From the Assassination of Khamenei to a Peace Deal Text: The Complete Story of the Five Most Extraordinary Developments in the 2026 Iran War

The War That Reshaped the World

On the morning of February 28, 2026, President Donald Trump posted an eight-minute video from Mar-a-Lago announcing "major combat operations in Iran." He warned that American lives might be lost. He said the mission was noble. He cited nearly five decades of hostility between the United States and Iran stretching back to the 1979 revolution and the hostage crisis it spawned. And he confirmed what Israeli and American aircraft were already in the process of doing: launching a joint military operation of extraordinary scale against the Islamic Republic of Iran — targeting its military infrastructure, its governmental sites, and, in the most consequential single act of the operation, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic himself.

By the time Trump posted on social media that "Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a cleric who has ruled Iran as supreme leader since 1989, was killed in the strikes," the world had crossed a threshold it had never previously crossed. The leader of a major nation-state had been assassinated by the United States and Israel in a coordinated airstrike during active nuclear negotiations. Nothing in the post-1945 international order — not Korea, not Vietnam, not the Gulf Wars, not the strikes on Libya or Syria — had quite looked like this.

One hundred five days later, the war's most acute single escalation since the April ceasefire has just resolved into what Pakistan's Prime Minister, speaking at 6:18 p.m. Eastern Time on June 12, describes as an agreed "final text" of a peace deal. The text has 14 points. A Trump administration official adds uncertainty remains. And this morning — June 13 — the US military shot down multiple Iranian attack drones near the Strait of Hormuz, even as peace momentum builds.

The Iran War of 2026 is not over. But it is at the most consequential pivot point it has reached since the ceasefire of April 8. This is the complete account of its five most extraordinary developments — and the state of play as of this morning.

Extraordinary Development One: The Assassination of Ali Khamenei

The event that made every subsequent development possible — and made many of them necessary — was the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on February 28, 2026. He was 86 years old. He had ruled Iran since 1989, the longest-serving supreme leader in the Islamic Republic's history. His death at the hands of US and Israeli airstrikes during a coordinated opening operation — designated by the United States as Operation Epic Fury — was not an accident of war but a deliberate act of what the intelligence community calls "decapitation strategy": the targeting of a regime's command and leadership structure to degrade its ability to respond coherently to an attack.

The planning for the strike was meticulous and long-delayed. A previous plan to assassinate Khamenei during the Twelve-Day War in June 2025 had been vetoed by Trump. By late 2025, Khamenei had become increasingly reclusive, apparently aware that he was a target. The bunker in his compound was so deep that its elevator took more than five minutes to reach it, making viable strike windows extremely rare. When the February 28 operation opened, those constraints had apparently been overcome.

Khamenei died along with four others in the strike. The news, confirmed by Iran within hours, produced a burst of celebration among Iranian diaspora communities in the United States, Europe and across the world — and fear within Iran itself, where security forces stepped up their presence to crack down on public celebrations that broke out in Tehran and other cities. The Assembly of Experts — the clerical body constitutionally empowered to select a new supreme leader — was unable to convene immediately after Israeli strikes destroyed the building in which it was expected to meet on March 3, deliberately delaying Iran's ability to formalise the leadership transition. When it did eventually meet, it selected Mojtaba Khamenei — the Supreme Leader's son — as his successor, a choice that carried its own extraordinary symbolism in a system that had always formally rejected hereditary succession.

The killing of Khamenei removed the figure around whom Iranian strategic decision-making had been organised for 37 years. It created a profound and immediate power vacuum. It also removed, as Trump had announced he hoped it would, the specific individual whose determination to pursue nuclear weapons had been the stated casus belli for the attack. Whether it achieves that nuclear objective in any durable sense remains the central question of the peace deal text being negotiated this weekend.

Extraordinary Development Two: The Strait of Hormuz Closure and Its Global Consequences

The second extraordinary development was Iran's response to the February 28 strikes — not merely militarily, but economically. Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz was not a simple act of war. It was a declaration of economic warfare against the entire world, an attempt to weaponise geography by shutting the chokepoint through which approximately a quarter of the world's seaborne oil and a fifth of its liquefied natural gas transits daily.

The effect was immediate and catastrophic for global energy markets. Oil prices crossed $100 per barrel within days. Petrol at UK forecourts surpassed 158p per litre. Asia's energy markets were disrupted on a scale not seen since the 1973 oil embargo. Countries began rationing fuel. Airlines grounded routes. QatarEnergy's Ras Laffan LNG facilities were struck, destroying nearly a fifth of Qatar's LNG export capacity with repairs expected to take up to five years.

