BREAKING IRAN WAR · DAY 60 MIDDLE EAST

Day 60 of the US–Israel war with Iran brings a story that plays out on two very different screens: corporate boardrooms counting windfall billions, and Tehran streets where people are quietly whispering about regime change.

$3.2B BP Q1 profit

+100% YoY profit jump

$500M Putin ally’s superyacht

5–6km Israeli ground in Lebanon

Two months into a war that has reshaped global energy markets, one thing is becoming uncomfortably clear: the people paying the highest price aren’t the ones in the boardrooms. BP just posted profits of £2.4 billion for the first quarter of the year — doubling last year’s figure — while everyone filling up a car in Britain has felt the pinch at the pump. The timing is not a coincidence. The war is the reason for both.

“The volatility, the rapid changes in the oil price, have given BP’s energy traders lots of opportunities to make money.”

— Ben King, BBC Business Correspondent

What’s interesting about BP’s windfall is that it’s not even primarily from pumping more oil — production profits are actually flat this quarter. The real money is coming from trading: energy desks betting on price swings created by the chaos in the Strait of Hormuz. There’s something grimly poetic about a company profiting most not from the commodity itself, but from the uncertainty surrounding it. Calls for a windfall tax are already growing louder, though BP’s incoming chief executive has pushed back. The UK government points to an existing levy — introduced after Ukraine — which does already capture some of the upside on domestic production.

Prime Minister Starmer, meanwhile, has been trying to manage the mood. He’s chairing a new Middle East Response Committee — senior ministers, Bank of England officials, the works — and his message to the public is essentially: yes, it’s real, yes it hurts, but don’t panic. He’s also made clear what the actual fix is: reopening the Strait of Hormuz. The problem, as he acknowledged, is that’s not in his gift. And even if it reopens tomorrow, the disruption has already rippled far enough that prices won’t snap back instantly.

THE TRUMP POST NOBODY QUITE KNOWS WHAT TO DO WITH

President Trump posted on Truth Social this week that Iran has “informed” the US it is in “a state of collapse” and wants the strait reopened urgently. He offered no evidence, no sourcing, no context. Just the post. It’s tempting to dismiss it — but it’s also possible there’s a back-channel signal buried somewhere in it. Iran and Russia have been holding high-level talks this week. A $500 million superyacht linked to sanctioned Russian billionaire Alexei Mordashov was spotted transiting the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend — one of very few private vessels to make it through the blockade. Someone is clearly getting through. The question is who arranged it, and what was discussed.

“Iran has just informed us that they are in a state of collapse. They want us to open the Strait of Hormuz as soon as possible.”

— President Donald J. Trump, Truth Social

LEBANON: NO WAR, BUT NO PEACE EITHER

In Lebanon, the situation is best described as a ceasefire that has stopped being a ceasefire. Israel has issued fresh evacuation orders for towns in the south. Its military has released footage it says shows troops operating there. Its foreign minister insists Israel has “no territorial ambitions” in Lebanon — a statement that would carry more weight if Israeli forces weren’t currently occupying five to six kilometers of Lebanese territory along the border, with all the villages in between reportedly demolished.

Hezbollah and Israel are locked in a cycle of mutual accusations over who’s breaking the ceasefire. The Lebanese government is caught in the middle, trying to negotiate a lasting deal while the ground keeps shifting. Our correspondent in Beirut put it simply: the country is being held hostage.

ON THE GROUND IN TEHRAN

The most striking part of today’s coverage comes from inside Iran itself. BBC’s chief international correspondent, reporting under restrictions that bar her material from the BBC’s Persian service, walked the streets of Tehran and found a country quietly fracturing. Government rallies are happening nightly in the capital’s squares — mullahs on motorcycles, a show of force. Town halls are being held to debate whether Iran should negotiate with the US. The official line is defiant. But off-camera, several Iranians said something very different: that war, as terrible as it is, might be the thing that finally changes the regime.

In the city of Karaj, a residential street saw multiple homes destroyed by missile strikes. Seventeen people were killed, including eight members of one family. A survivor asked the question that tends to cut through all the geopolitical noise: “What was their sin? Do you see any military bases here?” It’s a hard question to answer. At the city’s main cemetery, the rows of new graves include top commanders and security personnel — but also families of eight and fifteen, including six children. Both things are true at once, which is what makes this war so difficult to narrate cleanly.

Sixty days in, there is no war and no peace. Just a blockade, a ceasefire that keeps crumbling, a president posting about collapse on social media, and ordinary people on multiple sides of multiple borders paying the price.