Episode 35: The 10 Point Peace Plan: What Iran Really Wants

Reagan breaks down Iran’s proposed 10‑point peace plan and what it reveals about the regime’s real goals, from control of the Strait of Hormuz to sanctions relief and frozen assets. She explains Trump’s strategy, why his viral “whole civilization will die tonight” post triggered panic online, and why she believes the U.S. should reject Iran’s most extreme demands while still pushing for a workable deal that protects American security and allies.

Transcript

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What's up, guys, and welcome back to the Reagan Faulkner Show. Today we're gonna be doing a little bit of a deep dive into what's been going on in Iran over the course of this week. Now, it's a lot. Specifically, we're really going to dive into looking at their 10 points for peace that they've been talking about, but I do want to preface the episode with this is being filmed on Thursday, April 9th, around 1.15. A lot can change. I was trying to film this episode yesterday, and the news cycle just kept changing. And even since trying to film today, things keep changing. So there can definitely be some stuff that's different when y'all watch it on Friday or whatever day you're watching it versus when I'm covering it right now on Thursday. I mean, we've already seen whether like the ceasefire may or may not have been broken. There's there's a lot that's just rapidly developing, but we're gonna dive into what we've seen up to this point and kind of what some expectations for the future can be. So let's get right into it. As we know, this past Tuesday was the official deadline for the Trump from the Trump administration for Iran to open up the Strait of Ormuz. So this war's been going on for about 40 days at this point, 41 days or so. And Trump was kind of maybe able to secure this ceasefire on the 38th day of the conflict. Caroline Leavitt came out and claimed that all military objectives had been accomplished in less time than expected, which was originally about four to six weeks. They were able to do this in about 38 days. Now, that's regarding their specific military operations, the specific areas that they wanted to strike, that type of thing. Not getting peace, not securing a ceasefire. This is just specific military operations and strike zones. Now, this hasn't stopped the media from just crashing out, hasn't stopped internet influencers, random social media users from just spiraling out of control concerning what's happening in Iran and specifically Trump's truth social post. And I'm sure you know the one that I'm talking about. This will be the one on Tuesday afternoon, Tuesday evening, we really saw this flurry of posts and comments coming out where they were theorizing that Trump was going to nuke Iran, that Trump was gonna EMP Iran, that Trump was gonna vaporize Iran, all because of the Truth Social post where he said, quote, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want it to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have complete and total regime change where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen. Who knows? We will find out tonight one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the world. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death will finally end. God bless the great people of Iran. Now, one thing I think is really interesting is people were really getting into conspiracy mode on the internet about why he picked April 7th. They were like, oh, it's 47. I saw some people claiming that it was because I guess maybe 47 is some important number in the Freemasons or a secret society. I don't know. Personally, I was like, it's just a day, or maybe, you know, he got fed up whatever day, the 10 days, and then he added another 14 days to it or something like that a few weeks ago. Maybe that's just the date it came out to be, but it's kind of interesting in this. He's citing 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, and he picked 4-7 as the deadline. I think that's interesting. I don't know if there's anything behind it or not, but I thought it was an interesting coincidence to know. Anyway, with this tweet, we saw the absolutely monumental, insane crash out of basically the entire internet. I mean, like probably half or more than half of the conservative base and low-key, they're still crashing out. The conservative base is still crashing out over this tweet. Basically, the entire every other base, conservative or uh Democrats, like Independents, basically everybody else, their whole base crashed out over this post. And then we had other foreign leaders that were crashing out over this post. Like this post got so much attention. This post literally probably brought back feelings of what people experienced in the Cold War. People talking about, oh, he's gonna nuke them, it's nuclear war. People were literally like like live streaming like the deadline. They were live streaming from like seven to eight on the internet to see whether or not Trump was going to drop this nuke or whatever he was gonna do. I mean, it was crazy. I thought it