Day 146 brief — Brent breaks $90 to $94 as the second front widens and Trump nears the ceasefire-or-war fork

Day 146 tilted the war's two-track balance toward escalation without closing the diplomatic door. The clearest signal was priced, not spoken: Brent crude jumped to $94.13 a barrel, up 3.43% on the day and its highest since mid-June, as the market that had held near $90 through Day 145 broke upward on a dual-chokepoint squeeze — Iran's Hormuz blockade and the Houthis' widening Red Sea embargo now bracketing Gulf and Saudi flows at once (Trading Economics, CNN Business, CNBC). The second front hardened: Kpler logged a 34% drop in Bab el-Mandeb traffic, Saudi weekly loadings fell to 6.1 million barrels a day from a 9.5 million peak on June 29, and analysts warned the embargo threatens an additional 7% of global oil supply even without a Saudi-linked hull hit (The National, CNBC, Foreign Policy). The four-year Saudi-Houthi truce is fraying — Saudi Arabia struck Sanaa airport, the Houthis answered at Abha — and the UN warned of 'greater regional escalation' (Middle East Eye, Washington Times). Against that, the ceasefire track stayed alive but conditioned: Araghchi's delegation continued Hormuz-management talks with Oman under Article 5 of the Islamabad memorandum, and Oman has drafted a traffic-management proposal, but Washington says talks cannot progress until ships are assured safe passage, and Trump is reported nearing a decision between the 10-day pause and a full-scale joint campaign with Israel as US forces mass in the region (Khaleej Times, Press TV, Axios). Per §3.5.3 the proposal remains an unaccepted claim. The US toll holds at 17. Direction escalating; thirty-day ceasefire probability holds at 10.