US President Donald Trump has ushered in an uneasy peace in West Asia | Photo Credit: ISABEL INFANTES

There’s a new theory doing the rounds. US President Donald Trump wanted to give himself the ultimate 80th birthday present by announcing “a great peace deal” with Iran was ready to be signed. He downplayed the minor detail there are still 60 days of negotiations ahead on all the most contentious issues.

Even as talk of peace gathers momentum, it’s hard to see much evidence of it on the ground. In Gaza, the bombardment and shootings continue. Ultra-right Jewish settlers are still destroying Palestinian homes in the occupied territories. Israel shows no sign of withdrawing from the large swathes of southern Lebanon it seized. Lebanon, itself, once the commercial jewel of the Middle East, remains trapped in a cycle of unending conflict.

And how was Trump celebrating amid all this turmoil? By hosting a series of Ultimate Fighting Championship bouts on the White House lawns. For sheer crassness, the spectacle’s hard to beat. Then again, nobody ever accused Trump of being an arbiter of good taste.

Trump may be hoping to declare victory and move on. The problem is that even if a peace agreement is signed, the world cannot simply return to where it stood when the US and Israel unleashed their war on Iran. The war’s changed too much.

Hormuz relief

Iran has reportedly agreed to reopen the key Strait of Hormuz. In return, the US is expected to end its naval blockade of ships leaving Iranian ports or carrying Iranian crude.

For India, Europe and much of Asia, that matters enormously. The conflict exposed once again just how vulnerable the global economy remains to disruption in the Gulf. Iran has demonstrated that it can disrupt shipping whenever it chooses.

How this bare-bones peace deal unfolds remains anyone’s guess. Will Hormuz reopen immediately? Will billions of dollars in frozen Iranian funds be released? Will Washington help finance Iran’s reconstruction?

And then there’s the biggest question of all: what happens to Iran’s nuclear programme and uranium enrichment activities? There’s plenty that could still go wrong.

If the US is lucky, the final agreement may end up looking remarkably similar to the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated by Barack Obama, which Trump jettisoned. But nobody really knows where the negotiations will end and how.

One likely winner, though, is Pakistan. Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif says the agreement will be signed in Switzerland, possibly Friday. For years, Pakistan’s reputation has been tarnished by its Taliban links and the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Its role in facilitating an Iran deal puts Islamabad back in the diplomatic mainstream.

Indian policymakers may publicly dismiss Pakistan’s rehabilitated profile, but privately they’re unlikely to be delighted.

India and Pakistan have lacked full diplomatic relations for seven years. Within sections of the RSS there have occasionally been suggestions this frozen relationship cannot continue indefinitely. The government may privately agree. The difficulty lies in finding a way to soften its position without appearing to retreat.

Israel factor

Even if an Iran deal is signed, making it stick will be extraordinarily difficult. Israel’s likely to resist any settlement that can be portrayed as a defeat of the objectives.

Israel appears to have miscalculated that, with American support, Iran could be brought to its knees and that ordinary Iranians would rise up against their rulers. But Iran is a nation of 93 million people with defined borders, a strategic location and a history stretching back thousands of years to the ancient Persian Empire. Tehran has emerged bruised but still standing.

Perhaps Israel and the US convinced themselves that Iran would follow the same path as so many countries that have been destabilised over the past quarter century.

The implications extend far beyond Tehran. For decades the US presented itself as the guarantor of free navigation and stability in the Gulf. Yet despite its overwhelming military superiority, it failed to prevent disruption to shipping and energy supplies.

Countries across Asia and Europe now are accelerating efforts to reduce their dependence on Middle Eastern energy, investing heavily in renewables, nuclear power and alternative supply chains.

For India, the stakes could hardly be higher. West Asia is home to millions of Indian workers. It is a vital export market and a crucial source of crude oil, LNG and fertilizers. Even with a peace deal, Trump cannot turn back the clock to the world that existed before the war began.

Published on June 17, 2026