Two Wars, One Holiday, and $118 Oil: What Nowruz Silence Means

Iran's Supreme Leader missed Nowruz on Friday. Brent crude hit $118 the day before. In Afghanistan, Pakistan's guns went quiet for the first time in three weeks. These three facts are not separate stories — they describe the same crisis from three different angles.

Day 20 of the war that began with Khamenei's assassination on February 28 is also, by coincidence or design, Nowruz: the Persian New Year. Mojtaba Khamenei, installed as Supreme Leader on March 9, issued no public address, delivered no live speech, appeared in no video. Iran International noted Iranian authorities have "provided no direct evidence of his condition." US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said last week the new leader was "likely disfigured." Trump said Sunday he'd heard Mojtaba "is not alive." None of this has been confirmed or denied by Tehran. What is confirmed: the first Persian New Year since the Islamic Revolution without a supreme leader visibly in command.

The Energy War Escalates

A day before Nowruz, Iran struck back hard. Israel had attacked South Pars, Iran's largest gas field, on March 18 — the first strike on a fossil fuel production facility in the conflict. Iran's retaliation hit Qatar's Ras Laffan LNG terminal, the largest liquefied natural gas facility on earth, causing what Qatar described as "extensive damage." Drones struck refineries in Kuwait. Debris from interceptions damaged gas facilities in the UAE. Saudi Arabia's Ras Tanura refinery, already hit once, came under threat again.

Oil markets responded immediately. Brent crude jumped nearly 10% on Thursday morning to $118, European natural gas prices surged 30%. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went on Fox Business and floated two emergency options: releasing more oil from US strategic reserves and "unsanctioning" approximately 140 million barrels of Iranian oil already at sea. That Iran's sanctioned oil could become the emergency supply to offset Iran's own energy strikes captures the situation precisely.

The US military's position is that it's winning. Hegseth said Thursday that American forces had struck over 7,000 targets, sinking or damaging more than 120 Iranian navy ships, and leaving Iran's military ports "crippled." Iranian ballistic missile capacity is down 90% from Day 1, drones down 95%. The IDF and CENTCOM have degraded Iran's conventional military faster than almost any analyst predicted. What they haven't done is stop the war.

Why Degrading Iran's Military Doesn't End the Crisis

Iran's remaining capacity isn't in missiles. It's in geography. The Strait of Hormuz is three kilometers wide at its narrowest navigable point. Iran has been actively laying mines there, and the US Navy has privately called the strait a "kill box" — unsuitable for escort operations despite political promises. The selective blockade that has evolved over 20 days — where Chinese ships, some Indian tankers, and neutral vessels gain passage through back-channels while Western commercial traffic remains effectively blocked — is now the new normal. Roughly 35-40% of pre-war traffic is moving. Brent was around $71 when the war started. It's at $118 now.

France's Emmanuel Macron called the energy strikes "reckless" at an EU summit Thursday, warning the damage to production infrastructure could outlast the fighting itself. That's the mechanism NATO allies are watching: even if a ceasefire came tomorrow, refineries, pipelines, and LNG terminals take months to restore.

Pakistan's Impossible Window

Twelve hundred kilometers east, a quieter but equally structural crisis is at a fragile pause.

Pakistan and Afghanistan announced a ceasefire at midnight March 18/19, running until midnight March 23/24. It came at the request of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar — the same three states currently absorbing Iranian drone strikes. The Pakistani Taliban announced its own parallel three-day truce hours later. For roughly five days, the three-week-old open war between Islamabad and Kabul is suspended.

The ceasefire follows the most contested incident of the conflict: Pakistan's airstrike on a drug rehabilitation hospital in Kabul on March 17. Taliban authorities claimed 408 killed; BBC confirmed over 100 bodies on scene; Pakistan denied the target was a hospital. The UN condemned it. Afghanistan's Taliban government said "diplomacy has reached its limit." Less than 24 hours later, both sides agreed to stop shooting for Eid.

The pause is real. Whether it leads anywhere depends on what Pakistan can afford.

Pakistan's oil import bill is projected at $600 million per month at current Brent prices. The country has around 20 days of fuel reserves. Petrol prices jumped PKR 55 per litre in early March and are projected at PKR 321 per litre by month's end. The country cancelled its Republic Day parade, citing the Gulf oil crisis and austerity. Its IMF review has been delayed.

Pakistan is fighting a war with Afghanistan it can't sustain economically, partly because the Iran war it's not fighting has driven up the oil that both wars require.

The Saudi Arabia Paradox

Pakistan signed a Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement with Saudi Arabia. Under that agreement, if Iran attacks Saudi Arabia — which it has, repeatedly — Pakistan could be obligated to respond. Pakistan has also maintained diplomatic contact with Iran, is managing Afghan refugees across the Balochistan border, and is trying not to become a third front in a war it never wanted.

Saudi Arabia brokered the Eid ceasefire in Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia also reportedly lobbied Trump to launch the Iran strikes in the first place. MBS is now mediating between Pakistan and Afghanistan while his own energy infrastructure is being targeted by Iran. These aren't separate Saudi policies — they're the same actor managing three interdependent crises at once, none of which has a clean outcome.

India, meanwhile, has aligned rhetorically with Afghanistan against Pakistan. India Today has run explicit "Pakistan sleepwalked into a maze" framing. Delhi is watching Islamabad squeezed between the Afghan front and the Saudi defence pact while simultaneously negotiating limited passage rights with Iran for its own oil tankers.

What the Nowruz Silence Signals

Traditionally, every Iranian Supreme Leader has delivered a Nowruz address. The ritual matters: it signals continuity, authority, and command. Khomeini did it. Ali Khamenei did it for 32 years. Mojtaba's absence on the Persian New Year — whether due to injury, incapacitation, or a deliberate choice not to appear publicly while under threat — creates a vacuum that Iran's IRGC is filling.

Iran International confirmed that since Mojtaba's appointment, the IRGC's Quds Force has continued operations independently of any civilian government direction. Pezeshkian, the president, apologised to Gulf states for missile strikes in early March and was publicly contradicted within hours when more strikes landed. The Basij commander was killed on March 17. The SNSC chief, Ali Larijani, was killed the same day. The wartime chain of command that made Iran function as a coherent state has been systematically dismantled by a campaign that has now struck over 7,000 targets.

What's left is a country at war run by a military structure that has explicitly rejected ceasefire ("we have never asked even for negotiation," FM Araghchi said March 15), governed by a supreme leader whose physical condition is unknown, on Nowruz, with oil at $118.

What to Watch

The Eid ceasefire in Afghanistan expires March 23. If it holds, there's a case for mediated talks; if it breaks, Pakistan's fuel reserves and economic position make sustained war increasingly untenable — not on military but on financial grounds. That timeline converges almost exactly with the IEA's strategic reserve release and Bessent's Iranian oil unsanctioning options, both of which are attempts to prevent $130 or $150 oil from becoming a political crisis inside the United States.

Mojtaba's next move — if he's capable of one — sets the other clock. A Nowruz address, even written, signals the regime is intact. Continued silence signals the IRGC is operating autonomously. Those are different wars with different endpoints, running inside the same three weeks of air strikes, on the same Hormuz-choked supply lines, financed by the same oil markets that are simultaneously driving Pakistan toward economic collapse in a separate conflict twelve hundred kilometres away.

These aren't two stories. They never were.

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Internal links: See also Iran perspectives, Pakistan perspectives, energy topics, and the Geopolitical Awareness Index for how coverage gaps are shaping this crisis.