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Trump’s 15-point Iran truce plan would let one terrifying threat slide

Four weeks after the United States and Israel launched their combined assault on Iran’s clerical regime, the war has reached a tipping point.

Over the last few days, President Donald Trump has spoken frequently and optimistically about the chances of a deal.

Many of the 15 points in the peace proposal Trump has reportedly sent the Iranians — the dismantling of its nuclear program, ending support for regional terror proxies, keeping the vital Strait of Hormuz trade route open — will be anathema to the regime.

Indeed, Tehran has already reacted to Trump’s overtures with contempt.

Yet on one critical point, the regime will likely conclude it has room for maneuver.

Trump’s plan would reportedly restrict Iran’s use of missiles to “self defense.”

Without a doubt, the regime will interpret that “self defense” phrasing as a license to continue producing its deadly offensive missiles.

Before Operation Epic Fury, Iran controlled the largest ballistic-missile arsenal in the Middle East.

It used these projectiles to deadly effect in 2024 and 2025 in its attacks on Israel.

This month it has fired over 2,000 missiles at the Gulf nations.

It’s also launched more than 400 at Israel — which, despite achieving a 92% interception rate, received a taste of the devastation these weapons can wreak when one ballistic missile struck the southern town of Arad, wounding 88 people.

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Just last week, Tehran directed two long-range missiles at the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, which serves as a forward base for British and US military operations.

The island lies approximately 2,500 miles from Iran’s coast.

European capitals like Paris, Rome and Berlin lie within similar range.

If Iran’s missiles can reach Diego Garcia, they can just as easily reach the Champs-Élysées.

Meanwhile, CIA Director John Ratcliffe recently told the Senate Intelligence Committee that “if left unimpeded,” Iran’s regime would eventually “have the ability to range missiles to the continental US.”

Any truce that leaves Iran’s missile program intact will leave Iran’s Arab neighbors exposed to Tehran’s projectiles, place further strain on Israel’s air defenses — and risk the American homeland itself.

And if Tehran succeeds in maintaining control over its stock of enriched uranium, or successfully develops new underground enrichment facilities, the regime — rooted now more than ever in its brutal Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — will redouble its efforts to equip its missiles, even supposedly “defensive” ones, with nuclear warheads.

Highly intrusive inspections will be required to make sure the regime has abandoned its nuclear program.

When it comes to Iran’s missile program, equally strict monitoring will be necessary — along with diplomatic and military measures to suffocate further missile development.

That means all missiles and launching systems will need to be accounted for and destroyed.

It means that US and European sanctions on missile entities — especially Revolutionary Guard-linked aerospace firms, procurement networks and front companies — will need to be expanded rather than traded away in negotiations.

The missile arsenals held by Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and Iraqi Shiite militias, effectively an extension of Iran’s own missile force, must be subject to the same stringent measures.

The Revolutionary Guard remains determined to deliver on its March 5 threat that “Khorramshahr moments are on the horizon” — referring to the Khorramshahr-4 missile, which can travel up to 1,900 miles carrying a hefty 4,400-pound payload.

If a truce with Tehran comes to fruition, it’s naïve to assume that the battered regime will focus on rebuilding civilian infrastructure at the expense of its missile program.

Holding such hope is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the IRGC.

The attack on Arad tells its leaders that breaking Israel’s air defenses and pummeling the Gulf countries into submission with missile barrages is an attainable goal.If Trump wants this war to be the last one waged against the Guard-dominated regime, there can be no more talk of permitting missiles in the name of “self-defense.”Iran has a powerful incentive to hunker down until Trump departs the White House less than three years from now.And not even the most pacific future administration in Washington, guided by remorse over the current war, would be able to ignore the implications of an Iran that has weaponized its enriched uranium and revived its missile-production capabilities.

By then, however, it would be too late: Iran would have a nuclear-warhead-carrying intercontinental ballistic missile that could strike the American homeland.

That’s why Trump needs to continue military operations until Iran’s entire missile infrastructure is destroyed.

Mark Dubowitz is chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the presenter of “The Iran Breakdown” podcast. Ben Cohen is a research fellow at FDD. 

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