The 60-day Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding between the US and Iran has expired without extension or successor, with both sides treating the deadline as moot while Hormuz transits drop sharply and oil prices rise.

The deal contained built-in weaknesses (unresolved shipping routes, no Israeli ceasefire coverage, unfunded reconstruction promises) that allowed rapid return to confrontation, while Washington used the period to intensify economic isolation and a port blockade.

Iran has hardened its posture with threats of “strategic surprises,” and the wider cost is being felt in higher energy prices across Asia and Africa, while China continues to position itself as a more consistent advocate for resumed negotiations.

Five vessels transited the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday. None did on Sunday. The weekend before, thirty-one did. Weekly transits through the strait are down 19.5 percent from two weeks ago. Brent crude has climbed to $91.14 a barrel, its highest since July 30. That is what a diplomatic deadline looks like when nobody actually meant to keep it.

The sixty-day window under the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, signed by Presidents Trump and Pezeshkian on June 17 and brokered by Pakistan, lapsed Monday with no extension and no successor. Iran’s foreign ministry called the deadline “entirely moot.” Washington did not bother to dispute that. President Trump told reporters he has “no time schedule” for resolving anything, and in the same week threatened to strike Oman if Muscat “gets in the way” of reopening the strait it borders. That is not the language of a government mourning a lost peace process.

The conventional read is that this was a good-faith framework that collapsed under pressure from hardliners on both........

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