Seven months of strikes, sanctions and promises to end the imminent crisis. And beneath the surface, a completely different music is playing in the restricted circles of the White House: several close advisers of Donald Trump are considering, in private, a much longer scenario than that sold to public opinion.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other senior advisers have discussed the possibility that Tehran will continue to resist the blockade and US military pressure well beyond what Trump announces publicly. The president has been repeating for weeks that he expects an “immediate” end to the conflict, just after the mid-term elections in November. He even accuses Iran of wanting to influence the vote by dragging out the negotiations.
Two speeches, two time horizons. On the one hand, the campaign communication which promises a rapid outcome. On the other, a much more cautious strategic assessment, where the resistance of the Iranian regime weighs more than the American electoral calendar. This gap is not insignificant seven weeks before the midterms: a president who promises peace and delivers stagnation generally pays the bill at the polls.
On September 2, American strikes resumed and Iran responded with ballistic missiles. Bitcoin absorbs the shock, loses 1.5% during the day and falls towards $77,157. More than $300 million in positions are liquidated in twenty-four hours. The next day, a complete reversal: the price returned above $78,000 and certain market indicators, which aggregate quotes from several platforms simultaneously, even placed it above $81,000 during the session before the volatility fell in the afternoon.
Not because the war is stopping. Because the man who has the power to put an end to it suggests, behind the scenes, that he wants to. Markets do not evaluate fights, they evaluate the probability of an outcome. The mechanism is nothing new. A simple announcement of a ceasefire had already propelled Bitcoin earlier in the year, on the same political rather than military grounds.
Except that the week reshuffled the cards in the opposite direction. The fighting resumes, crude exceeds $100 per barrel and the price falls to $78,370, after opening at more than $79,000 the day before. On Wednesday, the price stagnated around $78,800, weighed down by the same inflationary fears that have weighed on the market since the beginning of the month.
The barrel of Brent has exceeded 100 dollars since the resumption of fighting in early September, and this pressure is directly reflected in American inflation figures. The US consumer price index for August is released this Friday, September 11. A high number closes the window for an accommodative Fed. A wiser figure leaves it ajar.
The Federal Reserve meets on September 15 and 16, with a probability of a rate increase that part of the market already considers not negligible. Add to that the midterm elections in November, where a president entangled in a conflict he had promised to end would fail, and the political calendar becomes as decisive as any on-chain indicator.
No one at the Journal du Coin takes out the crystal ball. The 18 deaths on the American side and the $4.22 per gallon at the pump weigh as much on the November polls as on the price of bitcoin. But until the gap between Trump's public discourse and the private assessment of his own advisers closes, the market has reason to remain on edge.
