The Losers And Winners In This Round Of The Third Gulf War

THE BRIEFING 

Here’s what’s happening in geopolitics today.

A tentative pause but plenty still in motion: the U.S. and Iran have agreed to a fragile two-week ceasefire, though Israel is drawing its own lines and operations tied to Lebanon continue.

Diplomacy is kicking into gear with Keir Starmer heading to the Gulf, while China re-engages North Korea and NATO tensions flare as Trump meets alliance chief Mark Rutte.

Today we do a special edition breakdown of the winners and losers of this round of the war so far — regardless of whether this ceasefire lasts or not.

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THE LAST 24 HOURS IN GEOPOLITICS 

1. Trump suspends US attacks, Tehran agrees to two-week ceasefire
The United States and Iran have agreed to a temporary two-week ceasefire, with Donald Trump ordering a suspension of U.S. strikes just hours before a planned escalation. The truce is conditional on Iran reopening the Strait of Hormuz and ensuring safe passage for global shipping, a key sticking point throughout the conflict. While both sides have signalled willingness to negotiate toward a longer-term agreement, officials stress the ceasefire is fragile and does not mark a definitive end to the war.
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2. Israel backs Trump’s Iran strike pause but claims ceasefire excludes Lebanon
Israel has backed Trump’s decision to pause strikes on Iran for two weeks, calling it an opportunity to reduce tensions and advance negotiations. However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made clear the ceasefire does not apply to Lebanon, signalling that military operations against Hezbollah will continue despite the broader truce.
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3. Keir Starmer heads to Gulf after US and Iran agree two-week ceasefire
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is travelling to the Gulf to meet regional leaders following the newly agreed two-week ceasefire between the United States and Iran. The visit will focus on supporting and sustaining the truce, with discussions centred on turning it into a longer-term agreement and ensuring the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, a key global energy route. The trip had been planned prior to the ceasefire but now takes on added significance as Britain pushes a diplomatic approach to stabilise the region and protect global trade flows.
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4. China’s top envoy to visit North Korea for first time since 2019
China’s top diplomat Wang Yi is set to visit North Korea on April 9–10, marking his first trip to Pyongyang since 2019 as Beijing looks to strengthen ties with its neighbour. The visit comes as both countries seek to revive diplomatic engagement after years of limited contact during the COVID-19 pandemic and amid North Korea’s growing links with Russia. Officials say the talks will focus on boosting strategic communication and cooperation, with the trip also drawing attention given its timing ahead of broader geopolitical developments involving the U.S. and the region.
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5. NATO chief heads to Washington as Trump 2.0 flames the alliance
Trump met NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in Washington as the ongoing Iran war continues to strain relations within the alliance. The talks come amid growing tensions, with Trump criticising European allies for not supporting U.S. operations and even raising the possibility of scaling back America’s role in NATO. Rutte’s visit is aimed at easing divisions and reinforcing cooperation, particularly around security, defence spending and protecting key shipping routes like the Strait of Hormuz.
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GLOBAL CONFLICT TRACKER

My Comments Overall 
My first thoughts on the ceasefire agreement? Was I surprised? Yes. Trumpian politics are notoriously difficult to read, often appearing ad hoc, deliberate, and random all at once. This agreement came out of left field for many analysts and those close to the parties in the conflict – regardless of what Trump may have been saying about negotiations proceeding well.

Why? Well, for the most part, Iran controlled the escalation and economic leverage with their gatekeeping of the Strait of Hormuz. Despite thousands of sorties, the alliance was unable to stop Iran from firing consistent salvos at vulnerable economic and military targets. But what I did say was that if anything was to bring Iran to the negotiation table, it would be strikes on civilian and economic infrastructure, not strikes on the military – and this was exactly the strategic shift we saw in the alliance bombing campaign over the last two weeks. Iran's economy was already in an extremely difficult and strained position before the war; after this, it will be in tatters. Just hours before the ceasefire, alliance airstrikes hit the largest aluminium facility in Iran.
All in all, Iran has won this round of the conflict. The question remains (and this will be a very specific reference, but those who get it will appreciate it) whether Iran is Croatia in the 2018 World Cup – winning every game but expending too much energy that it ruins their finals game.

