March, 16: War is Peace
And $93 oil is $140.
What came before:
Treasury Secretary Bessent went on television Monday and announced that the United States is “allowing” Iranian oil tankers to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. “The Iranian ships have been getting out already, and we’ve let that happen to supply the rest of the world”.
Iran has been controlling who enters and exits that waterway since day 5. Chinese tankers have sailed freely since day 1.
A Pakistani Aframax called the Karachi just carried Abu Dhabi crude through the Strait, paid for in yuan, on Iran’s terms, with Iran’s public thanks. The US didn’t allow anything. Iran allowed the Karachi. The US watched.
The markets didn’t care about the truth. Oil crashed 8% in 12 hours. WTI fell from $99 to $92. Brent dropped below $97. The machines read the headline, did what machines do, and moved the number. Problem solved.
War’s over. Bessent said so.
Meanwhile, in the physical world where actual barrels move on actual ships, Singapore fuel oil hit a record $140 per barrel. Up 146% since the war started. Kuwait’s oil output was halved - 1.3 million barrels a day, down from 2.6 million in February. UAE production fell to 2 million from 3.56 million. These aren’t simple export disruptions anymore. This is a full blown production collapse. Countries that can’t ship are running out of room to store what they pump.
Pre-war Hormuz flow: 20 million barrels per day. Current: roughly 6.7 million. Iran exporting 1.2 million. UAE pushing 1 million through Fujairah. Saudi Arabia rerouting 4 million through Yanbu on the Red Sea. Everyone else - scraps.
Except Fujairah got hit. Again. Its pumping equipment was targeted. The port that was supposed to bypass the Strait is offline. The bypass needs a bypass now.
The WTI futures market appears to have concluded the Iran war ended yesterday while forgetting to inform the refined product market, which continues to tighten. And the real achievement of all this jawboning is a delay in the production response the world actually needs to offset the shortfall.
Paper says peace. Physical says war.
The USS Abraham Lincoln, the most powerful aircraft carrier in the US Navy’s fleet, has retreated to a position 1,100 kilometres from Iran. Chinese satellites confirmed it sheltering near Salalah, Oman, tucked behind coastal mountain ranges.
Nothing says winning like playing hide-and-seek.
CENTCOM: “We have successfully destroyed over 100 Iranian naval vessels, and we aren’t done”. 100 boats. Hint dude: the boats were never the problem. Iran’s navy was always irrelevant - the fight was always missiles, drones, and coastal defence. Destroying 100 small craft doesn’t open the Strait. It’s like announcing you’ve won the chess match because you captured all the pawns while the queen is still staring at your king.
Trump told reporters the US has struck 7,000 targets across Iran, achieving a “95% reduction in drone attacks”. He also declared that footage of burning ships and downed aircraft was “AI-generated”.
IRGC didn’t care that they lost it seems… Wave 55 of True Promise launched the same afternoon. Who would have thought that…
Trump had asked every NATO ally to send warships to the Strait of Hormuz yesterday. Japan, France, Germany, Switzerland. Today the list grew longer.
Australia said no. Germany’s Chancellor Merz made it official: “What does Trump expect from European frigates that the powerful American Navy cannot manage alone? It is not our war”. Estonia - Estonia! - wants Article 5 invoked first. Canada won’t participate in offensive operations. South Korea will “think about it”, which is diplomatic speak for no.
Every ally. Every single one.
Trump’s response evolved through the day. First he threatened NATO with a “very bad future”. Then he demanded countries come “protect their own territory, because it is their territory”. Then, in a moment of clarity: “Maybe we shouldn’t even be there at all. We have a lot of oil”.
From unconditional surrender to maybe-we-shouldn’t-be-there in 16 days. Better late than never I guess?
Newt Gingrich suggested solving the Hormuz problem with “12 thermonuclear explosions” to dig an alternative passage through “friendly territory”. Extra credits for creative use of nukes I’d give him that!
Israel launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon.
That has been coming since day 1. The IDF’s 91st Galilee Division crossed at multiple points on Monday morning. The military command requested mobilisation of 450,000 reservists. That is not a border incursion. That is the 1982 invasion force. “Limited operation” is doing the same heavy lifting as “not combat-related” a week ago.
Hezbollah answered before the boots were muddy. Rockets bypassed the Iron Sieve and struck Nahariya.
An Almas anti-tank guided missile - the reverse-engineered Israeli Spike system that Hezbollah captured in 2006 - killed a Merkava tank crew near Markaba. The IDF’s own technology, rebuilt by its enemy, fired back across the same border. 20 years of symmetry in a single warhead.
The ground invasion opened at breakfast. Peace feelers to Lebanese factions “open to engagement” went out at lunch. I don’t have to guess how things are devolving. Israel doesn’t “talk” unless it is an unmitigated disaster.