was so crazy and honestly so irrational. Again, people on X were theorizing that he was just gonna vaporize all of Iran with a nuke. Others were saying that he was gonna use an EMP in a previous post, he had said that he wanted to send them back to the Stone Age. People said he was gonna use an EMP to send them back to the Stone Age without any loss of blood. But my thing, guys, my thing is Trump has been doing this for like 10 years. He goes out, he puts out these crazy tweets, and it used to only be like the Democrats and and members of the far left that would really get their panties in the wad and freak out and stuff like that. But now what we're seeing is people on the right are crashing out over these tweets. Have we learned nothing over 10 years? When he posts like crazy stuff like this, very rarely does he ever mean it. Normally, it's like a negotiation tactic. Normally, it's something that he uses as a part of like the art of the deal. I mean, he wrote the art of the deal, he's been making deals. He was in real estate for Pete's sake. Like, he knows how to negotiate, he knows how to elicit an emotional response from people to get them to come to the deal that's closest aligned with what he wants, that's in the best interest of whether it be his company or the country. He knows how to do this. And we have had 10 years of these absolutely insane tweets from him and now treats social posts, where I feel like, at least on the conservative side, people used to be like, oh, it's just Trump, it's fine. Like he's not gonna do anything. Like, oh yeah, he says he's gonna vaporize a whole nation, but like we know he's not. But what are we doing now? Why are we crashing out and losing hope and faith in him when this is literally the same MO that he's been using for the last 10 years? I just think it's crazy. I also think it's worth saying that again, reiterating, when he wants to do something, when he wants to negotiate, he puts these crazy messages out to try to get people all like freaked out and stuff. And but when he wants to, when he wants to do something, like when he has an objective mission, whether it be a military action or like something very specific that he wants accomplish and he doesn't want to risk anything getting in the way, he's silent about it, like completely silent. Look at Maduro and the Venezuela option, silent. Look at Operation Midnight Hammer, silent. If Trump really wanted to drop a nuke, I promise. I promise you, he would not tweet about it and let Russia and China and all the UN countries know, and then let Iran brace for it. Like, if Trump was actually going to do something of that magnitude, he would not let the entire world know and give them like 12 to 24 hours to prepare for it. That would just be a terrible, terrible move. And if he does in the future, and I'm wrong, I will be the first one to say that I'm wrong. But he's never done anything like that before. And as much as people want to say that Trump is like an unpredictable president, he's really not. His MO is generally the same for the last 10 years. He he pretty much follows the same structure for when he wants a negotiation versus when he wants to accomplish something. But we also have to think like he has two main points for why we're getting involved. Number one is to prevent Iran from procuring a nuclear weapon slash a weapon of mass destruction. Obviously, that's been our MO, our foreign relationship with Iran for like 20 or 30 years at this point. We just don't want them to have a nuke. We don't want them to have a weapon of mass destruction. Number two is that he wants to liberate and bring freedom to the people of Iran that have suffered so many human rights abuses. So if he's going in to try to help these people and liberate these people, why would he vaporize them all? That does not make sense if that's the goal. If he's really trying to help them gain independence and become more westernized like they were prior to the Ayatollah's rise about 47 years ago. So now what we're looking at is a potentially broken ceasefire because Israel struck Lebanon trying to get Hezbollah. Now we have that relationship and tension with Israel where we had the ceasefire and then they went and tried to strike Lebanon, and they said they were allowed to strike Lebanon, and Iran said they weren't allowed to strike Lebanon. We also now have an uncooperative Iran because Israel struck Lebanon and they closed the Strait of Hormuz again. So we're kind of back where we started, but also kind of not like Israel's not firing on Lebanon anymore. We're not firing on Iran. Iran's not firing on Israel or all of the other random countries around it that it started firing on after February 28th. Like it's kind of better than it was, but also the Strait of Ormuz is still closed, which was one Trump's number one action item for the ceasefire and for not blowing them up on Tuesday. So kind of back to the whole Tuesday thing, like going back a little bit, the beginning of the week, about an hour and a half prior to Trump's 8 p.m. deadline was when he posted on Truth Social about this ceasefire. That's really when he