Joey Z

So if you're keeping score at home, the ceasefire includes Lebanon but also doesn't include Lebanon, America has agreed to all of Iran's demands and Iran has agreed to all of America's demands, America will recognize Iran's right to enrichment and also insist on zero enrichment, Hormuz is completely open but also Hormuz is subject to unclear limitations... There are a lot of confident predictions about a deal that is still unclear and unfinished Both sides are scrambling to portray this as a war-ending victory when there's a decent chance that the war hasn't even ended

MORE: President Trump described Iran’s 10-point counterproposal that it sent to the US on April 5 as “a workable basis on which to negotiate.” ⬇️ Iran’s demands included a permanent end to the war with guarantees that the United States or Israel will not attack Iran again. Iran also demanded the lifting of all primary and secondary sanctions on Iran, the termination of all UN Security Council and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors resolutions against Iran, the payment of reparations to Iran, the withdrawal of US forces from the region, and the cessation of war on all fronts, including Israeli operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iran also reportedly stated that it will charge vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz a fee of up to $2 million US dollars, the revenue from which it will split with Oman and use for post-war reconstruction. Iran’s proposal to charge vessels that transit the Strait of Hormuz highlights Iran’s attempt to use the strait as a point of leverage and for its financial gain.

🇺🇸🇮🇷 TRUMP’S INFRASTRUCTURE WAR AND THE LAW HE’S DARING TO BREAK So here we are, watching a literal countdown to 8pm, with Trump threatening to wipe out Iran’s bridges and energy system if it doesn’t fall into line on schedule. Trump even went as far as to threaten: “A whole civilisation will die tonight.” That’s less a policy statement, more something you’d expect from a Bond villain, except this one comes with carrier strike groups and legal exposure. And that’s really the point. This isn’t just escalation theatre, it’s a direct collision with the rules that are supposed to govern how wars are fought, and whether they can be fought at all. Because the targets being floated aren’t military formations or missile sites. They’re bridges, power plants, transmission networks, the connective tissue of civilian life. The stuff that keeps hospitals running, water clean, food refrigerated, and cities functioning. International humanitarian law is not subtle about this. Civilian infrastructure is protected unless it makes an effective and concrete contribution to military action, and even then, any strike has to pass the tests of distinction and proportionality. In plain English: you don’t get to shut off a country’s electricity because it might inconvenience its government. And that’s where this threat starts to look less like hard-nosed strategy and more like collective punishment. Because when you deliberately target an energy grid, you’re not just hitting wires and transformers, you’re knowingly cascading harm across an entire civilian population. What makes the situation even more precarious is that we’re not talking about a clean slate. There’s already been a steady drift toward infrastructure targeting. Recent strikes in Iran have hit transport links and bridges, including the Karaj B1 bridge, with civilian casualties reported. The line between “military objective” and “everything that keeps a society running” is already being blurred in practice, not just rhetoric. That matters, because the legal justification gets thinner every time that line is crossed. “Dual-use” infrastructure, electricity, roads, ports, has become the favorite loophole of modern warfare. Yes, power grids support military operations. They also support literally everything else. The law doesn’t ignore that, it centers it. If the foreseeable civilian harm is massive and systemic, you don’t get to wave it away as collateral damage. You chose the target knowing exactly what it sustains. Which is why legal experts and international observers are already using the phrase “war crime” without much hesitation. Not as a rhetorical flourish, but as a straightforward reading of the rules. And even that isn’t the whole legal problem. Because before you get to how a war is fought, you have to ask whether it’s lawful to fight it at all. Under the UN Charter, the use of force is tightly constrained, self-defense against an imminent attack or authorization from the Security Council. An ultimatum to “comply by 8pm or we dismantle your infrastructure” sits uncomfortably outside both categories. Put those two layers together and the picture gets stark: a potential violation of the rules governing the use of force, stacked on top of a potential violation of the rules governing conduct in war. It’s not just pushing the boundaries of international law, it’s stress-testing whether those boundaries still exist. And then there’s the strategic irony. Infrastructure warfare doesn’t stay contained. Iran has already signaled it would respond in kind, targeting energy systems across the region. That’s the logic of escalation once these norms erode: if one side can switch off cities, so can the other. At that point, the debate over legality becomes almost secondary to the reality it produces. Power grids become targets everywhere. Civilian systems become leverage everywhere. The distinction between battlefield and society collapses entirely. Which is why this moment matters beyond the immediate crisis. If the U.S openly embraces the idea that civilian infrastructure is fair game, it doesn’t just bend the rules, it rewrites them. And not in a way that can be selectively applied. Because once you normalize turning off someone else’s country, you’ve implicitly signed off on the possibility that someone else will try to turn off yours. When you take into account that Chinese-linked hackers have already breached U.S critical infrastructure, including water treatment systems, as part of a broader strategy to pre-position for a future conflict, that possibility becomes all the more real. So when the clock hits 8pm, the real question isn’t just whether the strikes happen. It’s whether the last thin line between warfighting and societal destruction gets rubbed out completely, and whether anyone can still pretend, after that, that the law of war is anything more than a suggestion.