LOSER: Israel
Israel banked everything on this being the moment. The defining blow. Decades of Netanyahu warning the world about Iran, the countdown clock in Tehran, the nuclear shadow,  and this was supposed to be the reckoning. A quick look at Israeli X right now tells you everything you need to know about the national mood. It is not celebratory.

Why? Because the two primary objectives (regime change and the balkanisation of Iran) have not happened. The regime appears to have a firm hold on power. And perhaps most embarrassingly, Netanyahu's pitch for regime change was reportedly described by the CIA chief as "farcical" and by Secretary of State Rubio as "bullshit" — before the war had even begun. His own allies thought it was fantasy.

At home, confidence in Israel's ability to seriously damage Iran's nuclear program has slipped from 62% to 48%, and the IDF Chief of Staff has warned the cabinet that the army risks collapse without urgent conscription legislation. Most importantly, citizens have endured daily missile strikes and bunker rotations for over a month and serious questions are already being asked what was all the fear, death and destruction for? Especially, when you consider that Israel seems to have been completely left out of any direct negotiations.

And then there's Lebanon. The war has already killed more than 1,400 militants and civilians combined and displaced nearly a million people. Netanyahu's own opposition leader put it bluntly: "Bibi led Israel into a super-justified war, but with his great skill, he turned it into one whose essence many do not understand, or its purpose, and exactly how he plans to end it." 

WINNER: Iran — Pyrrhic or Decisive? 
The regime stands. That is the headline. Everything else is secondary. Iran's Supreme National Security Council declared that "nearly all the objectives of the war have been achieved" No major uprisings materialised. The hardliners consolidated. And critically, the Strait of Hormuz (the single most important piece of economic leverage on the planet) remains firmly in Iran's orbit.

The endurance campaign worked. Wave after wave, Iran responded not with the massive missile salvos of 2024 and 2025 but with smaller barrages aimed at a far wider set of targets spreading fear and attrition across the entire region. Tehran proved it could absorb the most technologically advanced air campaign in modern history and keep firing.

The cost, though, is severe and could prove fatal. Iranian infrastructure has been systematically targeted with civilian and economic sites the clear priority in the final weeks. The strategic logic was deliberate: not just to degrade the military, but to ensure recovery is generationally difficult. Iran can rebuild its missile and weapons programs (it has enough human capital) but this will take time and money. It's one thing to keep the missiles flying, It's another to convince your population you can govern and rebuild after your factories and facilities are all but rubble. That is the real test still to come.

LOSER: USA / Trump
Trump was sold a bill of goods. It was Netanyahu that allegedly called Trump to tell him essentially “We know where he is, we have this moment to end the regime, we need to act now”. Yet any conflict was seen as unpopular even before it began – to ensure no political backblast in case of failures (bases being hit, dead U.S. soldiers, lost equipment) we saw the largest US military build-up since 2003.

sorties were flown, targets were hit. And yet Iran's conditions for the ceasefire include lifting all sanctions, releasing frozen assets, compensation through estimated reparations, withdrawal of US combat forces from the region, and the right to nuclear enrichment. That is not the posture of a defeated state.

No regime change. No popular uprising. No nuclear deal on Washington's terms. The Strait of Hormuz still under Tehran's influence — indeed, Iran has been running what amounts to a toll booth at the Strait, charging fees in the Yuan, a giant slap to America’s hegemony. The military objectives were accomplished. The political ones were not. And while the offensive power was there, the defence doctrine got exposed — THAAD systems and radar installations were struck early as interceptor stockpiles were increasingly strained, and there was no effective answer for the sheer volume and geographic spread of drone attacks. The most expensive military in human history could not find a clean answer for a $20,000 Shahed drone. Even after having the most obvious Eastern European case-study to use…

An interesting (and likely) take comes from Ryan Grim (Drop Site), who argues that Trump may have effectively repackaged Iran’s existing ten-point framework as a “new” proposal. The logic here is simple: because much of Iran’s actual demands weren’t widely reported or understood in mainstream coverage, presenting them as a fresh concession creates the perception that Tehran suddenly shifted under pressure. And compound this with the cinematic timing of the big countdown to “civilisational annihilation” type-strikes and just hours before a deal is reached.

WINNER: China
As the old meme goes for China, “Do Nothing, Win.” – Beijing did not fire a single shot and it didn't need to. While the world was watching missiles arc across the Gulf, China was quietly repositioning the global financial architecture. Commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz have been charged transit fees in Chinese yuan, a seemingly technical detail that carries enormous strategic weight. Since the war began, Iran exported at least 11.7 million barrels of crude through the strait, all directed to China. Essentially China's tankers moved freely, everyone else anchored and waited.

