Iran's 10-Point Plan

On April 6, 2026, Iran rejected the American ceasefire proposal and countered with a detailed, ten-point peace plan — the most comprehensive ceasefire framework either side had put forward since the war began. The document was published in full by Iran’s state media within hours. Trump, speaking from Mar-a-Lago, called it “workable” and said “almost all” of the major points had been agreed in principle. Hours later, a two-week ceasefire was announced.

The ten points are the most detailed public window into what Iran wants from this war — not just a ceasefire, but a comprehensive settlement that would reshape the Middle East’s security architecture, Iran’s economic standing, and the legal framework governing the Strait of Hormuz. Every point carries weight. Several are maximalist. A few are almost certainly negotiating openers designed to be traded away. Understanding which is which requires reading the entire list as a single, interlocking document.

The Ten Points

What follows is each demand as published, along with what it actually means in practice.

Read as a list, these ten demands range from the plausible to the extraordinary. Some are standard features of every arms-control negotiation. Others would fundamentally alter the balance of power in the Persian Gulf. The key to understanding the plan is recognizing that not all ten points carry equal weight. Some are designed to be traded. Some are not.

Point 2 — The Hormuz Tollbooth

This is the centerpiece of the entire document. “Controlled passage with Iranian coordination” sounds like a security measure. In practice, it means Iran retains the right to vet, approve, schedule, and charge for every commercial transit through the Strait of Hormuz. The word “coordination” does a great deal of work in that sentence. It transforms Iran from a coastal state with claims over the strait into an active gatekeeper with operational authority over the world’s most important energy chokepoint.

Read alongside Point 8 — which specifies that war damage compensation will be collected through ship transit fees — the picture sharpens. Iran is not merely seeking the right to manage traffic. It is proposing a permanent toll system, justified as war reparations but structured to continue indefinitely. The reparations framing provides legal and moral cover. The toll mechanism provides revenue. Together, Points 2 and 8 constitute a single proposal: Iran becomes the tollbooth operator of the Strait of Hormuz.

At a toll of $1 to $2 per barrel, applied to the roughly 20 million barrels transiting Hormuz daily, this generates between $7.3 billion and $14.6 billion per year. For context, Iran’s total pre-war oil revenue was estimated at $46 billion to $67 billion annually. A Hormuz toll would add 15 to 31 percent on top of that — a transformative new revenue stream that does not depend on Iran’s own production capacity, sanctions enforcement, or the willingness of buyers to purchase Iranian crude. It depends only on geography.

The strategic logic of the proposal — from Tehran’s perspective — is that it monetizes a geographic fact that existed before the war and will exist after it. Sanctions can be reimposed. Oil buyers can be intimidated. But the Strait of Hormuz cannot be moved.

Point 3 — The Nuclear Card

Iran demands acceptance of its nuclear enrichment program as a sovereign right. This is not a request for negotiation on enrichment levels or centrifuge counts or breakout timelines. It is a demand that the United States acknowledge enrichment itself as legitimate.

Trump’s response was unambiguous: “There won’t be any enrichment.” This is a direct contradiction. The American position since 2018 has been zero enrichment as the end state, and Trump has shown no willingness to move from it. Iran, meanwhile, has spent the last eight years expanding its enrichment infrastructure to the point where it now possesses enough highly enriched uranium for multiple weapons, according to IAEA assessments.

This is likely the single biggest sticking point in the entire ten-point plan. Both sides have stated their positions publicly and repeatedly. Neither can easily retreat without domestic political cost. And the leverage dynamic is unusually stark: the ceasefire lasts only two weeks. If the nuclear question is not resolved — or at least deferred in a formula both sides can accept — the ceasefire expires and the crisis resumes.

There is a scenario in which Point 3 is the sacrificial piece. Iran includes it knowing it will be rejected, uses it as bargaining leverage for other points, and ultimately accepts some modified formulation — perhaps a cap on enrichment levels rather than full acceptance. In that scenario, the nuclear demand is an opening bid, not a bottom line. Whether that reading is correct will likely be determined in Islamabad.

Points 4-6 — Undoing Eight Years of Pressure

Points 4 through 6 form a unified block. Point 4 demands the lifting of all primary and secondary US sanctions. Point 5 demands the end of all IAEA Board of Governors resolutions targeting Iran. Point 6 demands the end of all UN Security Council resolutions directed at Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

The scope is extraordinary. Iran is not asking for the rollback of sanctions imposed during this particular crisis. It is asking for the reversal of the entire sanctions architecture built since 2018, when Trump withdrew from the JCPOA and reimposed “maximum pressure.” But it goes further than that. Several of the IAEA and UNSC resolutions predate Trump’s first term entirely — some trace back to the Obama administration, others to the Bush era. Iran is asking to wipe the diplomatic slate clean.

