombed sites. He claimed Iran would suspend enrichment for 15 or 20 years and enrich only for nonmilitary purposes.
In the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action deal under President Barack Obama, the nuclear question was addressed where 97% of Iran’s stockpile was shipped out of the country and the cap was a verified fact.
Because it doesn’t address any of these issues, the Trump deal is a ceasefire agreement, not a nuclear agreement.
A costly return to the status quo
Going back to the bargaining theory, we know the war settled the information problem – it revealed what each side would endure.
The commitment problem remains. Neither side can yet make a promise the other believes, least of all an Iran whose negotiators were killed.
And I believe the indivisibility problem is now worse. The question of zero enrichment versus a sovereign right cannot be split. The current 60-day deferral is not a resolution. It is the same unsolved problem with a clock attached.
The one thing that could change is American restraint. If Washington holds Israel from striking Iran and Lebanon, it can slowly rebuild its credibility that was destroyed by the two wars. And that is a real challenge for the Trump administration.
Even as the deal was being finalized, Israel struck Beirut, the kind of action that can derail any talks.
In my view, the 60-day window should be read not as the path to a settlement but as the interval or pause before the next one fails. I argued in April that this conflict would not end in a clean settlement but in a series of contested pauses. The deal to be signed on June 19 is the first of them.
Iran emerges with its enrichment knowledge intact, its stockpile buried and fresh reason to believe that only a nuclear weapon would have deterred the U.S.-Israel attack.
But Iran also knows that it stood its ground and was able to strike U.S. bases and allies in the region. It has discovered leverage it did not previously know it held. The Strait of Hormuz has proved a better deterrent than the nuclear bomb.
The strait is open, the oil is flowing, and the question the war was fought over sits exactly where it began. Thousands of lives were lost to arrive back to square one. Nobody has won, though both sides will say they did.
Farah N. Jan is a political scientist and Senior Lecturer teaching in the International Relations Program at the University of Pennsylvania.
This article appears courtesy of The Conversation and may be found in its original form here.
The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.
Op-Ed: Iran's Floating Storage is Sinking Fast
It is clear now that even if an agreement is signed between the United States and Iran imminently, it will only establish an agenda to be negotiated over the next few months. Israel is not party to the potential agreement and has the capacity to act independently should negotiations proceed in a way that jeopardizes Israeli national security. There are also a series of contentious issues that could cause any extended ceasefire to break down should the negotiations reach an impasse. During the negotiations, both the United States and Iran, for different reasons, will want to maintain progress — but Iran faces far greater economic, fiscal and, ultimately, political peril if the negotiations were to collapse, because it is in imminent danger of losing the oil revenues that have so far kept its government machine running.
After the US Navy imposed its blockade on Iranian ships and ports on April 13, Iran was able to continue selling oil — not only from the stockpile it had built up for just such a contingency, but also from laden ships that were still on their way to import terminals in China. These ships have mostly discharged, and Chinese importers are now drawing heavily on the Iranian reserves held afloat in Asia.
China has for many years bought about 90% of Iranian oil exports. Chinese purchases over the last month have fallen considerably, and what China has bought has come almost entirely from the stock built up before the war and held afloat off China and Malaysia. (CJRC/Kpler data)
According to Kpler statistics, Iranian oil stocks held afloat appear to have declined from 192 million barrels in mid-April to about 140 million barrels at the end of May, of which about half is trapped inside the US naval blockade. The roughly 50-million-barrel drawdown over the last month appears to have come almost wholly from the stock held afloat off Malaysia and China.
If this trend continues through June, and another 50 million barrels are taken from the stock off Malaysia and China, then that reserve will be nearing empty. The Iranians are in trouble whatever transpires, as even if oil afloat within the US blockade is released, it will still take time to ship it to Asia. Any delay in reopening the Strait and lifting the blockade will merely prolong the damage to Iranian revenues and make matters even worse.
Whether the blockade is lifted or not, Iran is therefore likely to start suffering significant financial pressures by the end of June, unless it can persuade its friends to extend it credit. A shortage of revenue affects the ability of the Iranian government to soften the impact of the war on Iranian consumers by offering increased subsidies and handouts, which are important factors in maintaining social stability. In resolving the situation, the Iranians can no longer depend on the guile of their dark fleet operators and sanctions evaders; the US Operation Economic Fury is making it a much more perilous undertaking to evade US sanctions, and in the offing are further seizures of Iranian oil held afloat in sanctioned tankers or blockade runners.
