Comment by Aloisius

17 hours ago

Iran's semi-official Mehr News Agency (via China's state news agency Xinhua[0]) claims the 10 points are:

1. U.S. commitment to ensure no further acts of aggression

2. Continued Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz

3. Acceptance of Iran's nuclear enrichment rights

4. Lifting of all primary sanctions

5. Lifting of all secondary sanctions

6. Termination of all United Nations Security Council resolutions against Iran

7. Termination of all International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors resolutions against Iran

8. Payment of damages to Iran for loss in the war

9. Withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from the region

10. Cessation of hostilities on all fronts, including Lebanon

Which is much different.

[0] https://english.news.cn/20260408/dd8df6148df94252aaa1d3fbb59...

The Ayatollah Booth is egg on the US's face regardless, but $2M/ship is about $1/barrel for perspective. Spot price is $95/barrel right now.

  • $2M/ship is $100B/year at pre-war crossing rates.

  • Not convinced it will happen. What would prevent Saudi Arabia from retaliating and introducing a special fee on all ships coming from Iran. It's not like intercepting those massive cargo ships in a small sea is of any difficulty for a well funded military.

    • Geography and missiles? Iran have everything to lose and have been put in a position where they literally have to fight for their existence.

      Militarily Iran is a giant and Saudi Arabia is a minnow.

      5 replies →

  • 1$/barrel - of barrels they are not producing surely ? That would make them able to levy Saudi Arabian and UAE oil and gas.

  • If Iran's 10 points become the basis of the peace, it ratifies Iran's sovereignty over the strait, at which point they can raise the price. It will be years before alternative routes devalue control of the strait, during which time Iran can siphon a lot of money out of passages taxes.

    • One thing I've not heard much discussion of is alternative routes. In the early days of this war there were discussions i of pipelines but it tapered off pretty fast

      2 replies →

  • [flagged]

  • [flagged]

    • > Gulf States themselves will go to war over it because they sure as hell aren’t paying Iran so that they can sell oil on the free market.

      Is this not the war they're currently losing? the US is their military.

      39 replies →

    • > Freedom of navigation is a core global principal

      And Iran has been respecting that principle for decades. So why exactly did the US and Israel (and GCC countries) think that the status quo would remain even if they keep antagonizing Iran? Imagine getting bombed during negotiations - not once, but twice in a single year! Their sovereignty was being disrespected, so now they're understandably establishing a new status quo.

      And btw, if Iran and Oman cooperate, there is no threat to "freedom of navigation" under international law.

      In a nutshell: play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

      107 replies →

    • Gulf states have no ability to go to war. As this war has shown, the states are entirely dependent on oil and desalination plants, both of which are easily attackable infrastructure.

    • > Freedom of navigation is a core global principal and Iran has no legitimate right to stop other countries from trade.

      The US is stopping other countries from trading with Cuba and Iran. The US doesn’t have the “right” to do that, but it doesn’t need the “right”. It only needs power.

      Iran has power over the Hormuz and is exerting it for what it deems is in its interest.

      > Gulf States themselves will go to war over it

      Maybe? But I doubt it - $1 per barrel amounts to like 1-2% of the price of oil. They may not like it but it’s not going to affect their bottom line nearly as much as closing the strait for 1 week will. A war with Iran would mean utter destruction of all oil infrastructure in the region, so probably better to pay 2% to avoid that.

      18 replies →

    • > Freedom of navigation is a core global principal

      Unlike Bosporus & Suez (similar choke points in the region), there's no international arrangement for the Hormuz bottleneck, nor has Iran ratified UNCLOS ("Convention on the Law of the Sea").

      21 replies →

    • > I wouldn’t worry about that lol. Gulf States themselves will go to war over it because they sure as hell aren’t paying Iran so that they can sell oil on the free market.

      And yet they haven't gone to war (or joined in the war) to open up the SoH so far.

      2 replies →

> 2. Continued Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz

> 6. Termination of all United Nations Security Council resolutions against Iran

> 7. Termination of all International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors resolutions against Iran

These seem remarkably outside the USes power to unilaterally agree to.

The first violates international treaties and while I'd be thrilled with the precedent as a Canadian eyeing my countries future revenue streams I doubt the rest of the world's countries are going to be happy to give up freedom of navigation through international waterways.

The second is something that can only be done by the UN security council with a majority vote and none of the permanent members vetoing the termination.

I don't actually know how the IAEA works, but it seems all but certain that that's up to their board of governors not the US.

  • It’s unlikely that Iran will get it’s demands at least all of them, and further it’s likely that this ceasefire will break no matter what.

    The strait is actually not international waters. It’s shared between Oman and Iran remember (deep water shipping lanes does not exists everywhere in it as well). There was reporting of an agreement on both sides to some sort of shared booth.

