Let’s talk about the war in the Middle East today. I raise my likelihood of the ceasefire holding to 60%. Yesterday, I briefly dropped it to 45% due to the actions of the U.S., which I’ll explain below.
The main reason for me to increase the likelihood now is that we are now closing in on a memorandum that is likely to be acceptable to both sides. Through Kobeissi Letter:
Iranian accounts report other conditions, like partial freeing of the sanctioned Iranian funds and the sale of Iranian oil and gas.
It has been my general thinking, with the short exception yesterday, that under all the “yelling and bullying” by President Trump, an understanding of an agreement has been building. This has led me to gradually increase my likelihood of the ceasefire holding since April 24.
To note, without the Israeli influence, the likelihood would be in the vicinity of 80%. We still need to be prepared for the derailing of the peace process through, e.g., a false flag attack by Israel.
The other thing that made me raise my likelihood was the piece of information I received concerning the announcement of “Project Freedom 2” yesterday followed by a revocation by the U.S. Central Command just four hours later. Based on the information I received, this was linked to the fate of a Greek tanker.