Reinforcing this picture, there have been no substantial loadings at Kharg Island for several weeks now. At the Kooh Mubarak Single Point Mooring, no tanker has been seen loading since June 1, reflecting only sporadic use of the facility and probable restrictions on the flow of crude reaching the terminal from the collection point at Goreh in Bushehr Province.
Others will be affected, but not to the degree that Iran will. Oil consumers, suffering from the loss of 14 million barrels per day of oil that used to come through the Strait of Hormuz, appear to have adjusted to the shortfall, which has been compensated for by US reserve drawdowns and by the rise in price, which has curbed demand. China does not appear to have used much of its strategic reserve and has enough to keep going without major economic upset for several more months; in any case, China generates about 85% of its energy needs from its own internal resources, including nuclear, coal and wind power. Supply of LNG, where demand is more inelastic, presents more of a problem if the Strait stays closed for longer, but traders in London think current prices have not yet risen high enough to bring about significant demand destruction — in other words, the market can still absorb more difficulties ahead.
Within Iran itself, these difficulties are not being aired publicly. Instead, Paydari and IRGC hardliners have been ramping up their bombast and defiance in a coordinated propaganda campaign, to disguise the danger and to bolster the Iranian negotiating position. This should not be interpreted as confidence, but rather as an awareness of what peril lies ahead unless a settlement can be achieved quickly with the United States, whose negotiating position is much stronger than is generally assumed.
Column: Is the Iran war just an energy shock – or a turning point?
(The views expressed here are those of the author, Clyde Russell, a columnist for Reuters.)
The Iran war’s disruption to global crude oil and LNG markets is already being measured in lost barrels and higher prices. Now, with a US-Iran peace deal expected to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the reckoning begins: was this a watershed moment, or merely another blip?
Consider two precedents.
The Volkswagen “Dieselgate” scandal over rigged emissions tests in 2015 seemed innocuous at first, but signalled the demise of diesel passenger cars and the rise of electric vehicles (EVs).
By contrast, Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine caused a dramatic surge in energy prices, yet the market’s ability to reroute flows and absorb the shock meant the impact proved short-lived.
Certainly, the market has so far worked its magic in dealing with the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz since the US-Israeli attacks on Iran began on February 28.
At least 1 billion barrels of crude oil and refined products have been lost from Middle East producers such as Iraq, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Iran itself.
As much as 20% of global liquefied natural gas supply is also trapped in the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman.
A combination of strategic and commercial inventory releases and a dramatic reduction in imports by China, the world’s biggest crude importer, has helped keep benchmark Brent crude futures under $100 a barrel for much of the current crisis.
It could also be argued that optimism about a deal to reopen the Strait has played its part, with traders seemingly willing to believe President Donald Trump’s numerous social media posts that an agreement was imminent.
That long-awaited deal began to materialize on Sunday when the US and Iran announced they had agreed on a framework that could allow vessels to resume transit. By Monday, Trump said oil tankers were starting to move out of the Strait.
While full details of the agreement have yet to be publicly revealed, the prospect of tankers soon entering and exiting the waterway without hindrance raises the question of what happens next.
The first effect would be a short-term sugar hit of relief for energy markets as tankers trapped in the Gulf exit and deliver cargoes.
This would be followed by efforts to restore flows and supply chains to pre-war levels, and by the longer process of rebuilding depleted inventories.
This could mean crude oil and LNG prices stay higher for longer as the lost barrels are replaced, but much will depend on how rapidly Middle East producers are able to ramp up output and exports, and whether the OPEC+ group is actually able to pump the higher volumes it has agreed to produce.
Behaviour changes?
But the bigger question is what the long-term impact will be.
Much will depend on the view taken by both consumers and governments, especially in energy-hungry Asia, the fastest-growing region.
Consumers who have the ability to change are likely to consider switching to electric or hybrid vehicles to insulate themselves from future diesel and gasoline price shocks.
An early snapshot of how this may look is provided by Australia, the world’s biggest importer of diesel and a country reliant on overseas refineries for over 80% of its fuel requirements.
Australian EV sales hit a record high in May, with a market share of 20%, and when combined with hybrid vehicles, the share climbed to 46%.
This is approaching levels in China, the leading EV manufacturer, where EVs and hybrids accounted for more than 50% of sales in 2025, and rose to 60% in May this year.
Government policies are also likely to shift in favour of boosting renewables and electrification over fossil fuels.
Dieselgate saw the motor fuel fall out of favour, especially in Europe, where its share of passenger car sales dropped from around 52% in 2015 to under 10% by 2025.
Asian countries such as Vietnam are already putting in place policies to encourage EVs and electric scooters, and that momentum is likely to grow across the region.
