Australia in the World

Eleven weeks into the U.S.-Iran war, the news cycle is relentless, but the strategic position has barely moved. Darren looks to step back from the weekly churn to lay out the five durable lessons of this conflict — the things that were becoming visible in March, that have held through April, that are still true in May, and that may well remain true for some time yet.

The episode begins with a factual update: the collapse of Project Freedom, the trading of fire that neither side will call a ceasefire violation, Iran's 10 May counter-proposal demanding sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, Trump's dismissal of it as "garbage," and the bombshell New York Times report that Iran has regained operational access to most of its missile capability — directly contradicting the administration's public narrative just as Trump leaves for his summit with Xi Jinping.

The bulk of the episode then works through five structural lessons:

Coercion doesn’t work if your adversary wants it more

The geography in geo-economics—how Iran has demonstrated a modern model of asymmetric power

Both sides still prefer no deal to a deal, and Trump's overnight Truth Social post tells us more than he realises

Policy competence actually matters a lot

The decaying pillars of the international order, with the oil market as case study

Darren closes with the model he keeps coming back to: what actually constrains Donald Trump. With JP Morgan predicting Hormuz will reopen in June on inventory grounds, the institutional architecture that has buffered the shock running out of room, and Republican Senate primaries clearing through May and June, the question is whether material reality and the political calendar finally converge to produce a binding constraint on a president who has resisted almost every other form.

Australia in the World is written, hosted, and produced by Darren Lim, with research and editing by Hannah Nelson and theme music composed by Rory Stenning.

Relevant links

Adam Entous, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, "U.S. Intelligence Shows Iran Retains Substantial Missile Capabilities," New York Times, 12 May 2026: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/us/politics/iran-missiles-us-intelligence.html

Sudarsan Raghavan, "The Art of the Ceasefire," The New Yorker, 12 May 2026: https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/the-art-of-the-ceasefire

International Crisis Group, "Iran Crisis Monitor #5," 12 May 2026: https://www.crisisgroup.org/bnt/middle-east-north-africa/iran-israelpalestine-united-states/iran-crisis-monitor-5

Danny Citrinowicz, "How the War Saved the Iranian Regime," Foreign Affairs, 29 April 2026: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/iran/how-war-saved-iranian-regime

Gregory Brew, "America Will Pay Dearly for Its Energy Arrogance," New York Times, 2 May 2026: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/opinion/trump-us-oil-crisis-strait-of-hormuz.html

Jason Bordoff, "If OPEC Falls Apart, It'll Cost Us All," New York Times, 6 May 2026: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/06/opinion/opec-oil-markets-trump.html

Eight weeks into the US-Israeli war against Iran, the ceasefire is about to expire and the second round of negotiations is supposed to be happening this week in Islamabad. Darren uses the framework of “war-as-bargaining” to make sense of an extraordinary three weeks—the threats, the ceasefire, the collapse of the first talks, the blockade, Iran's brief reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and its near-immediate closure—and argues that the conflict has transformed Iran's strategic calculus in ways that make control of the Strait a functional substitute for nuclear weapons. The episode then works through what kind of deal is actually possible, why the Trump administration’s rejection of process makes that deal hard to deliver, and why the West more broadly is going to have to develop the psychological capacity to live with outcomes in which adversaries get to enjoy strategic successes. Darren finishes with a moral accounting of Trump's threats to annihilate Iranian civilisation, and a post-script on what he still believes despite it all.

Australia in the World is written, hosted, and produced by Darren Lim, with research and editing by Hannah Nelson and theme music composed by Rory Stenning.

