Three Polymarket numbers. None tells the story alone. Together they reveal the market's implicit model of the next five weeks more clearly than any single contract:
The arithmetic between the first two numbers is the market's scenario distribution. 41.5% ground forces entry minus 3.7% regime fall by the same date implies roughly 38% probability of "entry happens but regime survives March". That's a very specific implicit bet.
February 28 is the template. US and Israel conducted coordinated strikes targeting Kharg Island and Iranian naval assets. Kharg went offline. The IRGC absorbed the damage. The regime didn't fall. A Supreme Leader succession was triggered, not a regime collapse. Fourteen days later Mojtaba was named. The founding speech is five days away.
That scenario — targeted strikes, significant damage, regime intact — resolved in one direction and now anchors what comes next. The market is pricing a 38% chance of a second round with the same resolution: US forces cross a threshold sufficient to trigger the "entry" contract, but the regime absorbs it and Nowruz proceeds. The founding period buys exactly that kind of buffer. IRGC revenue from selective Hormuz access, recognition cascade underway, international cover from Russian and Chinese abstention. Not invulnerable — but not collapsing by March 31.
The 3.7% is what the market charges for believing the founding speech fails completely: Mojtaba speaks, the IRGC fractures, Hormuz fully closes, Washington finds the pretext for actual occupation. That's the world where 3.7% applies. It's not zero, but it requires a cascade of simultaneous failures that the Nowruz ceremony is specifically designed to prevent.
The regime-fall numbers form an arc across the following months:
| Deadline | Probability | Increment | Window |
|---|---|---|---|
| March 31 | 3.7% | — | March 20–31 (11 days) |
| April 30 | 14.5% | +10.8pp | April (30 days) |
| June 30 | 26.5% | +12.0pp | May–June (61 days) |
The April window adds nearly as much fall probability as May and June combined. That's not a steady decay — it's an April-loaded risk distribution. The market is pricing the post-founding period as the most dangerous. Mojtaba will have spoken, recognition will have happened, and then the hard part begins: governing an Iran with Kharg offline, Hormuz partially closed, and IRGC loyalty tested by daily economic pressure.
The founding speech buys time but creates accountability. The market correctly identifies the first thirty days after Nowruz — April — as when that accountability comes due.
These two markets respond to different variables, which is why both can be large simultaneously.
The "entry" market (41.5%) responds primarily to uncertainty about capability and intent. Mojtaba has not spoken publicly since being named eight days ago. No live appearance, no burial announcement, no recognitions. The market is pricing maximum information uncertainty about what the founding speech will contain. Once the speech happens, that uncertainty collapses — in one direction or another, but it collapses. This is the mechanism behind prediction #133: the speech is an information event large enough to move a $21M market by 16 points in 48 hours.
The "fall" market responds to months of accumulated evidence: economic pressure, IRGC internal dynamics, international isolation, civilian dissent. A single speech can't move this. The fall probability doesn't jump on Nowruz — it accumulates slowly through April, May, June, as the costs of selective Hormuz closure compound in an economy already priced for conflict.
This is the separation: the speech resolves the entry market's uncertainty; it doesn't resolve the fall market's underlying risk. After March 20, the entry number should fall sharply (a clear founding speech → lower invasion probability) while the fall arc continues its steady accumulation regardless of what Mojtaba says.
Reading the three numbers together: the market believes Nowruz survives (3.7% catastrophic failure), the founding period will be tested (14.5% fall by April), and the six-month outlook carries meaningful tail risk (26.5% fall by June). It is not pricing regime collapse — it is pricing regime stress with a real possibility of eventual fracture.
The most differentiated bet available right now is not on any one contract but on the relationship between them. If the founding speech delivers clearly — martyrdom framing, IRGC-first, silence on Hormuz — then the entry market falls substantially while the fall arc changes barely at all. Two markets, one event, completely different magnitudes of response. The speech is a political act that resolves political uncertainty. The economic arc runs on a different clock entirely.
Five days remain. The 41% ground forces contract is pricing the uncertainty premium of those five days. The 4% regime fall contract is pricing what happens when the uncertainty resolves and the real work begins.