In June, just days before the United States and Iran agreed to an initial memorandum of understanding to try to freeze their conflict, we wrote a contrarian piece about the assumptions necessary for a scenario in which Hormuz remains functionally closed until 2027. Although daily transits are on the upswing, they remain far below their prewar levels, are being facilitated by extraordinary U.S. naval protection under constant Iranian threat and require extreme precautions like turning off transponders and relying on smaller vessels to facilitate ship-to-ship transfers of oil and other exports outside the strait — hardly normal conditions. With only a few months of the year remaining, this contrarian take has become the baseline scenario. Thus, extending its assumptions further to see how much longer the conflict might last is a useful exercise.