Five days

Trump announced a five-day moratorium on planned strikes against Iran's power plants and energy infrastructure. He said Iran "wants peace" and has agreed not to acquire nuclear weapons. He extended the deadline he had given Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, postponing the threat to hit power plants. He framed it as a gesture of goodwill while alleged talks proceed.

The IRGC responded that if power plants are attacked, it will strike Israel's power plants and those supplying electricity to US bases in the region. It is not an empty threat: Iran has already demonstrated the ability to hit energy infrastructure across Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain. The European Council urgently called for a moratorium on strikes against energy and water facilities.

The pause is revealing. If Trump has the advantage he claims, if Iran is as degraded as he says, he does not need to grant moratoriums. The pause suggests that someone in Washington calculated that destroying Iran's electrical grid, with everything that implies for the civilian population, hospitals, cold chains and basic infrastructure, would carry a political and humanitarian cost they are not willing to pay. Or that the threat of Iranian retaliation against Israel's grid and Gulf bases is credible. Probably both. Five days is not a horizon for peace. It is a clock that is ticking.