The demand for lifting secondary sanctions is particularly significant. Secondary sanctions are the mechanism by which the United States prevents third countries from trading with Iran. They are the reason European banks will not process Iranian transactions, the reason Indian refiners reduced Iranian crude imports to zero, the reason Chinese companies face penalties for buying Iranian oil. Lifting secondary sanctions would not merely allow Iran to trade with the United States. It would allow Iran to trade with everyone.

Of the three demands in this block, sanctions relief is almost certainly the minimum acceptable outcome for Iran. Tehran entered this war with its economy strangled by eight years of escalating financial isolation. Ending the war without ending the sanctions would represent a strategic defeat regardless of what happens at Hormuz. This is the block that Iran cannot afford to lose.

Point 7 — US Military Withdrawal

Point 7 demands the withdrawal of US combat forces from regional military bases. The phrase “regional” is doing significant work here. It does not specify individual countries. It does not distinguish between permanent bases and rotational deployments. Read literally, it encompasses the entire US military footprint in the Middle East.

The current US military presence in the Middle East includes an estimated 40,000 to 80,000 personnel spread across dozens of installations. Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, which Iran struck twice during this war with ballistic missiles causing more than $500 million in damage, hosts American fighter squadrons and air defense batteries. Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar serves as the forward headquarters for US Central Command. There are American forces in Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE, Iraq, Jordan, and on naval vessels throughout the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea.

A full withdrawal would fundamentally reshape the Middle East’s security architecture. Gulf states that have depended on the American military umbrella for decades would need to build independent defense capabilities or find new security partners. The vacuum would be filled — by China, by Russia, by regional powers like Turkey and Saudi Arabia — but the transition would be chaotic and the outcomes unpredictable.

Whether this demand is serious or aspirational is an open question. Iran may be aiming not for a complete withdrawal but for a reduction — fewer bases, smaller garrisons, a diminished American ability to project force from the region. The maximalist ask creates room to negotiate toward a still-significant but less dramatic outcome.

Point 10 — The Binding Resolution

The final point is, in many ways, the most revealing. Iran demands that whatever agreement emerges from the negotiations be ratified through a binding UN Security Council resolution.

This is Iran learning from history. In 2015, the JCPOA was embedded in UN Security Council Resolution 2231. But when Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018, the legal architecture collapsed. The resolution remained on the books, technically, but the United States simply stopped complying with it and reimposed sanctions unilaterally. Iran discovered that a deal built on presidential commitment could be undone by the next president. The JCPOA was not a treaty. It was a handshake that one side chose to release.

A new UN Security Council resolution would function differently. It would make the terms of the agreement binding international law, enforceable through the UN Charter. Russia and China would almost certainly vote in favor — both have strong incentives to see sanctions lifted and stability restored. But the resolution would also bind the United States. A future president could not simply walk away. Withdrawal would require either a new Security Council vote — which Russia and China could veto — or an open violation of international law.

This is almost certainly non-negotiable for Iran. Tehran will not accept another agreement that depends on the good faith of an American president. The institutional memory of 2018 is too fresh, and the domestic political cost of accepting a deal that could be reversed in four years is too high. If the negotiations produce a framework, Iran will insist that framework be locked into the UN system.

What’s Tradeable?

The maximalist reading of the ten points is straightforward: Iran wants everything. Non-aggression. Toll revenue. Nuclear acceptance. Sanctions relief. Military withdrawal. Asset release. Legal permanence. It is the wish list of a nation that believes it has won a war, or at least fought one to a draw that gives it leverage.

The realistic reading is more nuanced. Not all ten points are created equal.

The Hormuz toll demand, embodied in Points 2 and 8, may be the real objective of the entire plan. It is the one item that generates permanent revenue, exploits a geographic fact that cannot be changed, and does not depend on American compliance after the deal is signed. The toll is self-enforcing. If Iran controls the strait — and geography ensures that it always will — the revenue flows regardless of who occupies the White House.

Nuclear enrichment, Point 3, is probably the opening bid. Iran knows that Trump will not accept enrichment in any form. The demand is included to be traded — conceded in exchange for gains on other points. The question is what Iran gets in return.

Sanctions relief, Points 4 through 6, is the minimum acceptable outcome. Iran entered this war under crippling economic pressure. A deal that does not include comprehensive sanctions relief is a deal that Iran will reject.

The binding UN resolution, Point 10, is non-negotiable for the reasons described above. Iran will not trust another handshake deal. It will not accept terms that depend on presidential goodwill. If there is a deal, it must be locked into international law.

Military withdrawal, Point 7, is aspirational but tradeable. Iran would accept a reduced US presence — fewer bases, fewer troops, a commitment to draw down over time — rather than a complete withdrawal. The ask is large to create room for a smaller but still meaningful concession.

These ten points are a starting position, not a final agreement. But they are the clearest articulation of what Iran believes it has earned from this war. Whether the ambition is realistic depends on the numbers — what a toll would actually generate, what it would cost importers, and whether the financial logic is as compelling as Iran believes. That is the subject of Part 5.