Trump's latest on Truth Social:
Iran’s New Regime President, much less Radicalized and far more intelligent than his predecessors, has just asked the United States of America for a CEASEFIRE! We will consider when Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear. Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!! President DJT
To be clear, Masoud Pezeshkian was the President before the conflict and remains the President.
The kink here is that it's not clear that he's in charge or was ever in charge. The President in Iran is oftentimes a ceremonial figure who runs the civilian side of the government and needs permission from the Supreme Leader and the IRGC for policy. Lately, there are increasing signs of a fracture between the President and the IRGC.
To me, it looks like the strategy from Trump is to exploit this fracture to basically offer peace to Iranians via the Presidency and claiming that the IRGC is defying negotiations. That could prompt the kind of internal turmoil that could eventually lead to regime change, or at least to instability.
As for markets, there was a pop in equity futures initially but that's reversed. The problem here is that Hormuz seems to be back on the table as a negotiating issue when yesterday it looked like the US would just cut and run.
Meanwhile, Iran's parliamentary speaker continues to post about markets and insider trading/market manipulation.
