Iran did not submit a peace proposal. It submitted a post-war constitution for the Strait of Hormuz, and nobody in financial markets has read the fine print.

Point six establishes a permanent protocol for safe, regulated passage through the strait under Iranian military coordination. Point seven imposes a $2 million fee per ship. At pre-war transit volumes of roughly 120 vessels per day, that fee structure generates over $87 billion per year in toll revenue paid to a regime whose entire pre-war oil export revenue was approximately $50 billion annually. Iran is proposing to earn more from controlling the passage of other nations’ oil than it earned from selling its own.

Point four demands the complete lifting of all US sanctions. Point five demands reconstruction aid and compensation for damages. Point ten demands recognition of Iran’s sovereign rights, which multiple Tier-2 outlets, including IRNA and Reuters, interpret as acceptance of uranium enrichment under the NPT. The nuclear threshold demand is embedded inside a peace framework, presented alongside a Hormuz toll that would make Tehran the wealthiest chokepoint operator in maritime history.

Trump called the proposal a workable basis for negotiation but explicitly said it is not good enough. The White House framed the Iranian acceptance as confirmation that decades of terrorism will not continue under this president. Vance said the United States has tools in its toolkit it has not yet decided to use. The administration is not bending. It is reading the document and identifying where the leverage lies.

And the leverage lies entirely with the accomplished facts.

Over 130+ Iranian air defence systems have been dismantled. Eighty-five percent of Iran’s weapons-chemistry export capacity has been rendered inoperable. The IRGC’s intelligence chief is dead. Kharg Island has been struck. The transport network is severed. Iran’s bargaining position rests on one asset: the ability to close Hormuz again after the two-week pause expires. Every other card has been played. The military infrastructure that would support renewed escalation has been degraded to a level the IDF described as approaching the last remaining facilities. The 10-point proposal is maximalist precisely because the regime knows its kinetic options are diminishing and its only remaining leverage is the chokepoint itself.

The gap between the American position and the Iranian position is not a negotiating gap. It is a structural incompatibility. The United States will not accept a permanent Iranian toll on global commerce. It will not lift all sanctions without verifiable dismantlement. It will not guarantee the safety of Hezbollah or the Houthis. It will not fund reconstruction of facilities that produced the nitric acid used in the ballistic missiles fired at Haifa apartment buildings. These are not positions that split the difference. They are positions that require one side to abandon its core framework entirely.

Phase-2 begins Friday in Islamabad. The two-week window expires around April 21st. The US waiver on 140 million barrels of Iranian crude at sea expires April 19th. Three deadlines converge in the same week. If Islamabad produces a deal, the molecule crisis begins its multi-year recovery. If Islamabad fails, the strait closes again, the actuarial blockade reactivates, the oil spike returns, and the ghost fleet resumes yuan settlements through the same chokepoint that Iran just proposed to monetise at $87 billion per year.

The ceasefire bought time. The 10-point proposal revealed what Iran intends to do with it.