Mar 30, 2026 16:28 pm IST

Opinion | Why This Is The Most 'Deceptive' Point Of The US-Iran War - Yet

Beneath the 'lull' you see today being packaged as a thaw, the war is expanding insidiously.

Syed Akbaruddin Syed Akbaruddin

A month into the war in West Asia, the crisis has entered its most deceptive phase. Talks are now visible. Peace is not. Every hint of talks briefly steadies markets, but the underlying crisis remains unchanged. Hormuz remains under pressure, Israel and Iran are still exchanging fire, and Washington is adding military weight even as it talks of negotiations. For India, this is now an inflation risk, a shipping risk, and a supply-chain risk.

This is not peace approaching. It is coercive bargaining under continuing fire. Every side is trying to improve its position before the next move. Three things matter now: the battlefield, the bargaining gap and the economic squeeze.

By the first two, peace remains distant. By the third, the cost of prolonging the war is becoming unmistakable, and the pressure for de-escalation is harder to ignore.

Start with the battlefield. On March 23, the United States postponed planned strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure for five days. On March 26, President Donald Trump extended that pause by another 10 days, until April 6. This was not a ceasefire. It paused one part of the war, not the war itself. It applied only to energy installations, not........

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