Iran's Strait closure has not been complete or uniform. Iran has allowed selective passage — vessels from China, Russia, India, Iraq and Pakistan — while blocking those from the United States, Israel and their allies. It has used the chokepoint as diplomatic leverage, signalling what normalisation could look like while demonstrating what pressure could do. As of this morning, the Strait remains conditionally controlled by Iranian forces, with US military assets in the Gulf of Oman providing escort operations. The peace deal text under discussion reportedly includes a framework for reopening the Strait within 15 to 20 days of a broader settlement being agreed.

Extraordinary Development Three: The Pakistan-Brokered Ceasefire and Its Fragile Persistence

The 40 days between February 28 and April 8 produced a military reality that both sides eventually had to reckon with. American and Israeli airstrikes destroyed Iranian military infrastructure, air defences, nuclear-related facilities, ballistic missile production sites, and governmental buildings on a massive scale. Iran's retaliatory response — hundreds of ballistic missiles and thousands of drones launched at Israel, US military bases across the region, and military and civilian locations in Arab states — caused thousands of deaths, massive displacement and widespread infrastructure damage in Lebanon, Israel and the Gulf states. UK bases in Bahrain, Qatar and Cyprus were attacked. The RAF was deployed in a defensive capacity.

By early April, both sides had reasons to stop. Iran's military capacity had been substantially degraded. America had achieved its publicly stated military objectives while facing a prolonged Strait closure that was damaging its own economy and those of its allies. On April 5, Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif proposed a 45-day two-phased ceasefire framework. Iran rejected it, proposing its own 10-point plan. Trump set a deadline of 8 p.m. Eastern on April 7, threatening "extensive attacks on Iranian infrastructure" if no deal was reached. Sharif urged Trump to extend the deadline by two weeks. Trump accepted.

On April 8, Pakistan announced that the United States and Iran had agreed to a two-week ceasefire. It was the most important act of Pakistani diplomacy in a generation, and it came from a country that shares a 900-kilometre border with Iran, has close ties with both Iran and Saudi Arabia, and had been conducting shuttle diplomacy while simultaneously managing its own war with Afghanistan and domestic energy shortages directly linked to the Strait closure. On April 13, the United States announced a naval blockade of Iranian ports — a separate lever of pressure that has remained in place since and that gives Washington ongoing coercive capacity even after the formal ceasefire.

The ceasefire was extended indefinitely by Trump on April 21. The Islamabad Talks — the formal negotiation between the US and Iran mediated by Pakistan — were held on April 10 and 11, then collapsed into a period of diplomatic stagnation through May. The issues on the table were identified by the House of Commons Library analysis: freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programme, reconstruction and sanctions relief, and a long-term peace agreement. Every one of those issues is complex, contested and deeply consequential.

Extraordinary Development Four: The June 7-8 Escalation — The Worst Since April

Just as peace talks were entering what both sides described as their most serious phase, the most acute military escalation since the April ceasefire unfolded in 24 hours across June 7 and 8, 2026 — Day 99 to 100 of the war.

The trigger was an Israeli airstrike on Beirut's Dahieh suburb — a Hezbollah stronghold — that Iran chose to treat as a violation of the post-ceasefire arrangement. Iran's response was its first direct strike on Israeli territory since the ceasefire: approximately 30 ballistic missiles fired at Israel on the night of June 7-8, killing multiple Israeli civilians across communities including Beit Shemesh, Haifa and Ramat Gan. Israel, despite receiving direct calls for restraint from President Trump, chose to respond: it struck air defence systems and a ballistic missile-material petrochemical complex across Tehran, Isfahan, Tabriz and Mahshahr.

For 24 hours, the ceasefire appeared to have collapsed entirely. Brent crude spiked above $97 per barrel. The peace talks that Pakistan had been carefully shepherding appeared to be in ruins. Then Trump intervened directly, posting on Truth Social: "Both sides, Israel and Iran, are looking to do an immediate CEASEFIRE!" Both sides announced a suspension of attacks. The immediate crisis was contained. But the episode revealed the structural fragility of a ceasefire being maintained in the absence of a formal peace agreement, and with an Israeli government that retains independent strike decision-making authority even when the United States is signalling restraint.

The weeks between the June 7-8 escalation and today have seen sustained diplomatic momentum replace the military tempo. Pakistani journalist Baqir Sajjad reported on June 12 that a Pakistani diplomat confirmed the draft Iran-US agreement is a 14-point document covering immediate de-escalation, end of hostilities across all fronts, and a framework for the Strait of Hormuz.

