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For the first time we can read the deal’s actual Hormuz text: no-toll safe passage ‘for 60 days only,’ then Iran-Oman-Gulf dialogue to define ‘future administration and maritime services… in line with applicable international law and the sovereign rights of coastal states.’ The vocabulary is the site’s framework almost verbatim — a vindication. But ‘for 60 days only’ is a sunset: the text describes the institution and defers building it. This post reads both directions.

The deal includes a $300 billion Reconstruction and Development Fund — a private investment vehicle, over half committed, replacing Iran’s original $400 billion war-damage demand. Read against the crisis, the fund is the legitimate alternative to the Hormuz toll: it supplies the reconstruction capital the toll was meant to extract, by investment rather than by taxing global trade. If the fund fills, the economic rationale for the toll evaporates — strengthening the case for a minimal service fee. But Gulf hesitation is the fault line.