said, like, we're not gonna strike them. The straits open. It's okay, we're working through this peace deal, because it was at the request of some foreign officials in Pakistan. The Pakistani officials said, please do not strike Iram. And then Trump, I guess, was able to kind of come to terms. We'll open the strait and we'll start working through this peace deal. And that was how they got the complete opening of the Strait of Ormuz prior to yesterday, whenever Israel struck Lebanon. And with the reopening of the strait, kind of came like what their terms were. So, like the ships would have an escort from the Iranian armed forces, and the ships would have to pay a fee that would go to Iran and Oman. It would be a fee of about $2 million per trip, per boat, which was going to be used to rebuild Iran and Oman after the US strikes and after just the about the 38 days of strikes and war and such. So, in regard to the terms of peace, Trump stated that Iran had presented a quote-unquote workable 10-point peace plan. And he said that almost every single point of contention had already been resolved or was close to being resolved. So what we're gonna do is really dive into what these 10 points are, what's contentious, what the potential wins and losses are for the United States. And generally, like what Iran is asking for that's just absolutely ridiculous compared to like what the US will actually do. Like some of their points in here are just insane. And I don't think the US should, nor do I think the US would accept these as is. And again, I also want to preface this saying there are a lot of different 10 points floating around. I mean, like CNN has their own, the national has their own, Fox has their own. Some are only reporting on the top five, others are reporting on all 10. Like, there is a lot going around, and the only people that actually know the specific 10 points are the people in the negotiation room. That would be the Iranians, Trump, Jared Kushner, the people that are working on this behind closed doors. This is what I pulled from the national. And we'll also talk about some of the other ones that are floating around on other news sources. But these 10 that we're gonna talk about come from the national. So we've got the Strait of Ormuz to be reopened under the co-coordination of the armed forces of Iran, establishment of a secure transit protocol in the Strait of Ormuz, the war against all components of Iran's so-called axis of resistance to end, U.S. forces to withdraw from all bases and points of deployment within the region, full payment of compensation to Iran, lifting of all primary sanctions, lifting of all secondary sanctions, termination of all UN Security Council resolutions, termination of all IAEA resolutions on Iran's nuclear program, and the release of all frozen Iranian assets and properties abroad. So, what we're gonna do is dive into each one of these individual points and kind of talk about them and the history of why they are even relevant to this peace deal. So the first two points are pretty much a non-issue. However, other sources are reporting that Iran wants the full and complete unimpeded rights to the Strait of Ormuz, which would be an issue. Now, we kind of think that this makes sense because they've been calling the shots in the strait since the 80s, since the Iran-Iraq war when they militarized it. But the strait's not actually owned by any one country. Iran has the longest shoreline, and they also have a series of like highly fortified islands at the entrance of the strait. So it's been easy for them to control and restrict access as they want. It's been easy for them to militarize it and really just do whatever they want with it, but they're not the legitimate owners. They can't just say, like, we want the full rights to the Strait of Ormuz because it's not actually owned by anybody. So it's like, okay, I think it's fine for them obviously to reopen it because they don't really have the authority to close it in the first place. And second of all, like the secure transit protocol, that kind of makes sense if they think that they are gonna be enemies at Iran. As much as I hate to say it, like their government does have the responsibility of like defending itself, I guess. So if they want to make sure that there aren't foreign enemies going in and trying to send nuclear submarines or whatever because there's peace, that would make sense. But to have full, unrestricted access to it, to do whatever they want to do, that is not, that is not gonna fly, in my opinion, nor should it, because there are a lot of other countries that are on the Persian Gulf that have shorelines that depend on it for economics, that depend on it for infrastructure. Like that would just be a really, really, really bad idea. And it's really kind of wild of Iran to even think that they can have that. And again, that's only like that was cited in a different news source that that's something that they wanted. That was cited as a different one of the 10 points. So it's yet to be seen if that's one of their official 10 points, or if that's something that's being negotiated, or