Relevant links

Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence (Yale University Press, 1966): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/113730.Arms_and_Influence

Robert Pape, Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War (Cornell University Press, 1996): https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/761594.Bombing_to_Win

Mark Mazzetti, Adam Entous and Julian E. Barnes, “For Iran, Flexing Control Over Waterway Is New Deterrent,” New York Times, 18 April 2026: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/18/us/politics/iran-hormuz-strait-trump.html

Josh Dawsey and Annie Linskey, “Behind Trump’s Public Bravado on the War, He Grapples With His Own Fears”, 18 April 2026: https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/trump-public-bravado-private-fear-59814dca

“Which Iran is America dealing with?”, The Economist, 19 April 2026: https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2026/04/19/which-iran-is-america-dealing-with

Barak Ravid and Marc Caputo, “U.S. considers $20 billion cash-for-uranium deal with Iran,” Axios, 17 April 2026: https://www.axios.com/2026/04/17/iran-us-deal-20-billion-frozen-funds-uranium

Phil Stewart, “Allies fear a rushed US–Iran framework deal could backfire, leaving technical deadlock,” Reuters, 19 April 2026: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/allies-fear-rushed-usiran-framework-deal-could-backfire-leaving-technical-2026-04-19/

Fareed Zakaria interview with Ezra Klein, “Fareed Zakaria on the Moral Cost of Trump's War,” The Ezra Klein Show, New York Times, 10 April 2026: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5hU0VHM1-M&pp=ygUSZXpyYSBrbGVpbiBwb2RjYXN0

The West Wing, “They'll Like Us When We Win”: YouTube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZYs2UpLYAI

Twitter handles of individuals mentioned:

Danny (Dennis) Citrinowicz (@citrinowicz)

Vali Nasr (@vali_nasr)

Ali Vaez (@AliVaez)

Robert Malley (@Rob_Malley)

Dmitri Medvedev (@MedvedevRussiaE)

In the second episode of the week recorded just 48 hours after the last one (around 12pm on Wed 1 April), Darren is joined once again by Stephen Dziedzic of the ABC to talk through what, again, has been a wild few days. In two Truth Social posts barely twelve hours apart, President Trump threatened to destroy Iranian desalination plants — a move legal experts describe as a war crime — and then told allies to "go get your own oil" signalling the United States may end the war without reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Taken together, these posts suggest something seismic: the effective repudiation of the Carter Doctrine, which since 1980 has been the foundational premise of U.S. security strategy in the Gulf.

But then Darren and Stephen turn to a long overdue conversation about what this means for Australia and the region. They cover:

The alliance. Australia has maintained carefully calibrated support for the U.S. strikes, but if Trump walks away from Hormuz, the question for Canberra shifts from "will we join an American-led operation?" to "will we join a deal with Tehran that Washington might hate?" Trump is effectively telling allies to solve a problem he created — but may condemn whatever solution they find.

The region. Singapore's foreign minister Vivian Balakrishnan has framed this as an Asian crisis driven by an American war. Stephen reports on the fury across Southeast Asia, the limits of what countries like Singapore and the Philippines can actually do in response, and why — despite the rage — the short-term strategic calculus holding these alliances together may persist even as long-term trust fractures.

Energy statecraft. Bloomberg reported this week that Penny Wong and Madeleine King are leveraging Australia's LNG exports in conversations with Asian partners. Stephen unpacks the competing signals from inside government — one camp talking about "bargaining chips," another insisting Australia is simply being a reliable supplier — and why the audience for much of this messaging may be domestic rather than international. Darren and Stephen explore the broader question of whether Australia needs a new toolkit for directing energy flows in a crisis.

The Pacific. Pacific Island nations run almost entirely on diesel and face an existential crisis if supply disruptions continue into May and June. Stephen reports that Canberra is war-gaming options — from redirecting aid funding to sharing physical diesel supplies to folding the Pacific into bilateral energy deals with Singapore and others.

The China-Pakistan five-point peace initiative, announced yesterday, is the first time a major power has proposed a concrete pathway to end the war. Darren raises Adam Tooze's provocative FT column on a "blueprint for Chinese global hegemony" — mocked and criticised, but capturing something real about the sheer demand for someone to lead. Darren and Stephen grapple with whether this crisis could pull China into a systemic stabiliser role it has never sought and may not want — and what that would mean for a world order already through the looking glass.

