Iran International
The details are still incomplete, but the positions Tehran and Washington have publicly tied to the ceasefire suggest not a shared settlement so much as a temporary halt layered over unresolved hostilities.
The precise texts are still only partly visible. The White House never publicly confirmed the full contents of the US 15-point proposal, saying only that some reporting had “elements of truth” but was “not entirely factual,” while Iranian state and semi-official media published a far more detailed public account of Tehran’s own terms.
Still, enough has emerged to show how far apart the two sides remain.
Public reporting on the US proposal described a plan centered on rolling back Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities, curbing support for allied armed groups and reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s 10-point plan pointed in the opposite direction. It sought recognition of enrichment, sweeping sanctions relief, compensation, continued influence over Hormuz, US military withdrawal from the region and an end to attacks on Iran and its allies.
That distinction matters because a ceasefire can stop the shooting without answering the political question of what comes next.
On the American side, the administration’s stated war aims remained consistent through March and April: destroy Iran’s missile arsenal and production capability, sever support for what Washington calls terrorist proxies, and ensure Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon.
Tehran’s public plan, by contrast, treated the ceasefire as the start of an arrangement that would preserve core elements of Iranian power rather than dismantle them.
In March, that divide was already visible. Time, citing reporting from Israeli Channel 12 and other outlets, said the US proposal called for dismantling Iran’s nuclear capabilities, ending uranium enrichment on Iranian soil, decommissioning Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow, limiting missile activity, ending support for proxy groups and keeping Hormuz open.
Iran rejected the proposal and, even before its fuller 10-point plan appeared publicly, made clear it was seeking a permanent end to the war rather than a simple pause.
Enrichment: rollback versus recognition
No issue illustrates the contradiction more clearly than uranium enrichment.
The publicly reported US plan sought to end enrichment inside Iran and dismantle the country’s main nuclear facilities. Tehran’s published plan did the reverse.
Iranian media versions of the 10-point framework explicitly demanded acceptance of enrichment, and some outlets reported that the phrase appeared in the Farsi version even though it was omitted from some English versions shared publicly by Iranian media.
That is not a minor drafting dispute. It is a disagreement over first principles. Washington’s reported position was that Iran’s nuclear program should be rolled back at its core. Tehran’s position was that enrichment should survive in principle, with any later discussion focused on scope rather than existence.
So long as those remain the baseline positions, the ceasefire may limit violence while leaving one of the central causes of the conflict unresolved.
Allied militias: disarmament versus protection
The same gap runs through the issue of Iran’s regional allies.
The Trump administration said one of its central objectives was to sever Iran’s support for proxies. Reporting on the 15-point proposal likewise said Washington wanted Tehran to stop financing and arming those groups.
Iran’s public plan moved the other way. It called for an end to attacks not only on Iran but on its allies, and its 10-point version included a halt to war on all fronts, including Lebanon.
That contradiction was not theoretical. It surfaced almost immediately after the ceasefire announcement.
AP reported that Israel backed the US ceasefire with Iran but said it would continue operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, directly undercutting mediation claims that Lebanon was covered.
In a statement on X on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel backed Trump’s efforts to ensure “Iran no longer poses a nuclear, missile and terror threat to America, Israel, Iran’s Arab neighbors and the world”. But the two-week ceasefire “does not include Lebanon”, he said.
If one side treats allied militias as part of the problem to be dismantled and the other treats them as part of the ceasefire to be protected, the truce does not settle this regional dimension of the war.
Hormuz, sanctions and US forces
The Strait of Hormuz offers another example of rival end states disguised as one ceasefire.
For Washington, reopening the strait was a condition of de-escalation. For Tehran, public versions of the 10-point plan framed continued Iranian control over Hormuz as part of the postwar order itself.
The Guardian and AP as well as IRGC media reported that the ceasefire allowed passage under Iranian military oversight, while AP also said Iran and Oman could charge transit fees under the arrangement.
That may have eased an immediate crisis in shipping, but it did not mean the two sides agreed on the underlying principle.
Later on Wednesday, Oman said it had signed agreements that prohibit charging ships passing through the waterway.
The same is true of sanctions and troop presence.
US reporting suggested sanctions relief would come in exchange for major Iranian concessions on enrichment, missiles and proxy activity. Tehran’s public plan demanded the lifting of primary and secondary sanctions, an end to UN and IAEA measures, compensation, and the withdrawal of US combat forces from the region.
Those are not different routes to the same destination. They reflect different answers to the basic question of who is supposed to come out of this war constrained and who is supposed to come out vindicated.
A ceasefire with competing narratives
The public record supports saying Trump at one stage described Iran’s 10-point proposal as a workable basis for negotiations. It does not support saying Washington accepted Tehran’s terms as stated.
The White House explicitly declined to confirm the full contents of the US proposal, and AP reported that key details of the ceasefire remained unclear even after the announcement.
The safer conclusion is narrower: Tehran published its expectations in unusually concrete form, while Washington left more of its own position in the realm of reported outlines and official war aims.