if that was just something that kind of came out of the internet or that Iran said, but knew that they would never give. They just highballed the negotiation. Now, regarding the axis of resistance one, this refers to an alliance between Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and various armed Shiite armed forces in Iraq and Syria. So, kind of the origins of this axis of resistance is a loose allyship that was formed to counter military action and Western influence from the US and Israel. And it was coined kind of in 2010. Now, in 2002 is where we really see the first time that this was used, the first time that this phrase was really used. It was as a loose alliance between North Korea, Iraq, and Iran to wholly and completely counter Western influence. And we've seen kind of a shift in this. I mean, obviously they still ideologically align, but now we're seeing them with more of these proxy groups plus Iran. With the same mission today, though, they all have the same mission that is countering Western influence. It's just terrorist forces and religious radicals instead of other kind of totalitarian countries, I guess you could say. Obviously, the US is not going to drop all forms of warfare on every single one of these groups, and especially not Hamas when we're still working with Israel to fight Hamas because of the October 7th attacks. Like, also, that's a really wild, outlandish point for Iran to ask for. These groups have been killing US citizens for decades. These groups have been trying to destroy the West and destroy Western influence for decades. The US is not just gonna be like, oh, Iran told us to stop. Yeah, I guess we should stop. Like, I that's really crazy, y'all. That's like really crazy. The US is not gonna do this. I feel like even talking about this, I feel like Iran is like a yippie chihuahua or something trying to tell the US what to do, and the US is just gonna be like, no, why? Why would we do that? So that's the axis of resistance and what it means when it's saying the US needs to like stop conflict with the axis of resistance. It's all of those proxy terrorist groups that cause chaos in the Middle East. Regarding the withdrawal of all troops within the region, I'm a little confused to be honest with you about what Iran means by this. They were not specific. Like it could refer to only Iran pulling out troops within Iran. And if that's the case, that's still kind of crazy because we have had troops there way longer than since this started on February 28th. Like, we have had troops there. Our military buildup in Iran started on November 21st, 2020, and started increasing up until 2023. And the reason for the increase was in response to rockets from an Iraqi militia backed by Iran hitting the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. This was still when President Trump was president the first time. And he said he threatened Iran because Trump has been threatening Iran. He's been hard on Iran since he's been president. He's been vocalizing his opinions about Iran since before he was president. And he said that if a single American was killed, it was quote, over for Iran. So that was when, not when the current hostilities began, but we've been having issues with Iran technically since 1979, definitely since 2006, and then definitely again since 2020, when arms that they gave to a proxy like struck one of our embassies. So that was when the military buildup started. They are not, at least in my opinion, when they're saying remove all deployments, they're not referring to just the ones that are currently there. They're referring to the ones that are currently there and most likely the ones that have been there since around 2020 when we started our military buildup. Now, if they're referring to the region, U.S. troops have occupied various parts of the Middle East literally since 1958, when there was the Lebanon crisis. And there were about 15,000 troops stationed in the Middle East at that time. And since then, they've just like there have been stationed troops that have remained deployed in the Middle East since 1958. Today, there are about 40 to 50,000 that are typically stationed in the Middle East at any one time. So, regardless of whatever their specifics are, whether it's the Middle East, whether it's the bases that we have there, whether it's just Iran, we're not going to be withdrawing all of our troops in the Middle East, or even the troops in just Iran. Like, I don't see that happening. We have bases in Bahrain, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait. There's no way that we're just going to abandon our military bases that we have spent millions of dollars on, withdraw all of our tactical equipment, withdraw all of our military equipment, withdraw all of our personnel just because Iran told us to. I do not personally see that happening. And I know that Trump just tweeted earlier today that all of our like war, I guess, personnel and equipment is staying there until the peace deal is solidified. So at least we're not withdrawing right now. The 10 points aren't going into effect right now because Trump's