Last night, after more than 100 days since the US and Israel went to war against Iran, the US and Iran reached a partial framework for peace. When the war began at the end of February, it was all but impossible to make sense of the irrational explosion of violence. In the months since, that sense of irrationality has hardly ebbed, not least as the economic impacts of the war and resulting closures of the Strait of Hormuz—on food and oil prices, and on the supply of goods like ammonia and aluminium—have begun to bite.The destructiveness of this war is clear. Less clear is what it could mean for the future of an industry at the heart of the region and the conflict: oil.

Our guest today is Laleh Khalili, a Professor of Gulf Studies at the University of Exeter and author of several books, including Sinews of War and Trade. In this episode, she breaks down the mess of the US-Israeli war on Iran, shifting relations among the region’s petro-states, the US as an empire in decline, and the future of global energy.