The bombing stopped less than two hours before Trump's
deadline expired. Pakistan brokered A2 week
ceasefire between the United States and Iran.
The Strait of Hormuz will reopen.
The power plants were not struck.
Negotiations are set for Islamabad on Friday, and the 40
day war that reshaped the Middle East, shook the global economy
and killed thousands of people is, for now, on pause.
It is Wednesday, April 8th, 2026, day 40 of Operation Epic
Fury. This is the morning after.
The guns are largely quiet, the markets are surging, Iranians
took to the streets of Tehran in celebration, and the world is
trying to understand what just happened, what it means and
whether it holds. This is episode 40 of Epic Fury,
the US Iran War podcast. Follow on Spotify and Apple
Podcast To stay with this story as it develops.
Let's get into it. Start with the sequence of
events that produced the ceasefire.
Because the final hours of Tuesday were as dramatic as
anything. This conflict is produced
through the daylight hours of Tuesday.
The war appeared to be moving toward its most catastrophic
escalation yet. Trump posted on Truth Social
that morning. A whole civilization will die
tonight, never to be brought back again.
He warned of the complete demolition of Iranian power
plants and bridges. Hexif had said the day before.
Today will be the largest volume of strike since day one.
Tomorrow even more than today. Iranians formed human chains
around power plants. Iran's deputy minister of youth
in sports called the country's young people to shield the
infrastructure with their bodies.
The deadline, eight in the evening Eastern Time, was
approaching. The image that defined the final
hours before the ceasefire came from Iran's state news agency
Farce. It showed a human chain forming
in front of the Kazron combined cycle power plant in southwest
Iran. Ordinary Iranians, arms linked,
standing between their bodies and the threat of American
bombs. Iran's deputy minister of Youth
and Sports had called on the country's young people to form a
national campaign he described as Iranian youth's human chain
for a Bright tomorrow. The image of civilians
physically placing themselves in front of infrastructure that a
foreign government had threatened to destroy was
broadcast globally and became a defining visual of a conflict
whose defining question was always this.
What is a nation that cannot win militarily do to survive?
The answer on Tuesday afternoon was to stand in front of its
power plants and wait. Then Pakistan moved.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif posted on social media
publicly asking Trump to extend his deadline by two weeks and
asking Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as a goodwill gesture.
Behind the scenes, Pakistan's army chief Field Marshall SIM
Munir, the most important back channel actor of this entire
conflict, was in direct communication with Washington
and Tehran simultaneously. At 6:32 in the evening Eastern
Time, 90 minutes before the deadline, Trump posted on Truth
Social. He said he was acting based on
conversations with Sharif and Munir, who requested that he
hold off the destructive force being sent to Iran that night,
subject to Iran agreeing to the complete, immediate and safe
opening of the Strait of Hormuz, he wrote.
I agreed to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period
of two weeks. This will be a double sided
ceasefire. He added that the United States
had received a 10 point proposal from Iran and that he believed
it was a workable basis on which to negotiate.
He said almost all of the various points of past
contention have been agreed to between the United States and
Iran. He said it is an honor to have
this long term problem close to resolution.
Iran's Supreme National Security Council confirmed the ceasefire
within hours. It's statement, however, did not
mirror Trump's framing. Where Trump declared near total
agreement, Iran's Security Council declared near total
victory, the statement read. We convey glad tidings to the
great nation of Iran that nearly all of the war's objectives have
been achieved and your valiant sons have driven the enemy into
a state of historic helplessness and enduring defeat.
It said Iran's hands remain upon the trigger and that should the
slightest error be committed by the enemy, it shall be met with
full force. And it emphasized this does not
signify the termination of the war.
Trump responded to the Iranian victory statement by calling it
a fraud, attacking CNN for reporting on it, and claiming
the statement came from a fake news site in Nigeria.
Multiple news organizations confirmed a statement came
directly from Iran's Supreme National Security Council,
obtained by CNN from Iranian officials, and reported across
multiple Iranian state media outlets simultaneously.
Iran's Foreign Minister Arachi thank Pakistan publicly for its
role in the negotiations and made clear that Iran's 10 point
framework, not America's 15 point framework, was the basis
on which the ceasefire had been reached.
