The White House has decided the Iran war is over - but not on the basis of a deal, a signature or peace. Just on the basis of a legal trick. According to the Trump administration, the 7 April ceasefire and its later extension „pause" the 60-day deadline from the 1973 War Powers Act, meaning Congress does not need to approve anything. Under this reading - the war ended on its own.

The detail matters. Under the War Powers Act, when a president starts a military operation without congressional approval, he has 60 days to obtain authorisation - or he must withdraw troops. The war against Iran began on 28 February, meaning the deadline has already expired. But the Pentagon, through Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, claims the ceasefire „stops the clock". Congress is handed an already-completed fact.

Senior administration sources say „the hostilities that began on Saturday, 28 February, are over". By their account, after 7 April there have been no exchanged volleys between the US and Iran. That is a technical truth - with one footnote. The joke of „war ended" is that the Strait of Hormuz is still blocked from both sides. Ships carrying oil and gas for the global economy are not passing through. That is not peace. That is a pause for breath.

The procedure has a clear aim: to avoid a political crisis in Congress. Democrats, and a part of the Republicans, are demanding a vote for an official authorisation. Without it, Trump would have to withdraw US forces. With it, he might not have a majority. Declaring the „end of the war" without a signature is a middle path - and it is exclusively for domestic use.

The Balkans reads this through a familiar filter. When governments insist that something is „over" without a formal document, it is a sign that someone at the top doesn't want to be put in front of a voting machine. With us it is called „the situation has been stabilised". With the Americans - „the hostilities are concluded". The terminology shifts; the policy of saving one's own skin does not.

And if Iran decides the ceasefire doesn't hold and sends one missile? The Strait of Hormuz becomes a quiet topic again, and Trump can say the „new" war is not a continuation of the old one. And the clock of the War Powers Act starts again from zero. That is the upmarket version of „the end of the war" - when the end isn't an end, only a reserve.