like, nah, until this is fully and completely backed, fully and completely solidified, we're maintaining all of our arms, we're sending in reinforcements, like we are making sure that our foreign interests are preserved. We're not going to back down to Iran. Now, the full compensation, full payment of compensation to Iran. In my opinion, this one's a simple no. Like, just no, just no. I think this one's also ridiculous. Had Iran not funded proxy terrorist groups that have been killing Americans for decades, had they not committed brutal degrees of human rights abuses to their people, had they not literally murdered people for being political opposition, or continuously tried to acquire a nuclear weapon with the UN opposing it, the um, oh my gosh, I can't remember the acronym right now, the IAEA, which is the International Atomic Energy Agency, you know, they were telling them not to get the nuke, the US was telling them not to get the nuke, Israel was telling them not to get the nuke. What did they do? They enriched the uranium anyway. Had they not done that, had they not done all of these things, had they not been a problem 40 and 50 years ago, maybe they could get compensation. If this was literally fully and completely the US's fault and we should have never gone in there in the first place, maybe this is something they could ask for. But the US is not going to repay Iran for the direct consequences of their own personal actions and poor decisions. Like, we also gave them many threats and we gave them many offerings. We gave them so many opportunities to not go down this road before we went down this road and they rejected them. They mocked America. They kept saying death to America. They threatened us. They threatened Israel. They threatened other allies. Then on February 28th, they just started striking everybody, trying to strike Dubai, almost hitting the Birj Khalifa. Like, they have done so much wrong. There's no way we're gonna repay them. That's like if your kid throws a temper tantrum in Target over not getting a toy, and you beat your kid in Target, and then you apologize for beating your kid and you buy them the toy anyway. Like, but at they should have never had the temper tantrum in the first place. They should have never thrown the fit, and they definitely still shouldn't get the toy, even if you feel slightly bad about spanking them or whatever. Like, they're not gonna get everything that they wanted just because you might feel slightly bad because you're the parent and it was discipline. We gave Iran so many off-ramps, so many opportunities over the last multiple decades to not go down the road that they've gone down. And unfortunately, they've reached a dead end and they've done it anyway, and they've allegedly murdered 30,000 political protesters in their country. At this point, Iran's done it to themselves. They're not going to get repaid. And if they do get repaid, I'm I'm going to, I'm gonna, you know, not support Trump on that one. To be honest, if they do get repaid, we have enough to deal with at home. We have enough debt, we have enough national debt, we have enough, we're indebted to enough other countries. We have enough poverty in our own country that we need to deal with. We do not need to be repaying Iran for something that they could have utterly and completely prevented had they not disregarded the advice and the request of almost every other UN nation and like groups like the IAEA or whatever it's called. So I think I think Trump wouldn't do this. I really don't think he would do this because also it would cost so much support from the Republican base ahead of midterms. That would be a really bad decision. And for all those reasons, I also think it's just incredibly stupid for Iran to even ask for that. I mean, seriously, this is utterly and completely their fault. Now, the lifting of all primary and secondary sanctions. The US has maintained sanctions on Iran since 1979. That was with the seizure of the US Embassy in Iran. And I mean, we've had them for a long time. That's what? That's that's like 40 some odd years, I think. That's pro that's 47 years. So I think it's a little ridiculous for them to be asking for this one conflict to reject 47 years of sanctions, 47 years of history, 47 years of problems between the two countries. For those who don't know, sanctions are specifically used to punish or discourage nations that have violated international law, or in order to kind of make the nation pursuing the sanctions accomplish their foreign policy objectives. So it can be used as punishment and deterrence, or it can be used as a tool for a certain nation to pursue foreign policy goals. So in the US, primary sanctions are placed upon the adversary country and they're expected to be followed and abided by U.S. citizens, permanent citizens, members of the military that are abroad, people living in the nation, um, organizations and businesses associated with both nations. And that would be people living in the United States, not people living in the sanctioned nation, but people living in the US, and then organizations and businesses that are