Donald Trump has once again told the world that peace with Iran is within reach, the third time in a span of days. And for the third time, Tehran has all but called him out in public. The American president on Sunday night declared his withdrawal from the formation of what he called the “largest military operation since the Second World War” against Iran, following appeals from the governments of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar and “Iran itself,” according to him, via Truth Social. Before Monday morning, Iranian authorities were stating to their official media that no such discussions had ever taken place. But that's the resounding truth of this war in and of itself: that it's not at the edge of resolution anymore; it's caught in a cycle of announcement, denial and re-announcement that has the Gulf, South Asia and the rest of the oil importing world on a tight leash for the fifth month running.

The pattern of Trump's narrative is a familiar one. The "perimeters of a deal" have been agreed, he says. Iran has agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz "immediately, completely and totally," he says. The next step will be to settle the nuclear file, he says. In each instance, the framing implies a leader personally leading the area out of the catastrophe. Every time, the details fades away in a day or two, and are replaced by new threats, new denials from Tehran and a new push for "one final chance' rhetoric. This is not diplomacy through channels; this is diplomacy through a social media feed and that difference is a critical one for a region that's already lost its Supreme Leader and thousands of soldiers and civilians since the war started in February.

The answer to who is really doing the work to prevent this conflict from getting worse isn't up for debate, and it's not Washington. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman made a personal phone call to the White House before the weekend's planned strikes to urge restraint. The army chief has been making several contacts with Iran's foreign minister, continuing the shuttle diplomacy Islamabad has been pursuing since holding the first round of talks earlier this year, as the Pakistani military wages its own battle on its Afghan border and struggles with an energy shortage and domestic unrest at home directly tied to this battle. Since the memorandum of understanding of June, Qatar, Oman and Turkey have been playing cat and mouse games. It is the capitals of this region that keep brushing this crisis to the side, not the other side of the Atlantic, that have kept it from overwhelming the region. But that's the part of the story that doesn't get on the American front pages very often who's tough and who's paying for it.

The economic impact is an argument for the need for these regional players to get an actual solution, not another headline. The Strait of Hormuz is the home to almost 25% of the world's seaborne oil trade, and Qatar's liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. The disruption since March the International Energy Agency has termed the biggest supply shock in the history of the oil market. Brent crude, which traded around $70 a barrel prior to the strikes in February, surged above $120 during the height of the closure and has since been dancing on every Trump tweet, dropping again on Monday just because he said that he was backing off the attack. Estimated losses of more than a billion dollars per day to Gulf and Iraqi producers from the loss of realised oil is growing as transit is restricted. The UN trade group's analysts have pointed out that it isn't the rich economies that are hurt by this arithmetic. Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Bangladesh and Singapore are taking a hit on GDP in the mid-single digits, while India also relies heavily on the Gulf routes and massive expatriate population in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, and thus is in the cross hairs of all price swings this theatre can produce. If Washington teases out a "deal" for a day and then rescinds it the next, it's the cost of importing fuel in Dhaka and the fuel subsidy bill in New Delhi that take the beating, not Washington.

There is also a more difficult question lurking behind it all that Trump has left unaddressed: “What does Iran really want, and does the regime in Tehran have the internal unity to be able to keep its end of the deal? Iran's own people have been weary of the war and angry at internet blockages, in addition to angry at the fighting, for months. Tehran's diplomats have been pushing the de-escalation agenda on the ground in the Gulf, which has not gone over well with hardliners in the IRGC.Even as Tehran's diplomats have been pushing the de-escalation agenda on the ground in the Gulf, hardliners haven't been very enthusiastic about this type of capitulation, as Trump keeps describing in public. A ceasefire announced from Air Force One has little meaning if the security establishment on the ground in Tehran isn't either. Recent history in this conflict suggests very much that this has been the case, and that the gap between what the president says and what happens on the ground has been the norm.

None of this is to say a war is a foregone conclusion or that all regional governments wish it would go on. So, as far as the markets are concerned, and especially the poorer economic nations, it is an error that they cannot afford to keep making by considering a Truth Social post a peace treaty. The prudent line from Riyadh to Islamabad to New Delhi in the face of a lack of any signed and verified document, and only a vague claim of "perimeters agreed," is the one it has been following for months the wait-and-see, missile planning, and disbelief in Washington's word approach.