The Iran war is upending global energy markets

Four scenarios

- Bret Stephens

A tanker is anchored as the traffic is down in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, amid the US-Israeli conflict in Muscat, Oman.

(REUTERS)

The most famous query in the history of modern warfare came from David Petraeus, then a major general, in an interview with Rick Atkinson, then a reporter, during the initial assault on Iraq: “Tell me how this ends.”

When it comes to the war in Iran, there are, broadly speaking, four possible scenarios. Regime change is the most optimistic one. Some imagine it will take the form of the resumption of the mass demonstrations that the regime bloodily stamped out in January — millions of Iranians marching in dozens of cities, joined by police officers and soldiers and commanders from the conventional army, emboldened by American and Israeli air support, rising to tear down their rulers’ enfeebled apparatus of repression. Nobody should discount this scenario, especially if Iran continues to be battered militarily and politically, perhaps with the loss of additional echelons of leadership. Nobody should count on it, either, at least not in the short term.