associated with the US, and then any transactions that use a US financial system or financial institution. So none of those people could like buy anything that's sanctioned in Iran, whether that be oil, whether that be technology, whether that be purchasing from a specific person, company, or industry. Secondary sanctions are encouraged to be abided by third parties. So think of U.S. sanctions on Iran that are followed by other countries, or else they face the risk of a fine. Now, a few weeks ago, we talked about how most countries don't buy oil from Iran because the U.S. has sanctions on Iran. Now, China and Russia do, and China has those dark fleets that we talked about where they don't have transmitters and they don't have transponders, so nobody can find them. And then they repackage the oil as Malaysian oil and they run them through a different set of banks than the large, globally known state-owned banks so that they can bypass the sanctions. And so if anybody gets fined, it's not the big state-owned banks that are popular and used by a lot of different people. It would be privately held banks that are supported by the state, but that nobody really knows about, I guess would be a good way to explain it. So a lot of countries do abide by sanctions, even you know, these secondary sanctions, a lot of countries do abide by those and listen to those when other countries put them on a foreign enemy because more than likely that enemy has committed war crimes or human rights abuses or violated international law. The fee for breaking sanctions, at least in the US, is a million dollars or 50% of the value of the transaction. So it's pretty costly for normal everyday people to be violating sanctions. Sanctions can also be placed on people, on industries, on financial institutions, and a whole plethora of things, to be honest with you, um, to discourage doing business with individuals or nations that are violating international law, committing human rights abuses as a punishment, or to economically put pressure on the nation's main exports and industries in order to discourage them from doing certain things. So that would be what we're doing with Iran. We're trying to discourage them from developing a nuclear weapon, we're trying to discourage them from committing human rights abuses, we're trying to discourage them from violating international law, things like that. Since the U.S. has had sanctions on Iran for so long because of our history with them, because of Western history over in the Middle East, it is highly, highly, highly, highly, highly unlikely that we immediately drop them with this peace plan, especially with how shaky this ceasefire has already been. I think Iran could have asked for maybe a couple of sanctions to be dropped, but the dropping of all primary and secondary sanctions, point blank period, is crazy to me. They are not going to get that. Trump is not going to go for that. We know Trump is a man that loves sanctions and tariffs. He's not just going to drop them for Iran when we know how much he has a distaste for Iran. The termination of all UN Security Council resolutions is in reference to the many, many, many resolutions made by the body in reference to Iran and in reference to Iran's nuclear program. So the first of these resolutions really came in 2006, specifically in reference to the developing of the nuclear weapon and their nuclear program. Then we got some more resolutions in 2020. A draft resolution came to continue the restriction on arms purchases for Iran. And then in 2026, we got a new resolution condemning the Iranian strikes on all of those border countries that we talked about when they were retaliating against the U.S. Israel strikes from February 28th. Then we have the termination of all IAEA resolutions on Iran's nuclear program. So these resolutions really address Iran's unwillingness to comply with the UN nuclear rules and nuclear standards. This includes just generally not being honest about what they're doing. We all know they're developing a nuclear weapon, and they either say that they aren't or won't say that they are, which is a violation. I'm you're supposed to like say if you have a nuclear program. Also, stockpiling enriched uranium while also providing no evidence or communication concerning nuclear capabilities. So basically, the UN and the whole world knows that they have a nuclear program because of the insane amount of enriched uranium that they have, but they don't claim that they have a nuclear program. So they're stockpiling all this enriched uranium and not saying what it's for, not saying that they have a nuclear program, which is also a violation of these rules. And also refusing to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to investigate these production centers and these military centers. So they're saying we don't have one and we have all this enriched uranium, but you're not allowed to come investigate our military centers or like what they would dub the nuclear hubs where they're developing these things because they quote unquote don't have a nuke. It's they're being really shady about it. So the IAEA