If Washington's own description of this "matter of weeks" seems like a distant memory, that's because it has become this week's fourth month of a conflict that it once thought would soon be over, and one that has expanded from Iran to other regions. On Monday, Yemen's Houthis movement declared a complete naval blockade of Saudi Arabia, in response to a Saudi military assault on the airport in Sanaa, which coincided with the visit of an Iranian official. It was one announcement that more shook global energy markets than anything Tehran has done in the past few weeks, as it puts the closure of the Strait of Hormuz the sole exit route Riyadh has had in its arsenal since that closure to the test: the Red Sea route via the Bab el-Mandeb strait, which now handles nearly 2.5 million barrels of Saudi crude a day. Within hours of the announcement of the blockade, Brent crude spiked up to more than $89 per barrel, and by Tuesday morning, it traded near $90, having risen back to the $76 area in mid-July on promises of a ceasefire.

The moment was all the wrong time for anyone wishing that this war was coming to an end. American forces launched their 10th night of raids against Iran over the past few days just days ago and President Trump publicly threatened Tehran to “pay” for the killings of three American servicemen in Jordan and northern Iraq. Reporting has counted nearly 100 U.S. casualties since the campaign was resumed on July 7, but CENTCOM has been slow to release such information, according to the tally of the Pentagon's public statements against reports from the inside. The buildup of fighter jets and aircraft to refuel in Israel and the broader region indicate that Washington is preparing for a prolonged conflict, not a swift one.

This is where it deviates from what happened in February and March this time, there are a lot of actors making up their own red lines. In these unexpected TV interviews, Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has admitted a security gap where the U.S. and Israel have been tracking the movements of top officials, including the assassination of the previous Supreme Leader and family members, which is still not being fixed. He's also disclosed that Tehran had been preparing succession contingency plans long before the leadership was struck by the Iranian hardliner community stunned, even, by Iranian hardliners, some of whom have publicly chided him for making the regime look weaker instead of stronger. At this point, whatever one thinks of Araghchi's reasons for coming out with the interviews, they are more of an official trying to control a story that has gone far past his grasp than propagandizing.

Saudi Arabia, on its side, has sought to remain above the fray and now the fray is reaching out to it. The Houthis blockade is a direct blow to the kingdom's primary lifeline for exports Riyadh's East-West pipeline that links the Red Sea. Saudi Arabia protested the move and said it was going to protect its shipping "in line with international law," but has so far not committed to the direct military action that would take it further into a war the Saudis have been working hard not to commit to outright. There is a warning here: The Gulf capitals don't want to be squeezed on two fronts Hormuz blocked by the East and Bab el-Mandeb blocked by the South because that's the front line that every Gulf economist has been reporting on since March.

Turkey and Pakistan have emerged as the silent mediators who are doing their utmost to make sure the entire edifice does not collapse. Erdogan has been in no mood for niceties in recent weeks, threatening Israel that it "must not" allow the ceasefire framework he helped broker with Islamabad to be " dynamited," and the Turkish and Pakistani governments have maintained channels of communication with Tehran while Gulf Arab nations have become increasingly nervous about the survival of the Iranian regime. This has been accompanied by Islamabad's own diplomatic presence as the Iranian foreign ministry pointed out at a routine meeting with the Pakistani new ambassador this week that Iran has not forgotten it still requires Islamabad to be on its side, a message delivered not just to Islamabad, but to Washington and Riyadh as well. Reuters also reported that Iran had received a new offer from mediators for a 10-day truce, but both sides have declined to provide details, though previous ceasefire offers in this war have failed to stick beyond a matter of days.

None of these is a big city-destroying apocalypse-style nuclear war sensationalized by the headlines. But its impact is an insidious, multi-front war that now has four maritime and diplomatic hot spots simultaneously demanding price rises and market jolts: the port of Hormuz, the port of Bab el-Mandeb, the Jordanian airspace and Iraq's border regions. In a country such as India, where the vast bulk of crude is imported and where millions of Indians working in the gulf depend on oil prices of $95 or $100, a gradual rise to those levels is not a far-fetched notion, but a reality that is reflected in fuel costs, in inflation rates and in the balance sheets of millions of Indian migrant workers in the gulf. If it is true, it is not the world is on the brink of nuclear war, but that a war that seemed to have reached a stalemate is taking new initiatives to burn on the fields and that each government in Riyadh, Ankara, Islamabad, and elsewhere is trying to prepare itself so as to not be the one who is paying the price.