4/5 🧵 The author frames the crisis like an options contract: time value matters, then suddenly it collapses. Same with geopolitical standoffs. Early on, vague threats and strategic fog have juice. But eventually somebody has to negotiate, escalate for real, or admit they can’t control events. His point: Iran’s ambiguity strategy worked as theater, not as durable leverage.
He argues Trump holds the physical leverage while Iran has been reduced to propaganda leverage. In plain English: the U.S. controls the muscle around shipping lanes, while Iran tries to win the perception war with sporadic attacks, scary headlines, and uncertainty. The author treats recent incidents less like a coherent strategy and more like market-moving noise dressed up as grand geopolitics.