On Nowruz, Iran's Supreme Leader Is Missing. On the Afghan Border, Both Sides Paused. Oil Hit $119.

Three weeks into the US-Israeli air campaign on Iran, Nowruz arrived on Friday to a country whose supreme leader hasn't shown his face. Oil hit $119 a barrel. And 2,000 kilometers east, both sides of a separate war paused for Eid.

These aren't three disconnected events. They're the same system moving at once.

The Supreme Leader Who Isn't There

Mojtaba Khamenei was appointed Iran's third supreme leader on March 8. He has not appeared in public since. Iranian state media released an undated video of him teaching religious students — no timestamp, no live confirmation. Netanyahu said it plainly at a press conference March 19: "Mojtaba, the replacement ayatollah, has not shown his face. Have you seen him?"

Israeli analysts describe him as an "empty entity." US intelligence suggests he may have been wounded in an airstrike on March 14 and transferred to Moscow for surgery — a claim Iran's foreign ministry dismissed without elaboration.

What fills that vacuum matters. The IRGC has pledged "complete obedience" to Mojtaba. Without him visible, operational control appears to rest with the IRGC directly — the same institution Iran's civilian president Pezeshkian has been unable to restrain. When Pezeshkian apologised to Gulf states for Iranian missile strikes last week, IRGC launched another volley within hours. That split is now more exposed than ever.

Nowruz — the Persian New Year, March 20 — was supposed to be a moment of symbolic authority for the new supreme leader. A traditional message to the nation. Silence instead.

The Energy War Nobody Wanted to Start

Brent crude traded at $60–70 per barrel when this war began on February 28. On Thursday it hit $119.13 — up 60–70% in three weeks.

The trigger: Israel struck South Pars on March 18, the gas field that generates roughly 40% of Iran's domestic gas supply and is central to its LNG export capacity. Iran retaliated by firing missiles at Qatar's Ras Laffan terminal — the largest LNG export hub in the world — and at Saudi energy infrastructure.

Trump called Netanyahu and told him to stop. Netanyahu agreed, publicly framing it as a favour rather than an order. He then told reporters Israel had "acted alone" on the South Pars strike — confirming a US-Israel rift that has been widening for days. Trump has ruled out US ground troops in Iran. Netanyahu has said "there must be a ground component" for regime change. These are not compatible positions.

Oil settled back to $108.65 by Thursday's close. The Guardian reported Friday that crude prices are up roughly 60% since the war began.

The Strait of Hormuz — formally closed by Iran on Day 3 — is now operating as a managed blockade. Around 90 ships per day are crossing, down from a pre-war average of 100–135. Iran is allowing vessels linked to China, India, Pakistan, and Turkey to pass; Western-flagged commercial traffic remains largely blocked. The IMO called for a humanitarian corridor this week to evacuate 20,000 seafarers trapped on roughly 2,000 vessels in the Gulf — Iran's cooperation is uncertain.

Iran's speaker Ghalibaf made clear on Thursday that Hormuz's status "won't return to its pre-war normal." Tehran is treating passage rights as a post-war bargaining chip — the last significant leverage a militarily degraded Iran still holds.

The Two Ceasefires: One Islamic, One Persian

Six hundred miles from the Hormuz standoff, a different clock is ticking.

Pakistan and Afghanistan declared an Eid al-Fitr ceasefire at midnight March 19, brokered by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, running through midnight March 24. Hours later, the TTP — Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, the militant group that is Pakistan's stated reason for the entire Afghan operation — announced its own three-day ceasefire from the first day of Eid.

The TTP move is the most significant diplomatic development on this front since the war began February 27. Pakistan's operation was launched to dismantle TTP sanctuaries inside Afghanistan. If TTP chooses to pause unilaterally, it signals something: either internal pressure, a coordination signal with Afghan Taliban leadership, or a tactical calculation that restraint during Eid strengthens their diplomatic position.

The timing adds a layer: Nowruz is the Persian New Year, celebrated widely across Afghanistan and Iran. Both Eid (Muslim) and Nowruz (pre-Islamic Persian) are landing simultaneously this week — an unusual convergence creating cultural pressure for restraint across multiple fronts and communities.

Whether this convergence is coincidence or coordination, the effect is the same: the conflict's first genuine pause in 22 days, however fragile.

Pakistan: The Hinge That May Snap

Pakistan designed its Afghan operation to eliminate TTP. It has ended up in a compounding crisis on three axes.

Oil at $108 per barrel is not a footnote for Pakistan — it's existential. Pakistan imports nearly all of its oil and LNG. The Iran war has pushed its monthly oil import bill toward $600 million. Petrol prices rose 20% in early March; further hikes are expected. The IMF programme Pakistan depends on is under strain. Austerity measures are spreading: the government ordered 5–30% salary cuts at state-owned enterprises and cancelled the March 23 Republic Day parade, citing the "Gulf oil crisis."

Meanwhile Pakistan's military is stretched across 2,500 kilometers of active conflict from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to Balochistan — unable to meaningfully respond to Saudi Arabia's requests for deployment despite a bilateral defence agreement that implied exactly that. Army Chief Asim Munir communicated privately to Riyadh that Pakistan's forces are tied down along the Afghan frontier.

India is watching. Delhi has condemned Pakistan's Afghan strikes and backed Afghan sovereignty. The Taliban is signalling openness to Indian engagement. Pakistan's own DNI counterpart, Tulsi Gabbard, named Pakistan's missiles as a "future threat to the US" in this week's annual threat assessment — inflammatory timing.

Different Wars, One System

Western coverage has largely treated Iran and Pakistan-Afghanistan as separate stories. The morning news cycles separate them. The editorial desks are different. But the pressures are moving through the same pipes.

Oil prices rising in Tehran spill directly into Islamabad's fiscal arithmetic. Iran's inability to mediate — Araghchi was actively brokering Pak-Afghan dialogue in late February before the strikes began — removed the most credible regional off-ramp. Russia is sharing targeting intelligence with Iran against US forces while simultaneously offering to mediate the Pakistan-Afghanistan dispute. China is defending Iran at the UN while trying to broker peace between Islamabad and Kabul to protect its CPEC investment.

None of these actors can fully pursue one goal without compromising another. That's what makes the next five days — the Eid ceasefire window — the only coherent diplomatic opening in weeks.

What Comes Next

Netanyahu's pipeline ambition is the least-discussed but most structurally significant statement of the week. He called for oil and gas pipelines running from the Arabian Peninsula across to Israeli Mediterranean ports, bypassing Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb permanently. That's not a diplomatic proposal — it's a post-war architecture declaration. It tells Gulf states, China, and Pakistan what victory is supposed to mean for Israel.

Iran has said Hormuz won't return to its pre-war status regardless. The two statements together define the fight over what peace actually looks like.

The Eid ceasefire runs to March 24. Prediction markets have a ceasefire in the Iran war pencilled for early June. Analysts at Goldman Sachs see $85 oil in April if the situation stabilises, $150 as a tail risk if it doesn't.

Nowruz marks the Persian New Year, Year 1404. For the first time since the Islamic Republic was founded, it arrived without a supreme leader willing to be seen.

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Related: Iran's fractured perspectives on the war | Pakistan navigates an impossible strategic position | The Hormuz crisis and global energy