LNG is also at risk in Asia as countries weigh the security risks of an imported fossil fuel against buying solar panels, wind turbines and battery storage from China, or developing domestic industries with Chinese backing.
One fossil fuel that may emerge as a long-term winner from the current crisis is coal.
Countries with vast domestic reserves, such as China, India and Indonesia, will be tempted to keep using the fuel given its cost advantage and supply security, even if it makes reducing carbon emissions more challenging.
Importing countries may also deem coal a safer bet, given that the major exporters – Indonesia, Australia and South Africa – have traditionally been reliable suppliers and that shipments aren’t at risk from chokepoints like the Strait of Hormuz.
However, a long-term shift away from crude oil and LNG isn’t assured, as producers and exporters of these fuels are unlikely to take their demise lying down.
Getting people to forget the last crisis may be as simple as ensuring prices drop rapidly and stay low for an extended period. The early market reaction – with Brent tumbling 4% to $83 on the deal announcement – suggests that process may already be underway.
If diesel and gasoline vehicles are cheap to refuel and LNG can compete with coal and renewables, it’s possible that governments and consumers will forgive and forget the disruption and costs of the Iran war, much as they did after previous conflict-induced price spikes.
Search for Safety
War in the Middle East has offshore companies looking elsewhere.
(Article originally published in Mar/Apr 2026 edition.)
The world needs secure and reliable energy, now more than ever, and offshore E&P is one of the best ways to find it in the near term.
Energy companies have multiple options to shift future investments out of the shallow-water Arabian Gulf and into deepwater frontier regions where security risks are more manageable. Offshore oil and gas reserves are abundant along the continental margins of South America, West Africa and the Gulf of America – areas with the stability and political will to underpin development.
Now, with energy-consuming nations looking for long-term options to diversify oil and gas imports, offshore is well-placed to deliver – and profit.
KNOCKOUT PUNCH?
The ongoing conflict in the Gulf has had a substantial impact on oil production but may have longer-lasting effects on liquified natural gas.
Seaborne gas exports have to be loaded out at LNG liquefaction terminals, and the largest LNG complex in the world – Ras Laffan, the plant for Qatar's vast North Field offshore gas reservoir – was damaged by an Iranian missile strike. In one night, the attack on Ras Laffan reduced worldwide LNG export capacity by 13 million tons per annum, roughly three percent of the global total.
Repairs will take up to five years.
Luckily, the rest of the offshore industry is well-positioned to step up and add more capacity over the same period. Major gas projects make up a large and promising share of the future offshore E&P portfolio overseas, even in areas better known for oil, like the eastern continental margin of South America.
ExxonMobil's Longtail FPSO is a case in point. Located in the prolific Stabroek Block lease area off Guyana, it will be able to process 1.2 billion cubic feet of gas per day, more than any FPSO ever built. Next door, in the thriving Brazilian offshore market, Equinor is investing $9 billion to develop the massive Raia gas find in the Campos Basin. It's the Norwegian oil major's largest overseas project ever and upon completion will supply about 15 percent of Brazil's domestic natural gas needs.
FLNGs TO THE RESCUE
Shipyard-constructed FLNGs (floating liquefied natural gas facility) will go further towards filling demand for transportable, tradeable natural gas. FLNGs are massive offshore vessels designed to extract, liquefy, store and offload natural gas directly over a gas field at sea.
Rystad Energy forecasts that FLNG capacity will quadruple in ten years from 14 mtpa in 2024 to 55 mtpa in 2035. That extra boost alone will zero out the loss of two trains at Ras Laffan.
FLNGs are smaller than onshore plants and have their own technical challenges, but they've matured as a practical solution to onshore challenges. A fully offshore liquefaction-plant footprint requires no export pipeline, no mobilization for onshore construction and less physical exposure to the local security environment on land – ideal for remote projects in the developing world.
FLNGs' security advantage has proven itself in the Rovuma Basin frontier gas region, some 40 nautical miles off Mozambique. Eni was first to market in the region by a wide margin with one FLNG in production and another nearing completion.
By contrast, TotalEnergies chose to build a mega-sized LNG plant on shore in order to export its planned production from the Rovuma Basin. The plant site is exposed to the security situation in northern Mozambique, and development has been set back by five years due to an Islamist insurgency. First LNG at the TotalEnergies plant will not arrive until 2029, ten years after its launch.
Due in part to the same security-related delays, Exxon is still short of a final investment decision for a neighboring Mozambican project after years of planning.
CLOSER TO HOME
Offshore gas has a major role to play in Europe's energy security, and future supplies could come from close to home, thanks to frontier developments in the Mediterranean.
