SCENARIO PROBABILITIES Updated: Jul 29, 2026
Path 1 carries the largest share, 45%, because Scenario Planner's base case and Geopolitical Strategist's 'most likely' bucket landed on the identical figure independently, and because PMF's five-month record of staying off CENTCOM's target list through the worst of the Jul 7-24 exchange is the single strongest data point on this desk's board, with neither panel finding a persuasive reason it breaks now over a lower-casualty, lower-rank strike than the one it already absorbed. The two panels split on the escalation case, 30% from Scenario Planner against 35% from Geopolitical Strategist; this desk weights toward the higher figure, splitting a combined 35% across Paths 2 and 4 (27% and 8%), because the argument behind it is a structural fact rather than a probabilistic judgment call: CENTCOM's rolling-tally rationale removes Tehran and PMF's ability to calibrate harassment fire below a strike threshold, corroborating Defense Analyst's independent read that Tuesday night converts into a standing authorization rather than a closed incident. Path 4 is carved out of that combined share at 8% rather than merged into Path 2, since a strike or credible threat against the Kirkuk-Ceyhan corridor is a distinct, higher-consequence outcome that Scenario Planner and Defense Analyst both flagged as a live if secondary exposure, not the modal escalation case; PMF has never targeted the corridor and has its own institutional stake in the bridge deal surviving it. Path 3 takes the lower of the two panel figures for de-escalation, 20% against Scenario Planner's 25%, because that outcome requires two independent restraints landing together inside two weeks, PMF staying quiet and Washington affirmatively closing the door on a second strike absent a new trigger, and conjunctive conditions get the more conservative weight on this desk's board. None of this is folded into the existing Abqaiq Reversal tree or the 85-90% deal-collapse band; it is priced as an additive, separate axis, consistent with Scenario Planner's own framing of this risk as not yet priced into that figure.
Discipline Holds 45%
PMF stays off target or fires a calibrated, deniable response with no US casualties; CENTCOM treats Jul 28-29 as closed and the Ceyhan bridge deal proceeds unaffected $85-91
Standing Authorization, Single Repeat 27%
PMF retaliates inside 48-72 hours and CENTCOM strikes Iraq again citing the rolling drone tally rather than a fresh Iranian provocation $90-99
Rapid De-escalation 20%
No confirmed PMF retaliation, Washington signals a second strike needs a new distinct trigger, and Iraq's calm feeds Trump's bridging-proposal decision $80-86
Ceyhan Exposure 8%
PMF or Kataib Hezbollah activity reaches the Kirkuk area and the Kirkuk-Ceyhan corridor, Iraq's only working non-Hormuz export route, takes an attack or a credible disruption threat $97-112

Iraq did not escalate on its own overnight. Washington gave itself a standing reason to escalate it again. Today's brief carried the news. Iran fired ballistic missiles at a US base reportedly in Jordan, all intercepted. Hours later, US and Saudi jets struck Popular Mobilisation Forces logistics and weapons sites across eastern Iraq, the first coalition strikes inside the country this crisis window. CENTCOM tied the strikes not to the missile launch alone but to a tally of "over 30 IRGC-directed aerial drone attacks in the last 72 hours," a rolling campaign count rather than a single dateable provocation. That phrasing, not the strike itself, is the new fact this piece has to work with, since it converts one night's action into a standing justification for the next one, without requiring Tehran or the IRGC's Iraqi-aligned factions to do anything new to trigger it. Four paths run through the two weeks to Aug 12 on whether that mechanism stays a one-off or turns Iraq into the fastest-moving of the crisis's three fronts.