“You never want a serious crisis go to waste,” Rahm Emanuel famously told his boss, Barack Obama, in 2008. The president’s chief-of-staff was referring to the financial crisis. Today, that same advice could apply to the Iran conflict.
The uneasy truce in the Gulf has given business leaders a chance to take stock. If trade starts flowing once again through the Strait of Hormuz, inflation risk will recede. The ebullience of the markets, hardly tempered as rockets flew and bombs exploded, will continue, probably with even more vigor. Those exposed to the conflict—oil producers, high-energy-use firms, and anyone who relies on global supply chains—will see a degree of normality return.
