In Helsingborg this week, Marco Rubio said quietly, "that which should not be done, should not be done, that which should not be done. The American Secretary of State, in a statement to reporters on the sidelines of a NATO foreign ministers' meeting in Sweden, said there had been "slight progress" with Iran on reopening the Strait of Hormuz but at the same time, warned that Washington had to have a "Plan B" if Tehran refused to back down because Iran wasn't going to "voluntarily reopen" the strait. A few hours later, Pakistan's army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir touched down in Tehran to engage in urgency-driven talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi which continued late into the night under the guise of 'advancing diplomatic initiatives' and ‘containing the escalating West Asia crisis'.

Remove the diplomatic red carpet and you're left with the most costly play in the world today. Since February 28, the Strait of Hormuz is practically closed. Roughly twenty per cent of the world's seaborne oil and almost a third of its LNG flow through that 33-kilometre keyhole between Iran and Oman. Slow the pace and the world economy begins to choke. Gulf producers have already shut more than 14 million bpd, an unprecedented supply shock, and the cumulative losses have already surpassed one billion bpd, estimates the International Energy Agency. Not only did the price of Brent crude, which was at about $72 a barrel on Feb. 27, cross the $106 threshold by May 20, but it also reached a high of $138 on April 7, the highest monthly average since the immediate aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Rubio's framing was telling. He had designated Pakistan as the "primary interlocutor" in the negotiations, had been in "constant communication" with Munir at the "highest levels of government" and announced the field marshal's trip to Tehran almost before Pakistan's own ISPR had formally confirmed it. That was the Secretary of State of the United States in 2026, publicly delegating U.S. Iran policy to a Pakistani general who two years ago was in charge of artillery exchanges with India.

Here the cynicism is stunning and it needs to be called out.

Pakistan is not playing the role of an impartial peace broker. It never has been. Former MI6 asset Aimen Dean, who infiltrated Al-Qaeda for British Intelligence, has been quite forthright on the Conflicted podcast that Islamabad's mediation was “pure manipulation dressed up as statecraft” and that Pakistan was never an honest broker and that Trump “was obsessed with the optics of a deal” and that Munir was selling him “a pipedream.” That's an observation that's less a commentary and more pattern recognition from a New Delhi vantage point. The same establishment that operated the Haqqani network as foreign policy, the same that harboured Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad while receiving US counter-terror dollars, and the same army chief who in April 2025, in language that set the stage for the four-day Kashmir war with India a few weeks later, was calling Kashmir the "jugular vein" of Pakistan.

That same field marshal now fills a seat at the Trump White House, is featured in photos with JD Vance, and is being called by the American president on Truth Social "a great fighter" and "a very important guy. Trump publicly stated that Pakistanis are "knowledgeable about Iran very well, better than most" and that Munir himself saved the U.S. from a strike on Iran. That path, from leading the world by sponsoring cross-border terror, to being the go-to peacemaker on a 20%-of-global-oil choke-point, was not a coincidence. It was designed with rare-earth deals, crypto-sector sales to Trump associates, a Nobel nomination and a long-term CENTCOM-Rawalpindi counter-terror partnership that Washington's military establishment cares far more about than the State Department admits.

Tehran knows well what it is dealing with. Iran has established a de facto sovereignty in the strait. A new Persian Gulf Strait Authority is requiring a "vessel information declaration" before issuing transit permits, which includes details on ownership, insurance and crew, and can cost up to $2 million paid out in rials, yuan or stablecoins. The bill being passed in Iran's parliament provides for a blanket ban on ships from countries that have imposed sanctions on Iran, ruling out American and Israeli ships for any price. Tehran's price for full reopening is no play acting: it demands that the navel blockade of Iranian ports be lifted, phased sanctions relief, return of frozen assets, compensation for war damage and binding guarantees against future military action by the United States. Otherwise, the choke remains choked.

That's the reason why Rubio's "Plan B" line isn't a slip. It's a message to oil markets, to the Saudis and Emiratis and most pointedly to the Iranians that the military option is back on the planning board if prices of crude don't decline before American household budgets and global growth begin to unravel further. Meanwhile, Iran has effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz, and the US has diverted 94 commercial vessels and four others from mid-April to Thursday, according to US Central Command. There are now two blockades, one atop the other. Diplomacy is taking place atop a powder keg, not around one.

Economic losses are no longer theoretical. But during the run-up to the rise in Brent, the market value of the Indian refinery stocks fell by close to ₹1.8 lakh crore, while the WPI inflation rose from 2.26% in February to 8.3% in April, fuel and power inflation jumped to 24.71%, and the rupee declined from ₹91 per dollar in late February to ₹96.48 in May 20. Goldman Sachs and other analysts are now openly modelling a scenario that takes the price to $154 per barrel, should the closure be extended for another twelve weeks, while $200 per barrel is no longer considered a ‘tail risk'. Estimated global demand has fallen by 5.3 million barrels a day this quarter, the biggest quarterly decline in five years, and US strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) withdrawals are running at about twice the pace that was previously modelled.

For India, the strategic scene is not as clear as the price chart would imply, but it's this that New Delhi needs to stand its ground on. India has been smartly diversifying its barrel mix since 2022 adding Russian crude, greater volumes of West African grades, more flows from Latin America but, when it comes to the global benchmark, it remains in the Gulf and rupee weakness accentuates every dollar change. The import bill is not, however, the real danger. Diplomatic geometry being created around India. Washington has promoted a Pakistani officer to the top position in the key security file of 2026. Partly that height is being bought in implicit American indulgence of Rawalpindi's old ways, the terror infrastructure, the Kashmir provocation, the strategic blackmail. Modi refused to stopover at Trump's invitation last year and spoke out publicly that "India has never accepted mediation, does not accept it, and will never accept it" on Kashmir, which were not small protocol moments. They were a line in the sand.

Regardless of whether there is anything substantive that changes, the Tehran trip will be marketed as a breakthrough. Munir's people are already talking of a "new message" from Washington, and of the possibility of UN-administered "joint oversight" of the strait and Qatar's participation in the talks. Iran is reportedly seeking sanctions relief on a phased basis, compensation for war damages, unfreeze its assets and assurance that no military action will be taken against it in the future while Pakistan is doing some floating of proposals for joint monitoring under the auspices of UN none of which has resulted in an agreement. But the optics matter more than the substance now, as optics keep the cheques coming from Washington, keep the IMF programme greased, keep the Saudis and Emaratis afraid enough of being cut out to pay and keep India boxed in the South Asian frame the Pakistani state needs to survive.

Plan B, that is, was always Plan A. There is no negotiation going on regarding the Strait of Hormuz. It's being leased to Tehran, by whom it is leased to anybody willing to pay; to Islamabad, by whom it is leased to anybody still in Washington who thinks a Pakistani field marshal is the cheapest way to keep oil under $120. But ultimately, the bill is borne by the consumer in Delhi, the trucker in Chennai, the small manufacturer in Pune and the household in Mumbai that pays 8% more for its groceries today than 12 months back.

Pay attention to the price of Brent. It's the only truthful reflection of the state of the talks in Tehran.