You tell me your officials have spoken with mediators, that the war will end very soon, and that the outcome will go one way or the other. I have seen such words before. In my own histories I noted how cities, when pressed, would send ambassadors to a powerful count with instructions to close with him if he appeared likely to succeed, but otherwise to draw out the time in diplomacy. That is the nature of negotiations conducted while the sword is still drawn: they are not a separate enterprise from the war, but a continuation of it by other means. The question I would ask is not whether the talks are sincere, but what condition each side is in, and whether the terms on offer reflect the actual balance of forces.
I would also caution you against the confidence that victory is near and that it will move quickly. I have written that weak states are always dubious in their resolves, and that tardy resolves are always hurtful. But the opposite error is no less dangerous: to resolve upon a swift conclusion when the means to enforce it are not assured. In my histories I observed that victories obtained in certain times emptied the treasury and impoverished the people, without giving the victorious party security from the enemy. The reason was that the vanquished could be re-equipped and return to the field, so that before one defeat was even known throughout the land, the enemy had reorganized his forces and harassed the victor with greater vigor than before. A war that is said to be won quickly is not won until the enemy's capacity to reconstitute his forces is destroyed.
As for the promise that gasoline prices will tumble once you win, I would look first to the mechanism. I have noted that in the wars of my time, both victor and vanquished alike needed fresh supplies of money: the one to re-equip his troops, the other to bribe them. The conqueror could not pursue his advantage without a new gratuity, and the vanquished could not fight without being remounted. If your strength in this war rests upon money, then the price of fuel is not a separate matter from the war but part of its sinews. I would not forecast the fall of prices as a consequence of victory until I knew how the victory was to be paid for, and by whom.