The episode concludes with both noting that the Prime Minister is due to address the nation in hours, and Trump is scheduled to speak overnight — meaning everything discussed may be overtaken by events before listeners press play.

Australia in the World is written, hosted, and produced by Darren Lim, with research and editing this episode by Hannah Nelson and theme music composed by Rory Stenning.

Relevant links

Trump Truth Social post threatening to destroy Iranian power plants, oil wells, and desalination plants (30 March 2026): https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/30/trump-iran-strikes-escalation-00850005

Trump Truth Social post: "Go get your own oil" (31 March 2026): https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-01/trump-anger-at-allies-as-hegseth-visits-mideast/106519152

Wall Street Journal — "Trump Tells Aides He's Willing to End War Without Reopening Hormuz" by Alexander Ward and Meridith McGraw (31 March 2026): https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/trump-iran-war-strait-of-hormuz-ee950ad4

Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan interview with Reuters (23 March 2026): https://www.mfa.gov.sg/newsroom/press-statements-transcripts-and-photos/transcript-of-minister-for-foreign-affairs-dr-vivian-balakrishnan-s-interview-with-reuters-global-managing-editor-for-world-news-mark-bendeich--23-march-2026/

The New Yorker — "Trump, Iran, and the Shadow of Suez" by Ishaan Tharoor (30 March 2026): https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/trump-iran-and-the-shadow-of-suez

Stephen Wertheim (Carnegie Endowment) on the purpose of U.S. military role in the Middle East — quoted in The New Yorker

The Economist — “Refine and dandy: Iran’s war bounty”, The Intelligence (podcast), 31 March:  https://www.economist.com/podcasts/2026/03/31/refine-and-dandy-irans-war-bounty

Bloomberg — "Australia Aims to Use LNG Clout to Secure Asian Fuel Supplies" by Keira Wright and James Mayger (31 March 2026): https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-31/australia-aims-to-use-lng-clout-to-secure-asian-fuel-supplies

Australia-Singapore joint statement on energy security (23 March 2026): https://www.pm.gov.au/media/joint-statement-energy-security

China-Pakistan five-point peace initiative (31 March 2026) : https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/wjbzhd/202603/t20260331_11884511.html

Adam Tooze — "A Blueprint for Chinese Global Leadership," Financial Times (c. 30 March 2026): https://www.ft.com/content/cf2eeead-461d-4e3b-aeb7-48b30114643c

Charles Kindleberger — The World in Depression, 1929–1939 (referenced in discussion of hegemonic stability): https://archive.org/details/worldindepressio00kind_0

Now in its fifth week, the Iran war may be about to enter its most dangerous phase. In a shorter update this episode, Darren assesses what he sees as four important dynamics as President Trump’s new extended 6 April deadline approaches: (1) the collapse of negotiations and the simultaneous buildup of U.S. ground forces in the region; (2) why seizing Kharg Island or Iran’s enriched uranium may be tactically feasible but strategically self-defeating; (3) the widening of the conflict as the Houthis enter the war and the economic damage compounds beyond recovery; and (4) why the regime change that is actually occurring in Tehran — toward a more radical, IRGC-dominated system — cuts directly against the logic of further escalation.

If you've been following this series, this is the episode where the threads of the past month converge on a single question: does Washington recognise the strategic trap it is walking into, or does it fall in?

Australia in the World is written, hosted, and produced by Darren Lim, with research and editing this episode by Hannah Nelson and theme music composed by Rory Stenning.

