The War That’s Not Ending And Why It May Be Getting Worse

Four weeks in, a war of choice is expanding across the Gulf and compressing energy flows, exposing system fragility, and raising the risk of a deeper global shock.

Four weeks ago, the conflict with Iran was expected to be short-lived. On March 1, President Trump suggested the war would last “four weeks or so,” insisting it would not be difficult to sustain and bring to a close. It hasn’t been, and that gap between expectation and reality is now the story. What began as a war of choice, entered with the belief that it could be decisive and contained, has evolved into something far more complex and consequential. The assumption of a quick resolution has not just proven optimistic; it has been overtaken by events on the ground.

What we are now seeing is not simply a war continuing, but a war expanding: geographically, operationally, and economically. Iran’s response has not been confined to a single theater. It has been horizontal, layered across the Gulf, and now extending beyond it. The recent strike on Saudi Arabia’s Prince Sultan Air Base, reportedly wounding 12 American personnel, is one indication of that widening scope. The Houthis's entrance, launching missiles against Israel and signaling potential escalation in the Red Sea, is another. This is no longer a contained conflict centered on Iran. It is a multi-front disruption with implications that extend well beyond the region.

For weeks, the focus has rightly been on the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical energy chokepoint, where flows of oil, LNG, and critical products have been severely constrained. Iran has unequivocally demonstrated its ability to exert control over that artery. But what has limited even more severe damage is the availability of an alternative route. Saudi Arabia has been able to reroute crude westward across the kingdom and move it out through Red Sea ports, providing a critical release valve for a system under strain. That workaround has helped prevent an even sharper dislocation in global supply, but it is vulnerable. In 2023 and 2024, the Houthis demonstrated their ability to disrupt this corridor, throttling traffic through the Bab el-Mandeb and targeting commercial shipping in what became the most significant disruption to global trade since the pandemic. With renewed threats to Red Sea shipping, that fallback route is now at risk just as the primary one remains constrained.

If that happens, the primary maritime artery is restricted, and the secondary route is compromised. Fewer routes, longer distances, higher costs, and delayed deliveries across everything from crude to petrochemicals, fertilizers, and helium. It is a disruption cascading across interconnected supply chains, with consequences accelerating.

Brent closed Friday at $112.57 per barrel, with WTI at $99.64, both sharply higher on the week. But even at these levels, prices are almost certainly underpricing what comes next. Markets are still treating this as a disruption event when it is increasingly a duration event. When trading resumes, prices will have to absorb not just tighter supply, but the realization that shipments expected to arrive in April, the barrels already on the water meant to replenish inventories, are not arriving. This is a shift into structural scarcity.

The impacts are already being felt across economies, particularly those that are import-dependent and operating with little margin for error. In the United States, this shows up in gasoline prices. In much of Asia and across other import-dependent regions, it shows up in tighter supply, rising costs across entire value chains, and harder choices: rationing, subsidies, and slowed growth.

In places like Egypt, those pressures are already translating into policy and daily life. The government has moved to cut electricity use, including dimming street lighting, closing shops early, and delaying diesel-intensive projects as fuel costs surge and import bills climb sharply. This is what system stress looks like on the ground: not just higher prices, but forced adjustments to how economies function. And Egypt is not alone. Across Africa and Asia, more import-dependent countries are making similar trade-offs as the cost and availability of energy tighten.

Iran today is not a centralized actor making linear decisions. It is increasingly an IRGC-dominated network, with decentralized authority and multiple actors shaping outcomes across different fronts. Even after the decapitation of senior leadership, that system has not weakened as many expected. If anything, it has become more unpredictable. There are enough actors within that network, and some of them, motivated as much by retaliation as by strategy, are now influencing the direction of the conflict. That makes escalation less coordinated, but not less likely.

So how should we think about this moment? This is no longer a contained geopolitical event. The energy system is not just reacting to the conflict, but it is being reshaped by it in real time. Duration is now the critical variable. The longer this persists, the more likely it is that temporary disruptions become embedded structural changes, reshaping trade flows, pricing dynamics, and investment decisions. And the risk is layered. Hormuz remains effectively closed, and the Red Sea is now in play. Infrastructure has been targeted. Supply chains are under pressure.

What comes next is increasingly difficult to read, and that uncertainty is becoming part of the problem. Over the past several weeks, we’ve seen a pattern emerge: threats, followed by pauses; escalation signaled, then deferred. The on-again, off-again nature of U.S. posture has begun to dull the impact of those signals. Markets still respond, but less decisively, and it is far from clear that Tehran does.

Just over a week ago, President Trump’s threat was to target Iran’s power system, an action that would have had profound humanitarian consequences and likely triggered a broader and more dangerous Iranian response across the Gulf. In a region where energy and water systems are deeply intertwined, escalation doesn’t stay contained.

Now there is a new deadline, April 6, paired with a continued buildup of U.S. forces in the region. At the same time, negotiations are described as progressing while Tehran denies they are taking place at all. Proposals rejected, counterproposals offered, and no clear path forward. The signal is no longer coherent, and that lack of clarity feeds directly into markets, policy, and the system’s ability to respond.

It’s hard not to feel like something was missed. Whether it was insufficient scenario planning, overconfidence in military outcomes, or a failure to anticipate Iran’s willingness to escalate even at its own expense. Whatever the combination, we are now entering the second month of a conflict that was expected to be short. This is no longer a short conflict disrupting the energy system but a prolonged one reshaping it. And the longer it lasts, the harder and more costly it becomes to reverse.

Two Recommended Reads

Why the Iran War Makes Red Sea Shipping a Bigger Worry Veena Ali-Khan, Alex Longley, and Rakteem Katakey https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-27/why-the-iran-war-makes-red-sea-shipping-a-bigger-worry

Iran’s Power Structure Adapts to War. Soufan Group. https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2026-march-26/