Trita Parsi tracks this war through sources on the Iranian side, and what he's hearing changes the picture in three ways.
First, the Ukraine episode isn't over.
The calm is tactical, a response postponed rather than cancelled, saved for a quieter moment so it can't be used to weld the two wars into one.
Second, Iran has switched roles.
For months it only answered American attacks; now it strikes first, deliberately and visibly, from the Jordan salvo to the ships hit in an Egyptian port that much of the region reads as Tehran's work.
The purpose behind all of it is aimed at one man:
"He doesn't have escalation dominance. He actually doesn't even have any good military options."
Tehran keeps raising the pressure until Trump faces the choice he's dodged all war, full-scale conflict or full-scale diplomacy, with the comfortable middle burned away.
And third, the map is moving.
Iran's Hormuz position has hardened into a simple formula, territorial waters or no seat, meaning Iran and Oman manage the strait and nobody else.
Meanwhile the new Saudi-led maritime alliance, Pakistan and Turkey backing it while the UAE and Oman stay out, reads to him less like a war pact than a region learning to balance Iran, and even Israel, without America in the middle.
His forecast is weeks more of this, with the odds of a full regional blowup still under 50 PERCENT.
The door to diplomacy isn't closed, he says, just invisible in the fog.
@tparsi
