A new and disturbing picture of Washington is beginning to take shape after almost five months of the war that erupted when Israeli and American attacks claimed the life of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. Now, according to reporting that was confirmed and extended by news outlets throughout the region that broke on Friday, Khamenei's son and successor, Mojtaba, has a much greater appetite for nuclear weapons than his father ever did. No, this isn't a drop-in statement in a briefing. It is a re-evaluation of the entire Gulf oil flow, of the ceasefire memorandum signed by Washington and Tehran weeks ago, of the entire future of the Gulf region.It's a re-evaluation that looks at all aspects of the Gulf oil flow, at the durability of the ceasefire memorandum signed by Washington and Tehran only weeks ago, at the entire future of the Gulf region.

The assessment is based on information collected from intercepted conversations and public statements prior to the outbreak of the war, and is not new intelligence gathered since the onset of the war under Mojtaba's command. That distinction matters. The new supreme leader has been out of the public eye since he was reported to have been injured in the strike that killed his father in February, and he has communicated sparingly, officials briefed on the material told us. What the above intercepts and statements show, however, is the difference in temperament. His father, who under Japanese leadership was promoting war reduction in Japan, was widely believed to have had real qualms about crossing the nuclear threshold, despite Western doubts that he was sincere, and had two decades ago presented Tehran as evidence that its nuclear program was peaceful. By contrast, Mojtaba is believed to have "little use" for a "purely deterrent" device and prefers a warhead that eventually could be miniaturized and placed on a long-range missile, according to officials quoted in several outlets reporting the story from New York, Jerusalem and Seoul.

It's more than just personality. The hardline officials who have emerged to replace the assassinated leaders believe that nuclear capability is not a negotiating position but existential insurance and that is an institutional change that a single leader may not control. This is a view echoed independently by Israeli intelligence, which this week concluded that Iran has moved thousands of centrifuges to a heavily fortified site near Natanz called Pickaxe Mountain, where they are too deeply embedded to be easily attacked. American officials, notably, state that they have no evidence that Iran has restarted enrichment. So it sounds more like intent and preparation than an active sprint to a bomb, but the difference might be less reassuring than it seems, as preparation can easily turn to action when facilities and materials are in place.

That last month's memorandum of understanding between Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian explicitly obligates Tehran to refrain from acquiring nuclear arms. At the time, Mojtaba's own reaction to that clause he approved of the deal, but disagreed with it “as a matter of principle” was interpreted as a message to his domestic hardline base. With the recent intelligence assessment, this one now sounds very different, more face-saving than true reflection of where he's at.

This doesn't happen in isolation. The same day the nuclear evaluation was made public, it was reported that earlier this month, Trump had changed aircraft while leaving Turkey, after being warned by Iranian proxies of a credible threat, after which he opted for an older plane equipped with better defenses than the newer aircraft provided by Qatar. Trump has also threatened harsh repercussions to Iran if any attempt was made to assassinate him. The same day that a Saudi-led coalition said it had targeted Houthis military bases, the Iran-backed rebels attacked commercial vessels in the Red Sea, which has shaken off a shipping route that many exporters had turned to as a substitute.

That "trick" is more important than it sounds. Normally, about 15 million barrels of oil flow through the Strait of Hormuz, and shipping through the strait has been severely reduced for months due to the fear of Iranian missiles and drones. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, was diverting a significant portion of its exports through the Bab el-Mandeb strait - a passage on the Red Sea that accounts for between 12 and 15 per cent of global shipping of more than a trillion dollars a year. This week's resurgence of attacks by the Houthis' own troops showed just how fragile that option actually is. Some 7 percent, to just above $100 a barrel, was the price gain for Brent crude since the beginning of the month, which has risen some 60 percent since January. The ripple effects have spread far beyond the pump the ten-year U.S. Treasury yield hit its highest since January last year, the average mortgage rate for the typical American homeowner surged past 6.8 percent and inflation has returned to the top of the list of issues on the central bankers' agenda and traders' radar.

Combined, the nuclear assessment and the market convulsions tell one story in two ways. A leadership more ready to use as weapons, a new war that has new fronts to open up, and a global economy still relying on just a few narrow waterways in the Middle East. Now the diplomats in Washington, Riyadh and the capitals of Europe are faced with a new Iran problem: a test of whether they can prevent a war if the man in Tehran who makes the decisions is someone no one outside a small circle of intelligence officers has heard much from.