Iran has put a narrower, faster peace proposal before the United States (US) through Pakistani intermediaries, shifting from its sweeping 10-point April framework to a three-stage offer focused first on ending the war and reopening the Strait of Hormuz. The proposal would stop short of an immediate nuclear bargain, instead delaying enrichment, missiles, and related verification issues until after hostilities end and maritime restrictions are lifted. The offer would reopen Hormuz if the US lifts its blockade and ends the war, while postponing any nuclear talks, a sequence that US officials are already signalling they are unlikely to accept.

The new offer appears designed to split the crisis into urgent and deferred tracks.

Stage one would end the US and Israeli military campaign against Iran and require guarantees that Washington and Israel will not restart attacks. Stage two would reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for the US ending its blockade of Iranian ports, while creating a new legal framework for the waterway. Stage three would move nuclear enrichment and missile questions into a later negotiation, after Iran has already secured military de-escalation and maritime relief.

That sequencing is the central innovation, and the central problem. Tehran is trying to convert immediate battlefield and shipping leverage into relief before conceding anything on enrichment. Washington sees the nuclear issue as the reason the war began and the core test of any settlement.

Iran’s earlier 10-point plan remains the ideological foundation of the new proposal.

That plan demanded a US non-aggression commitment, continued Iranian control over Hormuz, acceptance of Iran’s enrichment rights, removal of primary and secondary sanctions, an end to United Nations (UN) Security Council and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board resolutions against Iran, war damages, US military withdrawal from the region, and a halt to hostilities on all fronts, including Lebanon.

The three-stage offer does not abandon those demands. It repackages them. The older plan asked for a broad settlement of sanctions, enrichment, regional security, and reparations. The new plan asks first for what Iran needs immediately, an end to attacks, relief from the blockade, and restoration of Hormuz traffic under a new framework. The nuclear issue is not removed but moved backward in the queue.

The first pitfall is the guarantee problem. Iran wants binding assurances that the US cannot resume the conflict, but any such guarantee would have to survive US domestic politics, Israeli security decisions, and the practical question of who verifies Iranian compliance after the guns fall silent.

The second pitfall is Hormuz. Iran’s offer gives Gulf exporters and chiefly Asian economies something they urgently need, movement through one of the world’s most important energy corridors. But Iran also wants a new legal regime for the strait, and Iranian officials have discussed military oversight and possible levies.

The third pitfall is leverage. The US blockade is meant to squeeze Iranian oil revenues and force Tehran into concessions, while Iran’s grip on Hormuz is meant to raise global costs and pressure Washington, Gulf states, and energy markets. If the strait reopens and the blockade ends before a nuclear agreement, the White House loses a major pressure tool. If Washington refuses the offer, Iran can argue that the US is blocking relief for shipping, energy, and food markets.

The fourth pitfall is Lebanon. Iran’s earlier 10-point plan linked peace with Washington to a wider regional ceasefire, including Lebanon. Israel has maintained that a truce with Iran does not automatically stop its operations against Hezbollah, and fighting has continued despite ceasefire diplomacy.

The fifth pitfall is sanctions relief. Iran wants primary and secondary sanctions lifted, frozen assets released, and international resolutions terminated. Those steps cannot be delivered cleanly through a quick ceasefire. They involve US executive action, Treasury enforcement, congressional politics, international banking risk, and separate UN and IAEA tracks. That makes Iran’s desire for front-loaded relief difficult to reconcile with Washington’s demand for front-loaded nuclear constraints.

The US is likely to conclude, correctly in the view of this newspaper, that nothing not agreed before a ceasefire will ever be agreed after. Iranian hardliners are likely to conclude that capitulation on their nuclear weapons ambitions will end their prospects of becoming a regional hegemon, eliminating Israel, and then targeting their offensive objectives against first Western Europe and then the US.