Trump added a partial public clue on Wednesday, writing on Truth Social that “many of the 15 points have already been agreed to” and that sanctions and tariff relief would be discussed, while also insisting there would be no uranium enrichment.
That leaves both sides room to claim success. Washington says military pressure forced Tehran toward talks. Tehran says resistance forced Washington to step back from a wider assault and negotiate from a different starting point.
But the announced expectations still clash on enrichment, allied militias, sanctions, US troop presence and control of Hormuz.
On the evidence now in public, this looks less like a settled peace than a pause built on incompatible definitions of what peace would mean.
If the ceasefire is to become something more durable, talks slated for Friday in Pakistan would have to narrow those gaps rather than merely postpone them, with the first day of the truce already marked by an attack on Iran’s Lavan refinery and reports of drone activity from Kuwait.
For now, both governments are presenting the pause as proof that force worked.
The unanswered question, especially for Iranians living with the consequences of both war and state power, is whether this truce can produce anything beyond a temporary reduction in fire – and whether any real change in Iran lies somewhere beyond the victory narratives now being claimed on both sides.
Tehran’s unveiling of a towering statue depicting the Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling before pre-Islamic Persian King Shapur I has renewed criticism of the Islamic Republic’s appeal to nationalist sentiment following the June war with Israel.
For over forty years, the theocracy purged ancient Persian history from schoolbooks, replacing it with post-Islamic narratives. But after the 12-day conflict with Israel, officials have turned to the distant pre-Islamic past to rally a divided society.
From murals of ancient kings and soldiers to patriotic songs added to Shi’ite mourning ceremonies performed before Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Tehran now embraces imagery once deemed heretical by its own revolutionary ethos.
'Kneel before Iran' campaign
Tehran’s Revolution (Enghelab) Square was the scene of an unusual spectacle on Friday as officials unveiled a massive bronze statue depicting Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling in submission before Sassanid King Shapur I, commemorating Iran’s victory at the Battle of Edessa (260 AD).
The event was held under the slogan “Kneel before Iran,” part of what authorities describe as a campaign to project “national unity and historical pride” following the June war with Israel.
Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani, a staunch ultraconservative, said on X: “Enmity with Great Iran can only end in kneeling before this historic nation.”
Municipal official Davood Goodarzi said the installation would be accompanied by visual displays depicting “other victories of Iranians over foreign aggressors,” including the defeat of British forces by local commander Rais-Ali Delvari, Mirza Kuchak Khan’s resistance against Russian troops, and Surena’s triumph over Rome at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE.
The goal, Goodarzi said, is “strengthening concepts such as national dignity, social unity, and Iranian identity.”
The statue, he said, would remain temporarily at Revolution Square before being moved to a city gateway “where it will stand as the first emblem of Iran before diplomats and foreign visitors.”
Unveiled women were allowed to attend the unveiling ceremony—an uncommon scene at events organized by Tehran’s ultra-hardline municipality.
The turn to the pre-Islamic past
The sharp reversal also recalls remarks once made by Khamenei. In a 2011 speech, he asserted that “all the great military victories of this nation came after Islam,” dismissing pre-Islamic accounts as “things that are not documented.”
In 1987, he had said that prophets triumphed over kings such as Cyrus and that “nothing remains of these monarchs in history but names remembered with derision.”
Nevertheless, pro-government social media accounts have now gone so far as to circulate posters equating Khamenei himself with Shapur, showing him standing with a staff as Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump kneel before him. The caption reads: “You will kneel before Iran.”
'Hypocrisy'
Pro-government figures have hailed the move as a patriotic success. Conservative political reporter Hossein Saremi posted: “Today’s grand Iranian gathering showed that people and the state share one essence: Iran itself. Nothing can take our homeland away.”
Others, however, called the spectacle “hypocrisy.” Journalist Gholamhossein Pashaei wrote on X: “Every year you close Pasargadae to stop people from celebrating Cyrus Day, yet you unveil Shapur’s statue in Enghelab Square with drums and fireworks during Fatimiyya (mourning period)!”
Dissident commentator Hamid Asafi called the ceremony “a perfect snapshot of the Islamic Republic’s contradictions.”
On Telegram he wrote: “A week ago they closed Cyrus’s tomb out of fear of the crowds, and now they glorify Shapur in the same breath. The Islamic Republic fears living history but poses for selfies with its corpse.”
He added: “They know people no longer respond to rosaries and sermons. That’s why they’ve brought history back to the stage—in a controlled costume. If they can’t erase the past, they’ll try to own it.”
The irony deepened as UNESCO formally recognized Cyrus’s Charter as one of the earliest human-rights documents.
President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X: “Iran, the cradle of dialogue, justice, and coexistence, can still inspire peace today.”
Users swiftly replied, questioning how such pride could coexist with a government that blocks access to Cyrus’s tomb each year to those wishing to visit it on his birthday.