has passed resolutions on Iran for how shady they're being. And basically, Iran just wants to have this nuclear weapon. They want all of these foreign resolutions, foreign um like documents, I guess, foreign statements and opinions on Iran's actions to be dropped so that they can unimpededly keep creating their nuclear weapon and stockpile weapons of mass destruction. In my opinion, those two things are never gonna fly. Because even other countries aside from the US are concerned about Iran having a nuclear weapon, other UN countries. Finally, we have the release of all frozen Iranian assets and properties abroad. This one, in my opinion, is also a really wild ask from Iran. So in 1979, about $70 billion of Iranian assets were frozen as a result of the hostage crisis. So we have been holding on to these $70 billion worth of assets for about 47 years now. These assets have become a prominent geopolitical talking point in recent years because Iran has desperately been trying to get them back. There was a situation in 2012 where they were countering and saying that these things have been stolen. And the US was like, no, they haven't been stolen. We froze them, and it it's been a thing for about the last 14 years or so, you know, more prominently than it had been just from when we froze those assets back in 1979. It's also very unlikely that the U.S. would relinquish these assets because just under a very simple agreement, there's no evidence that Iran is actually going to change their ways. There's no evidence that they're going to be less radical, that they're going to stop funding these foreign terrorist proxy organizations, that they're going to start providing basic rights and freedoms to their citizens and stop their human rights abuses. I don't see the U.S. giving back these assets until Iran can prove that they're going to change their ways, not just with a simple signature on a peace treaty or something like that and kind of have this like word of, it wouldn't be a word of mouth agreement because they would sign it, but like this trust. Like we don't have any reason to trust Iran. We don't have any basis to put that trust on because they've violated international law and just statements and expectations from other countries so much. I don't see this being really workable. And I'm very confused, to be honest with you, as I think many Americans are, about how Trump sees this as a workable deal. So that kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier is we don't know what the real 10 points are. We don't know. He said most of these points of contention have already been negotiated. So likely he might return a couple of assets that are pretty immaterial. He might return, you know, get rid of a couple of sanctions. They might be allowed to have the fee when they allow boats to go into the Strait of Ormuz, things like that, maybe. But to just fundamentally accept all 10 points, I do not see Trump doing that whatsoever. I I mean, if he did, the midterms would be lost utterly and completely. Even people on the other side, even Democrats and liberals, would be upset about that because many of them also disagree with what's happening in Iran and how we've been treated for the last 47 years. So as the ceasefire hangs in the balance, many different sets of these 10 points are hanging around. Like I've been saying, it's really hard to know what is the real 10 points. Some of the points include specifically unimpeded uranium enrichment. Obviously, they're not going to get that. Trump has said no nuclear weapon, period. They're not going to get unimpeded uranium enrichment. Others include the $2 million transit fee as a specific point. Others cite pure peace rather than a temporary ceasefire as another point. And that can kind of tie into that axis of resistance and not trying to go to war with those groups anymore or go to war with like Iranian allies. Those could potentially be going together. Ultimately, the only people that know what's happening are the ones in the negotiation room. As of now, the Strait of Hormuz is closed again due to the Israeli strikes on Lebanon targeting Hezbollah. The UN drafted a resolution to reopen the strait after the strait got closed again, but this was vetoed by Russia and China, who are also allying with Iran. And we talked about that in that other Iran episode a few weeks back. As the war enters its second month, many Americans are left wondering what's next. What has victory actually looked like? I feel like the benchmark for victory has been moved a couple of times. It's changed a couple of times. Gas prices are up, morale is down, and the midterms are right around the corner. While Trump has been hard on Iran since his first term, he even talked about their human rights violations and their taking advantage and hurting the U.S., you know, prior to his 2016 campaign. We we should expect this from him. He was hard on them in his first term. He kind of badmouthed him before his first term. Then he badmouthed him again while he wasn't president from 2020 to 2024. Then we saw the strikes in 2025. Like, this should be expected. For all the