Why did gold fall during the Iran war when it “should” be a safe haven? Is the safe-haven premium theory broken?

Genuinely trying to understand this better, not a rhetorical question.

Gold has fallen roughly 13-25% from its 2026 highs since the US-Israel strikes on Iran began on February 28. This appears to be the worst gold performance during any active military conflict in 50 years of available data.

The standard economic explanation I've encountered for gold's safe-haven property involves several mechanisms: flight to quality during uncertainty, currency debasement hedging, dollar weakness during energy price shocks (historically), and reduced real yields improving gold's relative attractiveness.

In the current situation, some of these mechanisms are working in the expected direction (currency debasement case is stronger with oil-driven inflation), but others are reversed:

• Dollar is stronger, not weaker, because the oil price shock is raising inflation expectations and leading markets to price in fewer Fed rate cuts or potential hikes — which strengthens USD and increases the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding gold.
• ETF outflows have been significant, suggesting institutional "fast money" is liquidating gold positions — possibly to cover losses elsewhere or simply to take profit after the 55% 2025 rally.

My specific questions:

1. Is there economic literature on how pre-event positioning affects the safe-haven response? The gold trade was extremely crowded coming into the conflict. Does prior appreciation systematically reduce the safe-haven response to the actual event?
2. Is the current gold weakness primarily a positioning/technical story or is there a genuine fundamental shift in gold's macro role?
3. Given that central banks (PBoC notably) continue accumulating, does this represent a divergence between institutional/sovereign behavior and financial market behavior that has been documented before?

Any pointers to relevant research or frameworks would be appreciated.