    Only the US would be the permanent party to vote against it which would be against which would be weird if the agree to the conditions in the first place.

    IAEA are stooges, they will do what the US tells them and they’ll come up with some legitimate way of doing it.

  • > The first violates international treaties

    Yeah, but USrAel never ratified UNCLOS. Iran is in the same boat.

    • Although i think they mostly recognize it as customary international law.

      Nonetheless international law isn't really worth the paper its written on. The bigger thing is there are a bunch of other countries dependent on the strait that might have something to say about it.

      1 reply →

3. Acceptance of Iran's nuclear enrichment rights

Among many other items this would never be accepted. This momentary cease fire is just regrouping time for everyone involved and that has always been the case for Iran.

  • It is acceptable, if only enriched for civilian reactors, not weapon grade what they did - and Iran was about to agree to that condition before their leadership was wiped out. If the new leadership will agree, remains to be seen. But I believe china or russia are also not strongly interested in a nuclear armed Iran.

  • There no feasible escalation path for the US. Trump has alienated allies and much of his anti war supporters. A forever war quagmire in a country 3x larger than Iraq is unlikely, as is carpet bombing. So what's left? A JCPOA style agreement with a Maga bumper sticker on it, with heavy concessions to Iran to prevent them from racing to a bomb, which is the best option from their pov at this point.

    • Carpet bombing would be a waste of munitions. Iran to your point is massive and surface level bombing would mostly take out civilians. The civilians have been through enough. Most of Irans military and religious leaders are in missile cities that are 500 meters+ under mountains of rock, the same places they are creating nuclear material. These bunkers are immune to bunker busters and nukes. That will require ground troops and likely a lot of them. How that plays out specifically I have not a clue. I can only hope that they share body-cam footage and that casualties are kept to a minimum. If there is one thing I can give Iran credit for that is building some amazing and very impressive bunkers using US dollars.

      with heavy concessions to Iran to prevent them from racing to a bomb

      This game has already been played out many times before. Obama unfroze 1.7 billion, Biden gave them upwards of 6 billion. All together the US has given them upwards of 60 billion to pinky promise they wont build nukes. Never pay a bully, ever. They used that extortion money to build bunkers, pay their proxy soldiers to attack Israel and all the gulf states and to work on their bunkers. There will be no more of that. Shame on anyone that falls for those shenanigans again.

      2 replies →

The whole concept of the ceasefire is absurd - it's like the joke that to combat the rise of suicides, the government made them punishable by death.

There's no enforcement mechanism, only big dog, small dog logic. What happens if one party breaks the ceasefire? The other starts shooting?

Interesting. I have noticed that news about events in Iran has been markedly different within the US and outside the US for years.

The differences in the various 10 point lists have been noticed. I wonder if different lists are being produced to make each side look better to their respective populace?

Still, either way lifting sanctions seems like a win for Iran. Also seems like Iran is going to be allowed to charge a transit fee through the SoH. Trump's going to spin this as a win, but it seems like a big loss. Maybe he's just desperate enough to get out of this that he's going to let it slide?

Hmm.

"Acceptance of Iran's nuclear enrichment rights" (enrichment to what degree?)

"Termination of all International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors resolutions against Iran" (what does this actually mean, that they tear up previous reports and findings? Ignore undeclared nuclear facilities and unaccounted for uranium?)

I mean, are Iran basically asking that they be allowed build nuclear weapons unchecked? Or is there another way to read this?

It doesn't seem much different. Both involve guaranteed stop of all hostilities plus payment for what you did plus keep we Strait Of Hormuz. The only difference is how the payment for the attack goes.

  • Withdrawal of US troops from the region and acceptance of uranium enrichment appears nowhere in the other 10 points.

    There are permanent US bases in the region.

Have the U.S. and Iran agreed the points? Or is this two weeks to hammer them down?

  • Of course not. It's a framework of a framework of a framework, unilaterally suggested by Iran.

  • Two weeks of open Strait to nail the final version, yes.

    I guess gas prices in US will cool down to pre-war price averages and the pressure not to resume aggression will be huge.

    • Absolutely not. It will takes months to years to rebuild onshore infrastructure, and shipping companies will be very reluctant to send tankers into the Gulf. Negotiations may collapse and hostilities resume at any moment, especially since Israel does not know the meaning of the word ceasefire.

    • Two weeks of open Strait [1]

      [1]: in coordination with the Iranian military [2]

      [2]: with preference for Iran's friends[3]

      [3]: and fees paid to Iran

Either way, it's maximalist aims, not realistic aims. Negotiations will obviously converge closer to US aims since Iran has no leverage.

  • The president just went from threatening genocide to begging Pakistan to set up a deal that doesn't even have agreed-upon terms. Seems like they have quite a lot of leverage.