people that said this isn't what I voted for, I really do have the question, like, what did you expect? Because he's been talking about Iran like this for the last 20 or 30 years. He has not been quiet about his opinions on Iran. So I'm really unclear about what you voted for when you knew about his opinions of Iran that have been captured on many different interviews, many different videos, many different tweets, many different military responses. Like we know how he feels about Iran. This was 100% expected, in my opinion. He said no new wars, and I get that. I don't foresee this being a 20 or 30 year engagement. I expect him to have this done before midterms. And if he doesn't, then I will be wrong. I will be completely wrong. I do not see this becoming a multi-decade-long engagement. Americans concerned about national security should be concerned about Iran's nuclear capabilities. They should be concerned about any weapon of mass destruction that Iran has. If it can get to the US or get to our allies, whether or not they've had, you know, whether or not they've been, I've heard this argument so many times, whether or not they've been two weeks away from a nuclear weapon for the past 30 years, any weapon of mass destruction, any weapon that can reach our allies, that can reach us, is a it's bad. It is unacceptable. It is not something that we want them to have because they will use it. They're kind of like like a toddler that doesn't get their way. Anytime that they get upset or they don't get their way, there's going to be a risk that they just fire off, you know, whatever weapon they have, whether it's a nuke, whether it's an atomic bomb. I know that there's some nuance between like a modern nuke and an atomic bomb, whether it's just something different. Like we don't want them to have any of that. Again, as they proved after the first strikes in February, they are irresponsible and prepared to lash out at anybody that they can reach. It is important for Americans to conduct their own research as well. Use a filter on everything that you read. There's misinformation circulating everywhere. I hate that word, but there's really no hard, clear, definitive answers about what's happening. You have to read a lot of sources. You can listen to me, you should go listen to other people because things can change and I could have stuff wrong. You have to look at so many different sources because every single source literally says something completely different. This was such a frustrating episode to write and to research because there's no foundational evidence. There's no hardcore solid evidence. There's so much research that needs to go into understanding this to a very well-spoken degree. Even CNN is being investigated for a story that they put out regarding Iran's victory, where CNN claimed that they acquired it through Iranian news outlets and officials, and then Trump's upset and launching a criminal investigation into them, um, saying that they got it from a fake news group out of Nigeria. Like, even with I know a lot of people don't like CNN, I don't like CNN, but even with a news organization like CNN that's very prominent, even they're having issues navigating this. Or maybe they did mean to put out misinformation. You know, it's CNN after all. But even there, you don't know what you're reading, you don't know what's true, you don't know what's not true. Americans are understandably concerned about foreign involvement, but if Iran has any sort of mass weapons stockpile with their shady relationship with China, their shady relationship with Russia, as we discussed in that previous episode, it's essential for Americans to maintain the harsh treatment of Iran, of that nation that could pose a national security concern to us. This isn't wholly about Israel or whatever other subset idea that's sprawling across the internet and in right-wing groups. This isn't utterly and completely about Islamophobia or whatever other subset idea is sprawling across the left and their internet groups. This is about national security. This is about the economy, this is about the safety of commercial shipping vessels, American shipping vessels, allied shipping vessels using the Strait of Ormuz, and this is about the protection of U.S. foreign interests. That is what this is about. It is not one specific problem or one specific solution or one specific country. It is a plethora of issues that President Trump is trying to solve. Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the Reagan Faulkner Show. For more, remember to check us out on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Substack at the Reagan Faulkner Show, and Instagram and Facebook at the Wilmington Standard. Also remember if you're looking for ethically sourced organic coffee for a good cause, use my code Reagan2026 on your next purchase of seven weeks coffee to get 10% off. They give 10% of every single sale to pro life pregnancy centers all across the United States. Remember to like and subscribe if you enjoyed today's episode and comment on what you want to see next. Thank y'all so much, and I'll see you on the next one.