Welcome to the Euro Intelligence Podcast. I'm Wolfgang Munchau and with me, Azizana Munchank and Jack Smith.

This morning we will talk about Iran Donald Trump's retreat. He chakened out, or shall we call it a peace deal or an armistice.

The agreement was for a two-week ceasefire, but the world interpreted as Donald

Trump's big retreat. The oil price dropped significantly, markets recovered. The interpretation

was uniformly of the kind that Trump has chickened out and declared victory, and this is something that will yet to happen,

but there will be negotiations coming.

But this is already a good time to talk about

the broader ramifications, including for us Europeans here,

but for the global economy, for the Middle East,

this is a momentous occasion,

because the largest superpower has just basically lost a war against a mid-ranking country.

This is unprecedented.

I mean, this is in many ways worse than what happened in Iraq, worse than what happened in Vietnam.

What it will do, Donald Trump, is almost a secondary issue, but it will affect the rest of us in very profound ways. Jack, where

are we this morning? As it stands right now, of course, we're going to have to see if the ceasefire

holds, and that depends on a few different factors that we can go into in a bit more detail later.

But, I mean, where we are, I think you gave a pretty good prescy of this, right? That the Iranian regime has come out of this not only intact and surviving and, you know, keep in mind that an initial aim of this was to install some sort of other government or regime in Iran that was favorable to the U.S. That hasn't happened. The regime there is very much intact and perhaps even in

boldom, but also they're in a relative position of strength, right? Because I mean, effectively

what they've done is they've cemented their de facto control over one of the world's most

important shipping lanes, the strait of Hormuz. The question of whether Iran will close the

strait of Hormuz, whether they even could, what the fallout would be, it was a will they or won't they question before this war began.

Of course, the answer was will they?

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