The media is obsessed with the "lost opportunity." We see the headlines every time a document leaks or a former staffer writes a tell-all: the claim that a perfect, 10-point plan for Iranian peace was "discarded" or "ignored" by the Trump administration. They paint a picture of a world that could have been, if only the "adults in the room" had been listened to.
It is a comforting fairy tale. It suggests that complex, multi-generational geopolitical conflicts can be solved with a well-formatted PDF. It is also completely wrong. Recently making news recently: The State Dinner Illusion and Why the Special Relationship is a Ghost.
The idea that a static 10-point plan—regardless of its origin—could have stabilized the Middle East ignores the fundamental mechanics of power. Diplomacy isn't a board game where you win by ticking boxes. It is a fluid, violent, and highly reactive ecosystem. If you aren't disrupting the status quo, you are being consumed by it.
The Fetishization of the "Plan"
Foreign policy circles in D.C. have a pathological need to produce "frameworks." These frameworks serve one primary purpose: to give bureaucrats a sense of progress without requiring them to take risks. More insights into this topic are explored by TIME.
When critics complain that a specific plan was discarded, they are mourning the loss of a script, not a solution. They assume that the Iranian regime—a revolutionary entity with interests diametrically opposed to Western stability—would simply follow the script because the font looked professional.
In reality, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) and the various 10-point iterations that followed were built on a flawed premise: that Iran wants to be a "normal" country. I have spent years analyzing the movement of capital and proxy influence across the Levant. You don't build a "normal" country by funding Hezbollah, propping up the Assad regime, and maintaining a shadow empire. You build a revolutionary state.
A 10-point plan that focuses on enrichment percentages while ignoring the regional firestorm is like trying to fix a sinking ship by repainting the captain’s quarters.
Why Discarding the Script Was the Only Rational Move
The "lazy consensus" argues that walking away from established diplomatic tracks creates chaos. This is half-true. It creates chaos for the bureaucrats who have built their entire careers on "managing" a problem rather than solving it.
But for a superpower, chaos is a tool.
The Trump administration’s "Maximum Pressure" campaign wasn't a failure of diplomacy; it was a shift in the definition of diplomacy. It moved the goalposts from "containment" to "economic strangulation." By discarding the 10-point plan, the administration signaled that the era of paying for temporary pauses was over.
Critics point to the subsequent rise in enrichment levels as proof of failure. This is a narrow, spreadsheet-driven view of reality. If your only metric for success is "grams of uranium," you are missing the forest for the trees. The real metric is the regime's ability to project power.
When the currency is in freefall and the internal security apparatus is struggling to pay its domestic enforcers, the regime's ability to export revolution is objectively diminished. A 10-point plan provides a roadmap for the regime to bypass these pressures. Discarding it forces them to face the consequences of their own aggression.
The Flaw in the "Grand Bargain" Theory
Every few years, a new "expert" emerges claiming that a "Grand Bargain" is possible if we just offer the right incentives. This is the ultimate hubris. It assumes we can buy off a regime’s core ideology.
Let’s look at the math. Under the JCPOA, billions of dollars were unfrozen. Did that money go toward schools in Tehran? Did it go toward infrastructure in the provinces?
- Proxy Funding: Annual transfers to Hezbollah increased.
- Ballistic Development: Test fires accelerated.
- Regional Destabilization: The Houthi insurgency in Yemen became a sophisticated missile threat.
The "plan" didn't moderate the behavior; it subsidized it. If you have a business partner who steals from the cash register every time you give them a bonus, you don't offer them a 10-point plan for professional development. You fire them.
The Myth of the "Moderate" Iranian Official
The media loves a protagonist. In the story of the 10-point plan, the "moderates" in the Iranian foreign ministry are the tragic heroes, trying to save the world from the "hardliners."
This is a dangerous fabrication. In the Iranian system, the foreign ministry is the marketing department. The IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) is the board of directors. The "moderates" exist to negotiate the best possible terms for the "hardliners" to execute their vision.
When the U.S. discards a plan proposed by these "moderates," it isn't "missing an opportunity." It is refusing to engage with the PR wing of a militant organization. It is recognizing that the person across the table doesn't actually have the power to fulfill the promises they are making.
Stop Asking if the Plan Was Good (Ask if it Was Relevant)
People often ask: "Was the 10-point plan a better alternative than what we have now?"
This is the wrong question. It assumes that the alternative to a bad plan is "nothing." The alternative to a bad plan is leverage.
Leverage isn't found in a signed document. It is found in the ability to dictate terms through economic and military superiority. The moment you sign a plan, you lose leverage because you become a prisoner to the terms of that plan. You spend your time debating "technical violations" instead of exerting pressure.
Imagine a scenario where a local gang offers you a "10-point protection plan." If you sign it, you might have peace for a month. But you have also validated their authority to tax you. If you "discard" the plan and call the police—or arm yourself—you might face a conflict in the short term, but you have preserved your sovereignty.
The 10-point plan was a protection racket disguised as a peace treaty.
The Hard Truth About Regional Stability
True stability in the Middle East does not come from a balance of power between the West and Iran. It comes from the normalization of relations between Israel and the Sunni Arab states.
The 10-point plan focused entirely on the U.S.-Iran axis, essentially cutting the regional stakeholders out of the deal. By discarding that plan and moving toward the Abraham Accords, the administration shifted the focus from "appeasing an enemy" to "empowering allies."
This is the counter-intuitive reality that the "discarded plan" crowd refuses to acknowledge: You don't get peace by talking to your enemies; you get peace by making your enemies irrelevant.
When the UAE, Bahrain, and Israel start sharing intelligence and economic ties, the Iranian regime’s 10-point plans become historical footnotes. The regional architecture changes in a way that no document signed in Geneva could ever achieve.
The High Cost of the "Discarded" Narrative
By clinging to the idea that a discarded plan was a "lost chance," we signal to our adversaries that we are desperate for a deal. This is the worst possible posture in any negotiation.
If Iran believes that the next administration will simply pick up the "discarded" plan and try again, they have zero incentive to change their behavior. They will simply wait. They will continue to enrich, continue to fund proxies, and continue to wait for the West to return to the table with its tail between its legs.
We need to kill the ghost of the 10-point plan once and for all. It wasn't a missed opportunity; it was a bullet dodged.
The world is messier than a bulleted list. It is more dangerous than a diplomatic cable. It requires leaders who are willing to tear up the script when the script is written by the people trying to destroy them.
Stop mourning the plan. Start looking at the scoreboard. The regime is weaker, the alliances are stronger, and the illusion of the "Grand Bargain" is finally, mercifully, dead.
The only plan that matters is the one that acknowledges reality: You cannot negotiate a permanent peace with a revolutionary power that views your existence as a temporary problem.
The plan wasn't discarded. It was exposed.