Wave 55 of True Promise 4 landed with 357 alerts in a single salvo. Submunitions struck Lod and Shoham - essentially all impacts clustered around Ben Gurion Airport. The airport has been closed for 16 days. Economic starvation I’d assume.
A ballistic missile was fired at Jerusalem during a live Knesset session. Members fled on camera.
A separate missile targeted Haifa - intercepted, but the interception occurred before the missile arrived at its calculated impact point. The timing margin is shrinking.
An Israeli army officer: “We have over 1,300 casualties. One of us dies every 5 minutes”. Single source. Unverified. But the official count remains 13. After 16 days. 2 fronts. Continuous bombardment. Cluster munitions over Tel Aviv. Ballistic missiles arriving without warning.
Thirteen.
Netanyahu is alive! Walking among tourists this time. Looking relaxed. Sipping something. Normal day at the office.
The footage was identified within hours as recycled material from January 12, 2021 and March 21, 2024. The official Israeli government account posted it. His ring disappears at the 29-second mark. Grant Williams offered the definitive summary: “So, am I right in thinking that some of the few things we DO know is that both Netanyahu and Khomeini are DEFINITELY alive, like coffee, and have 5 fingers on each hand?”
So my guess: not alive anymore?
Still absent from security briefings, definitely a red herring. Still absent from the military council, Netanyahu missing his favourite land-grab report? Impossible.
Ibrahim Karagul - Yeni Safak columnist and adviser to Erdogan - went further than anyone has in print: “If his death is real, the collapse of Israel has begun. This racial state can no longer survive in these lands. No country, including the US, will carry such a burden anymore”. He also published that the IRGC struck 10 residences where Israeli officials were located - 7 in Tel Aviv, 2 in Rishon LeZion, 1 in Shoham. Khorramshahr, Kheibarshekan, Fattah, Emad, and Qadr missiles. If any of those addresses had who the IRGC thinks they had, the proof-of-life videos make a lot more sense.
On the other side, the Supreme Leader nobody has seen appointed Mohsen Rezaee as his military adviser. Former IRGC commander, ran for president multiple times. 1st governance action from the invisible leader. Building a war cabinet from the shadows.
2 leaders. Both possibly dead. Both running a war.
The US is evacuating 10,000 citizens from Israel. Yup, everything’s going swimmingly.
Tehran is still being bombed. 30 explosions in an hour on Sunday night. New IDF strikes across Tehran, Shiraz, Tabriz, and Hamadan. The air campaign is grinding into its 3rd week.
Iran’s Red Crescent is pulling bodies from rubble. Over 15,000 wounded flooding hospitals. 3 million displaced. The internet is still dark.
Iran’s Foreign Minister: “We never asked for a ceasefire and will continue the resistance”.
Hegseth: “The war in Iran is protected by God”.
Pope Leo XIV: “Do not involve the name of God in choices of death. God cannot be enlisted in darkness”.
The Pope wins this round?
Dubai International Airport took a drone strike on the fuel depot. Fire at Terminal 3. British Airways, Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian, Air France, KLM, Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines, Finnair, Virgin Atlantic - all suspended Dubai flights. Emirates rerouted. The busiest international airport in the world, and every non-Emirati carrier pulled out in 1 morning.
A drone hit a building in Umm Al Quwain. 3rd UAE emirate targeted. Saudi Arabia intercepted 13 drones over Al Kharj, where Prince Sultan Air Base sits. The Saudis are publicly calling for restraint while privately telling Trump to “hit Iran harder”, per the New York Times. MBS is rerouting his entire oil economy through Yanbu while his airspace absorbs Iranian ordnance. Public restraint, private escalation. Doublespeak.
China sent 26 military aircraft around Taiwan the same day, 16 entering the air defence identification zone, with 7 naval vessels.
Same day the Marines deployed to the Gulf.
Taiwan is running out of power in 10 days - it decommissioned its last nuclear plants and replaced them with LNG. LNG that transits through a strait that doesn’t exist for most of the world’s shipping right now.
Go Green Taiwan! 🤦♂️
Fertiliser prices hit their highest since October 2022. Up 35% year-on-year. A third of global fertiliser supply passes through Hormuz. Food price inflation is now baked in regardless of whether the war ends tomorrow.
US gold reserves now represent just 3% of federal debt. Record low. Despite holding 8,133 tons - the world’s largest stockpile - the debt dwarfs it. The reserve currency is exporting gold as its top category for 3 of the last 4 months. We know what it means.
Gold touched $4,971 intraday before recovering to around $5,025. Silver slammed to $78.50 before bouncing back near $80. Shanghai silver opened at $91.51 - a premium of $12 over COMEX. The premium still persists.
2,056 gold delivery notices hit COMEX on Friday. Morgan Stanley issued 464. RBC issued 891. On the silver side, Citigroup’s own house account issued 802 delivery notices - Citi is the short being forced to deliver physical metal. Possibly the last bullion bank standing on that side of the trade.