Exxon and Chevron are making big moves to explore for gas off the coast of Greece and on an expedited timeline. New offshore gas supplies can't come too soon, according to Greek Energy Minister Stavros Papastavrou. "Europe thought that dependence meant stability and that Russian gas was cheap. But one can't call something cheap if it's not safe. And Europeans learned this the hard way," Papastavrou told a panel at this year's CERAWeek conference in Houston.
As the operator of Israel's Leviathan gas field and a partner in two others nearby, Chevron is already a leader in the Mediterranean. It's also the chosen E&P partner (with Qatari backing) for offshore gas exploration off Syria – a first for the country's energy industry and a sign of the American oil major's willingness to go first in politically-challenging environments.
The area could hold trillions of cubic meters of undiscovered gas deposits, just like the rest of the Levant Basin where exploration has turned up multiple supergiant fields. Syria is in dire need of revenue for rebuilding the local economy and is motivated to bring its first offshore gas project online by the end of the decade.
"Before the summer, God willing, we will start mobilization and drilling," Syrian Petroleum Company chief Youssef Kabalawi told AP in February.
FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES
Frontier offshore regions like these could become even more attractive to oil majors in the wake of the Gulf conflict.
Brent oil futures rose by nearly 60 percent in March and settled comfortably above $100 by the end of the month. If sustained, "higher-for-longer" prices would help make the business case for offshore projects in calmer parts of the world.
But for now, the offshore drilling industry is taking it slow, says ABS' Senior Vice President of Global Offshore, Miguel Hernandez: "Clients are controlling expenses and generating revenue with existing assets right now. We see forward progress, but companies are moving cautiously. Regionally, South America and West Africa remain the big focus areas. These are important regional hubs and the future of deepwater production."
For shipowners in the business of supporting offshore drilling and production – operators of subsea, offshore supply and offshore construction vessels – the current market sentiment is favorable, says Jake Scott, founder and managing partner at shipping investment firm Easterly Clear Ocean. Large numbers of offshore vessels are bottled up in the Arabian Gulf, with positive commercial effects for owners outside the region.
"The subsea guys and a lot of these offshore folks move equipment around as they need it to meet multiyear commitments," Scott explains. "All of a sudden that equipment is no longer available. When are you going to get it? So you're seeing greater optimism in the space. You're seeing more contracting outside the Gulf as a result."
ROBOTS AT WORK
Offshore projects depend heavily on economics and cost control, and improved technology is one of the fastest ways to get there.
From planning drill paths to maintaining platforms, the offshore energy industry is at the cutting edge of adopting industrial AI and automation. E&P firms recognize the value of digital automation for speed, standardization and labor-saving, including in the "red zone" of the drill floor.
Transocean's two "eighth generation" drillships are at the forefront of the trend.
The drill rigs aboard Deepwater Atlas and Titan are highly automated, and humans rarely need to enter the working area. "We now have robots working offshore on an ultra-deepwater drillship running a riser in 10,000 feet of water without a single person being involved on the rig floor apart from the driller," said Keelan Adamson, Chief Operating Officer at Transocean, in an interview during the first ship's debut.
It's not just about safer, more cost-effective offshore drilling. Automation is also driving efficiencies on production platforms by improving predictive maintenance and speeding up troubleshooting.
VROC, an industrial AI company with experience offshore, says that an AI maintenance management system's value is in providing decision support to engineers. By analyzing data from a panoply of equipment sensors all at once – vibration, pressure, temperature, electrical loads and more – the software can provide a platform's engineering team with a set of probable options for the root cause of a problem along with a detailed explanation of which sensor values are abnormal.
This speeds up the process of identifying the right fix, cutting downtime and potentially saving tens of thousands of dollars per day in lost production. BP is an early adopter of AI-driven maintenance prediction and troubleshooting in the U.S. Gulf and claims strong early results.
CLASS APPROVAL
The top class societies are fully on board with AI offshore and are lending their expertise.
"As the world embraces more digitalization, remote operations and AI," says ABS' Hernandez, "ABS is evolving our tools and services as well. This supports our clients by giving them better predictability and knowledge of their assets, which can add days of up time and greater value."
Getting the implementation right is the key, says DNV, which recently carried out a comprehensive AI safety review for Norway's offshore regulator.
Training an AI model to succeed in offshore asset management requires a high-quality maintenance dataset, carefully managed to ensure completeness and relevance. With buy-in and support from engineers, the model should be kept up to date in order to counteract drift between its original training and the state of current operations, DNV advises.
The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.
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