Five months on from the beginning of a war over the assassination of Iran's supreme leader and the war's conclusion, for all intents and purposes, of a fifth of the world's oil, the Strait of Hormuz is still not fully open and the latest spate of 'breakthroughs' to be treated as more seriously than they're getting in the headlines.

Tehran and Muscat said they reached an agreement on the coordinates of a new shipping corridor in the strait, while Donald Trump told Fox News that the waterway will reopen "soon" if they do not. It's a type of statement Trump has made in the past in April, June, and once again in July which have all been followed by a new flare-up instead of a settlement. Iran, in turn, has been careful to say almost the opposite of what Washington says. Its deputy foreign minister (DFM) explained that there isn't even any direct negotiation with the United States, but with Oman regarding a route that Iran will continue to police. One of Iran's top military advisers on state television went even further, saying any ship other than one approved on Iran's own path will be seen as a target. That's not the language of a country giving its chokepoint. It's the language of a nation that thinks it still has the upper hand, and is taking the terms of its surrender on paper only.

This is the actual contradiction. A "deal" is floated, ceasefires are declared, memoranda are signed on Islamabad and Washington, and once, it was even summed up at a birthday party at the White House and each time, the real question of who controls maritime traffic in Hormuz comes back to the surface of the water within days. The US naval blockade of Iranian ports, which was reimposed last month following a failed truce, has so far stopped over 40 commercial vessels. Houthi-Pakistan tanker attacks are ongoing against Gulf producers' assets. All of this is not the stuff of normalcy, so far as parties are concerned.

With that sort of uncertainty, the cost to the economy has been enormous, and should be expressed in some number, not some abstraction. Before the war, the price of Brent crude hovered around $44 per barrel, but has since surged to well above $119 in the weeks since Iran's closure of the strait, which the International Energy Agency labeled the biggest supply disruption in the history of the oil market. Fuel shortages were felt as far afield as Vietnam. Even if the closure continued for much longer, analysts at FGE had predicted prices could eventually rise to $150 to $200 a barrel, but that hasn't happened. To this day, as a route deal is discussed, crude remains far higher than pre-war levels and each armed skirmish close to the strait a Houthis attack on a Saudi tanker, an Iranian warning shot makes it lurch again. This has led to months of planning around a price range that no one can predict with certainty, and it has subtly altered the perceptions of energy security and supplier diversification for India and other economies which rely heavily on imports.For economies which import most of their energy needs, including India, it has been months of budgeting around a price range that nobody can predict with confidence, and it has quietly changed the way that New Delhi, Tokyo and Seoul think about energy and energy supplier diversification from now on.

There's also a clear winner on the edges of most of Western media, and that's Moscow. Russian oil, which was trading around the mid-$40s before the war, now surged over $100 per barrel thanks to the Hormuz oil price rally, just at the time that Western sanctions were biting the most into the Kremlin. Carnegie's experts on Russia-Eurasia consider it a lifeline that could cost billions, while experts at the Chatham House say it has bolstered Moscow's ability to continue the war in Ukraine despite the renewed gas supply offers from Europe. Vladimir Putin didn't create this crisis, but has been busy establishing himself as an indispensable mediator between Gulf Arab states and Tehran, as his treasury quietly fills up, for five months. It's not a coincidence, it's the most far-reaching secondary impact of the whole conflict, and is one that is not receiving the attention it deserves in the coverage cycle for the Hormuz.

The other player who deserves a more thorough examination is Pakistan. Field Marshal Asim Munir has of course been visiting Tehran repeatedly, and Islamabad has emerged as the facilitator for the 'Islamabad MOU' that recently extended the ceasefire for a fortnight in June, and has been extolled by Trump. Yet this diplomatic currency is in a strange marriage with Pakistan's domestic agenda, as the same military establishment that was Mr. Munir's friend in the Gulf is now a nervous house guest at home, where an army chief has opened fire on the prime minister and Munir for any hint of a trend toward Israel. Munir's ascent as an international peace broker and his growing prominence in the world are seen by many Indians as a sign of a domestic military coup by Pakistan's army establishment, a maneuver that has been undertaken to bolster the institution's international legitimacy it lacks at home.

Israel's situation is the least known of the puzzle, however. Netanyahu made his announcement about the latest framework in a pointedly noncommittal "we are examining it" and Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon resumed this week as talks continued elsewhere, undermining any impression of a region going about its business peacefully. No deal is imminent in Tehran until the Iranian capital and Washington agree on the shape of a reopened Hormuz, and the only word that should be listened to is the word “negotiating.” More tankers could be in the strait in the coming weeks. Whether it is a safe and secure ride for them and how long it will last remains to be seen, and no one's being completely honest about it.