Extraordinary Development Five: Pakistan's Peace Text and the Deal That Is Almost — But Not Quite — Done

The fifth and most extraordinary development is the one that is happening as of this morning. Pakistan's Prime Minister declared on June 12, at 6:18 p.m. Eastern Time, that "the text of the peace deal has been reached." A Trump administration official simultaneously told reporters that "some uncertainty remains." Those two statements contain the full tension of the moment: an agreement that is real enough for Pakistan to announce and uncertain enough for Washington to hedge.

Trump himself declared at a South Carolina tele-rally this week that the United States would declare "total victory" over Iran within two weeks — a framing whose political function is clear but whose relationship to the actual negotiating text is ambiguous. The objectives Trump had publicly stated when launching Operation Epic Fury included preventing a nuclear-armed Iran, ending Iran's support for proxy groups across the Middle East, and reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Of those three objectives, the nuclear question is the most consequential and the most difficult to verify. Earlier in the week, Trump told reporters that Iran had agreed to allow the United States into Iran to dig up buried nuclear material in coordination with Iranian authorities once the conflict ends — a statement that, if accurate, would represent a dramatically more intrusive inspection regime than anything Iran had previously accepted.

The 14-point draft reportedly includes immediate de-escalation, an end to hostilities across all fronts including Lebanon, a framework for reopening the Strait of Hormuz within 15 to 20 days of broader settlement, and provisions addressing Iran's nuclear programme. Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has insisted that the end of the war must mean that Israeli forces withdraw from Lebanon — a demand that Israel has so far resisted. The question of Hezbollah's future — disarmament versus political accommodation within Lebanon's national dialogue — remains one of the deal's most contested elements.

At exactly the moment these peace negotiations are reaching their most delicate phase, the US military reported this morning — June 13 — that it shot down multiple Iranian attack drones near the Strait of Hormuz. Whether those drones represent a deliberate Iranian signal, a rogue military action not coordinated with Iran's negotiating team, or a routine defensive incident that happens to coincide with the peace talks remains unknown as of this writing.

The War in Numbers and Context

The 2026 Iran war has lasted 105 days as of today. It began during nuclear negotiations — launched as a surprise attack amid talks that Oman's Foreign Minister, who was mediating them, described as having produced "substantial progress" including Iran's agreement that it would "never, ever have a nuclear material that will create a bomb." Trump said he was "not thrilled" with those talks and the strikes began the next day.

The conflict has produced thousands of deaths in Iran, Lebanon, Israel and the Gulf Arab states. Millions have been displaced in the region. The Strait of Hormuz has been partially closed for 105 days, producing the global energy shock that has driven oil above $100 per barrel, lifted UK petrol prices to record highs, forced Asian countries to ration fuel, and contributed directly to the highest inflation the United States has seen since 2023. The Global Fund's June 11 workshop in Abuja heard that GBV cases in Nigeria are rising partly because of economic stress linked to the war's energy price effects. The COLA 2027 estimate has been revised upward three times in three months because of the same inflationary spiral.

The war has also produced the most consequential single act of AI regulation in history — last night's US government directive to Anthropic to disable its most powerful models over cybersecurity concerns — a directive whose connection to the broader geopolitical context of the war cannot be ignored. The national security anxieties that shut down Fable 5 and Mythos 5 are anxieties that have been radically amplified by 105 days of direct US-Iran military confrontation and the knowledge that Iran's cyberattack capabilities — significantly enhanced by Russian technical assistance over the past several years — represent one of Tehran's most durable remaining instruments of pressure.

What Comes Next

The peace text is reportedly agreed. The uncertainty is in the implementation. Israel's position on Hezbollah, Lebanon and the Strait reopening timeline must be reconciled with Iran's demands. Trump's "total victory" framing must coexist with the reality of a 14-point negotiated text rather than unconditional Iranian surrender. The naval blockade of Iranian ports must be lifted as part of any durable settlement. The US must verify Iran's nuclear commitments — whatever those commitments are — against an Iranian government that has spent four decades demonstrating its capacity for nuclear ambiguity.

What is clear as of June 13, 2026, is that the 2026 Iran War is the defining geopolitical event of this decade — and possibly of this generation. It killed a Supreme Leader, closed the world's most important energy chokepoint, reshaped the balance of power in the Middle East, drove global inflation to three-year highs, drove the Anthropic AI shutdown that is convulsing the technology world this morning, and produced 105 days of a conflict that the world is still trying to understand the full shape of.

The deal text exists. The drones are still flying. The peace is not yet made.

Sources

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2. National Review — Five Extraordinary Developments in the Iran War (June 10, 2026) — nationalreview.com
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