What to make of the Iran war cease-fire
GET UP TO SPEED
Is this the finale, or just an intermission? On Tuesday night, US President Donald Trump and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi announced a two-week cease-fire in the Iran war. It’s the first pause in strikes since the conflict began on February 28, but reports on Wednesday of attacks on Gulf states and Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz once again in response to Israeli attacks on Lebanon have already raised questions about the cease-fire’s effectiveness. We turned to our experts to assess the conflicting developments and project what’s next for the war, the Strait of Hormuz, and the region.
TODAY’S EXPERT REACTION BROUGHT TO YOU BY
- Landon Derentz: (@Landon_Derentz): Vice president for energy and infrastructure at the Atlantic Council and former director for energy at the White House during the first Trump administration
- Allison Minor: Director of the Project for Middle East Integration and former director for Arabian Peninsula affairs at the US National Security Council in the first Trump administration
- Victoria Taylor (@VictoriaT ): Director of the Iraq Initiative and former US deputy assistant secretary of state for Iraq and Iran during the Biden and Trump administrations
- Nate Swanson: Director of the Iran Strategy Project at the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative, and former Iran policy adviser to the Biden and Trump administrations
Strait talk
- Oil prices plunged and stocks rose on Wednesday following news of the cease-fire. But Landon cautions that “while markets are breathing a near-term sigh of relief, the broader energy crisis remains unresolved.” Major damage to the region’s oil and gas infrastructure “will inevitably slow the pace of recovery,” he adds.
- Even if Iran allows safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz for the next two weeks, “energy trade flows in the Middle East do not function like a light switch,” Landon explains.
- Large oil-carrying ships take more than twenty-four hours to load, Landon points out, “and ship owners and insurers are unlikely to rush back into normal operations. This caution is particularly warranted as attacks on critical energy infrastructure have continued even after the cease-fire.”
- The attacks on the Gulf could be the result of “lingering Iranian command-and-control issues,” Allison says. But the development still “sends worrying signals about the new threshold for plausibly deniable Iranian attacks.”
- And there’s a bigger concern in the fact that Iran is retaining effective control of the strait as it enters negotiations. “For Gulf countries, this dangerous new normal means Iran gets to keep a noose around their economies in perpetuity,” Allison notes.
Sign up to receive rapid insight in your inbox from Atlantic Council experts on global events as they unfold.
What’s the deal?
- With the United States and Iran set to begin negotiations in Islamabad on Friday, reporting about their respective proposals to end the war indicates that they “remain diametrically opposed,” Victoria tells us.
- With Tehran showing no intention to budge on issues ranging from nuclear enrichment to ballistic-missile development, this cease-fire appears to be “more of an off-ramp than a real framework for negotiations,” Victoria says.
- Iran has reportedly demanded the full withdrawal of US forces from the region and the payment of reparations, among other terms that Nate describes as “beyond maximalist.” “The most likely negotiation outcome is an ambiguous version of the cease-fire continuing indefinitely, which, while unseemly, is better than the alternative,” he says.
The war’s legacy
- “If—and it’s a big if—this is the end of the Iran war, it is a stunning indictment for an ill-conceived, counter-productive conflict,” Nate tells us. “This war has no winners, only losers.”
- The United States will leave with “major damage to the global economy, strained partnerships with traditional allies in the Gulf and Europe (and maybe Israel now too), and potentially permanent damage to America’s reputation” given Trump’s apocalyptic threats in recent days, Nate argues.
- Meanwhile, “Iran sacrificed its relationships with Gulf neighbors, continues to rely on brute force to repress internal dissent, and continues to struggle to meet the long-standing demands of its people,” Nate tells us. “The regime might celebrate its survival, but its outlook is bleak.”
- “The United States and Israel demonstrated their superior military power and ability to inflict punishing damage to Iran’s military capabilities,” Victoria assesses. But “Iraqi militias, the Houthis, and even a weakened Hezbollah remain potent tools for the [Iranian] regime to use against the United States, Israel, and the region.”
- Ultimately, Victoria notes, “the cease-fire leaves many of the core dilemmas that existed prior to the war—such as Iran’s ballistic missiles and support to its proxies—unanswered. And it adds the new challenge of dealing with Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz,” a lever Iran will be “loath to give up and which is now likely to be one of the primary elements of Tehran’s deterrence.”
Further reading
Fri, Apr 3, 2026
Attacking Iran’s energy and water infrastructure is not a winning strategy
Dispatches By Thomas S. Warrick
The Iranian regime uses a peculiar sense of symmetry in how it conducts military campaigns that cuts against the proposed US plan.
Wed, Apr 8, 2026
Sanctions waivers on Russian and Iranian oil are set to expire. Here’s what Trump should do next.
Dispatches By Maia Nikoladze, Daniel Fried
Washington should rely on already established mechanisms to limit revenue flows to both Tehran and Moscow.
Thu, Apr 2, 2026
Iran-backed militias are destroying Iraq. Baghdad must take them on.
Dispatches By Victoria J. Taylor
Iraq cannot continue like this, with drones and rockets menacing the country, and militias assassinating and kidnapping activists and journalists.
Image: An F-35C Lightning II prepares to launch from the flight deck of Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in support of Operation Epic Fury on March 3, 2026. (US Navy photo)