The architecture for a parallel yuan-denominated energy corridor now exists and is already operating. Selective passage is already the reality. A Deutsche Bank assessment described this conflict as a direct test of petrodollar supremacy, a system that has underwritten American global power since 1974.

And beyond the financial dimension, China has been taking meticulous notes. Drone swarms, layered air defence failures, the vulnerability of THAAD systems, the precision economics of exhausting interceptor stockpiles — all of it observed, studied, and filed. China has close ties to Iran's military-industrial complex, including radar systems. What happens next in the Taiwan Strait will be shaped, in part, by what happened over the skies of Abu Dhabi and Tehran.

LOSER: Gulf States
The Gulf has emerged from this conflict with a brutal lesson: decades of expensive military hardware and zero capacity to respond to an existential threat on their own doorstep. For the first time in history, Iran attacked all six GCC countries simultaneously, hitting energy infrastructure, civilian airports, and luxury districts that form the centrepiece of their post-oil economic ambitions. Ras Tanura in Saudi Arabia, Ruwais and Shah in the UAE, Ras Laffan in Qatar, and the Bapco facility in Bahrain — all struck, all disrupted. The paradise that tech nomads, tourists, and global capital called their safe haven was anything but. As they say don’t throw stones from a glass house, even if it has THAAD batteries. 

The political fragmentation was equally telling. Qatar quietly repositioned itself toward Iran throughout the conflict. Oman's Foreign Minister actively called for the earliest possible end to hostilities, breaking from the Gulf consensus. The UAE allegedly floated nuclear options. Saudi Arabia — with one of the most well-funded military establishments in the world — was conspicuously absent from any offensive posture. Major airlines including Lufthansa, British Airways, KLM and Singapore Airlines suspended Gulf routes, with no restoration in sight through May. The reputation damage to the region's tourism and investment model will take years to repair.

WINNER: The Middle Powers
Like we have discussed for over a year now, the unipolar world is coming to an end and in the ashes rises the multipolar era. This is where the world changed Not in the bombed-out facilities of Tehran or the bunkers of Tel Aviv, but in the quiet bilateral deals stitched together by countries that saw their moment and took it. 

Pakistan was the architect of the ceasefire itself. Iran's proposal (delivered to the United States via Pakistan) laid out the terms of the eventual agreement. Islamabad hosted negotiations, mediated communications, and brokered arrangements allowing Pakistani-flagged vessels to transit the Strait, becoming a crucial logistical lifeline when the world's oil supply was effectively frozen.

Then there's Zelensky, arguably the most impressive diplomatic performance of the entire conflict. The only major leader to tour the region during active fighting, Zelenskyy made high-level stops in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar, positioning Ukraine as a key partner for regional drone defence and signing 10-year strategic defence agreements covering joint production, technology transfer, and coproduction facilities. Ironically Ukraine turned its most painful lesson (four years under Iranian Shahed-style drones) into its most valuable export.

We also have to consider individual European powers, like France, taking the reigns of regional security. And, the global pushback to Trump’s call for a global effort to reopen the Strait.

Notable Mentions: The Houthis played it remarkably well, relatively untouched, strategically restrained, and still sitting on the Red Sea with a chip that hasn't been played. The Kurds, in Trump's own words, took the guns and did nothing — a historically rational decision given how that relationship tends to end for them. And the Iraqi PMF kept the northern border simmering just enough to complicate any clean ground logistics if a Kurdish ground operation happened, without ever fully committing. Russia also deserves a mention as a minor winner. Proving that when push comes to shove, politics and ethics goes out the window to ensure resources are held. But, this can largely be seen as a minor win given its effective until global supply returns to “normal” — if it ever does.

Sources available upon request

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TODAY IN HISTORY

(April 8, 1820): The Venus de Milo is found

The Venus de Milo, one of the most famous ancient statues in the world, was found in pieces on this day in 1820 on the Aegean island of Melos. Those bits were collected and shipped to France, presented to King Louis XVIII, reconstructed, and put on display in the Louvre. The statue is commonly thought to represent Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of sexual love and beauty, though some have suggested it's the sea goddess Amphitrite. The arms have never been found.