The London Metal Exchange suspended trading in key contracts. Again. Confidence in the metals markets is collapsing faster than the metals themselves.
The Fed meets Wednesday. 4 major central banks - Fed, ECB, BoJ, BoE - all deciding in the same week. JPMorgan’s trading desk gives it 50% odds of ceasefire by May. Goldman puts the S&P at 5,400 in a severe oil shock scenario. Empire Fed manufacturing came in at minus 0.2 versus an expected 3.9.
Retail investors piled into oil ETFs at a record $211 million in trailing 1-month purchases. 3 times the May 2020 peak. Everyone is on the same side of the boat. I’m out by the way.
The private credit train crash continues. Slow motion. Real painful.
A note from me
I need to be honest with you.
This detailed war reporting is killing me. Not the subject matter - though that’s heavy enough - but the process. Every article takes around 6 to 8 hours of cross-referencing, deduplication, source verification, reading through thousands of tweets, checking what’s new versus what’s recycled, making sure I’m not repeating myself from yesterday or the day before. Then editing it. Then editing it again because the first version sounded like a wire service and not like me.
I’ve done 16 of these in a row. I’m burning out.
And the war itself is entering a grinding phase. Wave 54, wave 55, wave 56. Iran hits something. Israel hits back. Another base damaged. Another tanker struck. Another NATO ally says no. The pattern is set. The details change but the shape doesn’t. I’m spending hours every day documenting variations of the same story, and I can feel the quality slipping because my brain is running on fumes.
So here’s what I’m going to do.
I’m going back to what I do best: the markets. And they are getting very interesting right now. The LME is suspending contracts. COMEX is seeing delivery volumes that don’t make sense in a normal world. The physical-paper spread in oil is wider than anything I’ve tracked. Private credit is gating. The Fed meets this week alongside the ECB, BoJ, and BoE - all 4 in the same week. Silver’s uptrend channel is in peril.
That is where I add true value. That is the stuff I am actually pretty good at.
I know a lot of you came here for the war coverage, and I don’t want to leave you hanging. So I’m thinking of 2 options:
Option 1: The daily digest. I publish an automated daily report here: link. No editing, no double-checking claims, no voice. It drops around the same time every day. It’s a summary of what’s in my newsfeed - think of it as the briefing I use to write the articles, minus the human filter. It’ll give you a quick glance at what happened. It is not these articles, not as detailed. But it exists. Running for 55 days, and running pretty smooth if I say so myself.
Option 2: I try to automate the full report. I could build something that produces a more structured daily piece using AI. But I’ll be blunt: the error rate will be high. AI tools hallucinate URLs, they can’t distinguish obvious fake from real pictures/videos, they fabricate specific numbers, confuse yesterday’s events with today’s, and miss context that only a human following the thread for 16 days would catch. I am not comfortable putting that out under my name without the editing pass that’s currently destroying me. When the details matter - and in a war, they always matter - automation is a liability, not a solution. Don’t ask AI to fact-check. They’re dumb tools. Useful dumb tools, but dumb.
Option 3: no clue: please respond in the comment section if you have another idea.
So for now: the daily digest is there, and it stays. I will slow down these detailed war articles. When something truly important happens, I’ll report on it. The market coverage and analyses will make a comeback.
One more thing, and I’ll keep this short because I hate selling things. A lot of people started reaching out personally asking for financial advice, which is eating up more of my time. So I’m adding a paid tier. It’ll be simple: live trades, nothing else. When I put on a position, you’ll see it. When I close it, you’ll see that too. No fluff, no vague “I’m watching this level” teasing - just the trade and a short writeup explaining why I pulled the trigger. No magic formula, no promises of 400% returns. Just what I’m actually doing with my own money.
It’s not live yet. Coming soon. I’ll let you know when it’s ready.
The war isn’t going anywhere. If one thing: I think it’ll be here for longer than any of us suspect. If something truly shifts the picture - Hormuz opens, a ceasefire lands, someone uses something nuclear, Netanyahu is truly dead and Israel capitulates, Yemen finally declares Zero Hour - I’ll write about it. Because it IS important. But “wave 57 hit a base and oil moved $2” is not worth 8 hours of my life anymore.
I love you all, thanks for being here, and above all: thank you for the messages! I read all of them, even when I don’t reply.
No1
What you're doing is so, so very valuable. I used to be a wire service reporter and covere multiple wars out of Mexico City and London in the eighties and nineties. You are doing the enture thing yourself. No stringers, no editors. No time off. You will burn out. Stick to the marker reports and the highlights of the war. we don't need to know every missile strike and every caualty count. The big stories not getting covered in the msm. Netanyahu or Khameini alive or dead. Movements of aircraft carriers. Obvious big counterfactuals. Thanks so much and take care of yourself.
Best coverage in all substack.
I miss you already.