Australia in the World

Darren is back to do (yet another) solo episode on Iran. This week, the United States and Iran did a deal, Trump put pen to a physical copy at Versailles, and the war looked like it might be — in a narrow sense— over.

At least, this is what Darren sought to analyse when he first recorded on Saturday 20 June. But before he could publish the following day, Iran had announced the Strait of Hormuz was closed again — saying Israel’s actions in Lebanon were a violation — while Washington insisted it was open and Vance headed to Switzerland. So the episode now opens with a short update (recorded on Sun 21 June) on that split-screen before the main recording. The good news (for Darren) was that the overnight news, if anything, sharpened his argument.

Across eight points Darren covers: (i) what happened and what they actually signed (boiled down: an agreement to negotiate a real agreement within sixty days); (ii) why the US did a deal now now — Hoover, the markets, the midterms, and Trump more or less admitting it out loud; (iii) who won (Iran) and why; (iv) why Iran could still lose the peace by overplaying Hormuz; (v) why Israel is the big loser; and then finishing off with (vi) the optimistic case for what happens next, (vii) the pessimistic case, and (viii) going back to check the receipts on the five lessons he set out in Episode 184, plus three new ones: that the strait was reopened by payment not force, that energy systems impose political clocks, and that it was regional states, not the great institutions, who helped supply the exit.

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

Jonathan Lemire, "Trump in Defeat", The Atlantic, 17 June 2026: https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/06/trump-defeat-iran-war/687566/

Adam Rasgon et al, "How the US–Iran Deal Came Down to the Wire", New York Times, 17 June 2026: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/17/us/politics/us-iran-deal-trump.html

Nate Swanson, "Iran Won the War but May Lose the Peace," Foreign Affairs , 18 June 2026: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/iran/iran-won-war-may-lose-peace long gam

The Long Game (podcast), “Did America Lose the Iran War? (w/ Ambassador Wendy Sherman)”, 19 June 2026: https://substack.com/home/post/p-202627995

Ali Vaez, “America and Iran Have an Agreement. And 60 Days to Prevent the Next War”, Time, 16 June 2026: https://time.com/article/2026/06/15/america-iran-peace-agreement-prevent-next-war/

John Hudson, “U.S. bears brunt of Israel’s missile defense, Pentagon assessments show”, Washington Post, 21 May 2026: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/05/21/us-bears-brunt-israels-missile-defense-pentagon-assessments-show/

Press Conference: Donald Trump Holds a Press Conference at the G7 Summit in France - June 17, 2026: https://rollcall.com/factbase/trump/transcript/donald-trump-press-conference-g7-summit-evian-france-june-17-2026/ · 

US-Iran memorandum of understanding in full: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gy700j0eko

Stephen Dziedzic of the ABC joins Darren to catch up on something besides Iran and the (still-closed) Strait of Hormuz. The conversation begins with the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, where Stephen was on the ground. They discuss the mood in the room, the relative absence of Iran from the public discussion despite its obvious relevance to maritime security, and the broader regional anxiety about escalation, sea lanes, chokepoints, ports, subsea cables and the physical infrastructure that underpins the Indo-Pacific order. They also examine Vietnamese President Tô Lâm’s keynote speech, Pete Hegseth’s address on US engagement in Asia, and the significance of China again not sending its defence minister.

The conversation then turns to DPM Richard Marles’ Shangri-La speech and its focus on subsea cables and maritime infrastructure. Darren sees a reframing of the “rules-based order” towards a physical system that must be monitored, protected and defended. They also discuss the AUKUS announcements made in Singapore, including the Pillar II underwater drone project and the shift in Australia’s planned Virginia-class submarine acquisition from a mix of new and used boats to three in-service submarines.

The second half of the episode covers several other major stories: Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale’s visit to Canberra and the possibility of a “reset” in Australia–Solomon Islands relations; Beijing’s decision to ban four New Zealand MPs after a visit to Taiwan; the Trump administration’s proposed tariff on Australian goods; and the Quad foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi, which produced unexpectedly concrete outcomes on maritime awareness, infrastructure, critical minerals and energy security.

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

IISS Shangri-La Dialogue 2026: https://www.iiss.org/events/shangri-la-dialogue/shangri-la-dialogue-2026/

Joint Statement, AUKUS Defence Ministers’ Meeting, 30 May 2026: https://www.minister.defence.gov.au/statements/2026-05-30/joint-statement-aukus-defence-ministers-meeting

Australia–Solomon Islands Leaders’ Meeting, Joint statement, 3 June 2026: https://www.pm.gov.au/media/australia-solomon-islands-leaders-meeting-0

Quad Foreign Ministers’ Meeting Joint Statement, 26 May 2026: https://www.foreignminister.gov.au/minister/penny-wong/media-release/quad-foreign-ministers-meeting-joint-statement

Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, Freedom at Midnight (1975): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_at_Midnight

Carl Hendrick, “The Death of the University Degree”, The Learning Dispatch (Substack), 24 May 2026: https://carlhendrick.substack.com/p/the-death-of-the-university-degree

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