Relevant links

Dan Lamothe, "Pentagon Prepares for Weeks of Ground Operations in Iran," The Washington Post, 29 March 2026: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/03/28/trump-iran-ground-troops-marines/

Alexander Ward et al, "Trump Weighs Military Operation to Extract Iran's Uranium," The Wall Street Journal, 30 March 2026: https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/trump-weighs-military-operation-to-extract-irans-uranium-37427c8b

Edward Luce, "Donald Trump Says US Could 'Take the Oil in Iran,'" Financial Times, 30 March 2026: https://www.ft.com/content/3bd9fb6c-2985-4d24-b86b-23b7884031f5?syn-25a6b1a6=1

Danny (Dennis) Citrinowicz, twitter / x profile: https://x.com/citrinowicz

Three weeks into the US-Israeli war on Iran, Darren looks to international relations theory — particularly the bargaining and war termination frameworks associated with James Fearon — to explain why this conflict is so resistant to ending. He organises his thinking around two conditions for war termination: the existence of a mutually acceptable deal, and a credible mechanism for enforcing it. Neither condition is met, and the war is actively making both harder to achieve.

Both sides are pursuing cost imposition, but with incompatible visions of what peace looks like. The US is destroying Iran’s military capacity; Iran is weaponising the Strait of Hormuz and attacking Gulf energy infrastructure. Darren examines why Trump’s coercive credibility has been undermined by the South Pars episode, why Iran’s energy war may be hardening rather than softening its neighbours’ resolve, and what Oman’s foreign minister’s extraordinary public intervention reveals about Gulf anger at both Iran and the United States.

The episode offers two speculative theories for how the war might end — one centring on Trump’s psychology and capacity for narrative reinvention, the other on whether China could help solve the credible commitment problem by offering Iran something the US cannot. It closes with a reflection on what it means for analysts, governments, and markets when the most consequential variable in the system is a single unpredictable leader. A postscript addresses Trump’s 48-hour ultimatum to Iran, issued hours before recording, threatening to destroy Iranian power plants if the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened.

Australia in the World is written, hosted, and produced by Darren Lim, with research and editing by Hannah Nelson and theme music composed by Rory Stenning.

Relevant links

The Economist, “There is plenty of scope for the Iran war to intensify,” 21 March 2026: https://www.economist.com/briefing/2026/03/19/there-is-plenty-of-scope-for-the-iran-war-to-intensify

Malcolm Moore, Rachel Millard and Verity Ratcliffe, “‘Armageddon scenario’ for gas markets as Qatar hit by missiles,” Financial Times, 19 March 2026: https://www.ft.com/content/5b66d91f-f94a-4ea1-b90f-ce62ccb15d50

James Fearon, “Rationalist Explanations for War,” International Organization, 49(3), 1995: https://web.stanford.edu/group/fearon-research/cgi-bin/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Rationalist-Explanations-for-War.pdf

RAND Corporation, Theories of Victory, Perspectives PEA1743-1, 2024: https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PEA1743-1.html

Brynn Tannehill, “Why the Iran War Could Last Far Longer Than Either Side Wants to Admit,” Byline Times, 20 March 2026: https://bylinetimes.com/2026/03/20/why-the-iran-war-could-last-far-longer-than-either-side-wants-to-admit/

Yaroslav Trofimov, “Iran Believes It’s Winning — and Wants a Steep Price to End the War,” Wall Street Journal, 20 March 2026: https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iran-war-negotiations-demands-85555522

Adam Tooze and Cameron Abadi, Ones and Tooze podcast, “Economic Impact of Iran War,” 21 March 2026: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckRRxpoUoPc

Thomas Wright, “The Disappearing Off-Ramp in Iran,” The Atlantic, 17 March 2026: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/2026/03/iran-victory-trump/686411/

Badr Albusaidi, “America’s friends must help extricate it from an unlawful war,” The Economist, 21 March 2026: https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2026/03/18/americas-friends-must-help-extricate-it-from-an-unlawful-war

The Economist, “Operation Blind Fury,” 21 March 2026: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2026/03/19/war-in-iran-is-making-donald-trump-weaker-and-angrier

Jake Sullivan and John Finer, The Long Game podcast, Week 3 episode (interview with Helima Croft), 21 March 2026: https://staytuned.substack.com/p/transcript-the-iran-war-energy-crisis

David Sanger, “Trump Is Finally Eyeing an Exit From Iran. But Will He Take It?” New York Times, 21 March 2026: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/21/us/politics/trump-iran-offramp.html