The divergent goes further than competing press releases.
Iran's Supreme National Security Council statement said it would
enter negotiations in Islamabad beginning Friday.
While emphasizing the ceasefire does not signify the termination
of the war, it listed the conditions Iran expects to be
addressed, including the withdrawal of US combat forces
from all bases in the region, a demand that would require
dismantling the network of military installations that has
defined American power projection in the Gulf since
1991. It included reparations.
It included Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz as a
permanent geopolitical outcome rather than a temporary wartime
disruption. None of those points have been
agreed to buy the United States, and yet Iran is publicly framing
them as the agreed basis for what comes next.
This divergent is not a miscommunication.
It is a strategic choice by both sides.
Trump needs the ceasefire to be a victory domestically,
politically, and as a capstone to 40 days of military
operations that cost the American taxpayer 10s of
billions of dollars. Iran needs the ceasefire to be a
victory to justify to its population 40 days of bombing,
more than 1900 dead, and an economy that its own president
privately warned was weeks from collapse.
Both sides need the same ceasefire to mean something
different. That is the paradox that
Islamabad on Friday must somehow navigate.
The two sides are telling different stories about what
just happened. Trump is framing the ceasefire
as AUS military victory that forced Iran to capitulate and
reopen Hormis, White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt said
The truth is that President Trump and our powerful military
got Iran to agree to reopening the Strait of Hormuz and
negotiations will continue. She called it a victory for the
United States. Iran is framing it as an Iranian
diplomatic victory in which the United States accepted the
general framework of its 10 point proposal as a basis for
negotiations. Both framings cannot be
simultaneously true, but both are politically necessary for
each side's domestic audience, and that gap between the two
narratives is the single greatest threat to the
ceasefire's durability in the coming 14 days.
When Iranian officials arrive in Islamabad on Friday and American
officials arrive in Islamabad on Friday, they will be sitting
across the table from each other, having told their own
populations fundamentally incompatible stories about what
the past 40 days achieved. Bridging that gap requires
political will and face saving language that neither side has
yet demonstrated it can provide. Iran's Foreign Minister Arachi
confirmed that safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz
will be possible via coordination with Iran's armed
forces and with due consideration of technical
limitations. That phrase technical
limitations is doing significant work.
Before the war, more than 100 ships a day transited the Strait
under a decades old traffic separation system with no
publicly acknowledged limitations.
The reference to technical limitations is Iran reserving
the right to manage the reopening on its own terms and
timeline. Reports from Iran's semi
official TIS Name news agency indicate that Iran and Oman plan
to charge transit fees during the ceasefire window funds
earmarked for reconstruction, with fees reportedly as high as
$2,000,000 per vessel. Markets did not wait for those
details. The international oil price
benchmark fell 13% on Tuesday night, the largest single day
oil price drop in years. S&P 500 futures indicated the
stock index could open up more than 2% on Wednesday morning.
The economic relief that 40 days of this war had denied the
global economy arrived in a single evening.
But Eurasia Group had warned that even a swift ceasefire
would not immediately reverse the energy supply damage this
war has cost. It would take several months to
repair oil refineries and other energy infrastructure in the
Persian Gulf, and shipping companies would need at least
two months to resume normal operations.
The 13% oil price drop reflects the markets relief at the
ceasefire announcement. It is not yet reflect a full
resumption of Hormuz traffic because that traffic has not yet
resumed. Before the war, over 100 ships
transited the straight daily. In the weeks before the
ceasefire, maritime tracking data showed only about 5% of
that pre war volume still getting through, with ships
paying fees as high as $2,000,000 per vessel and
insurance premiums at six year highs.
Restoring anything close to pre war traffic levels will require
Iran to formally lift its blockade, shipping companies to
resume bookings, insurers to lower premiums and tanker
operators to trust that the ceasefire holds.
Each of those steps takes time. Whether that relief is sustained
depends entirely on whether the Strait reopens fully, quickly,
and durably. The Islamabad talks are
scheduled for Friday, April 10th.
Pakistan Prime Minister Sharif has invited delegations from
both the United States and Iran to negotiate toward a conclusive
agreement to settle all disputes.
Pakistan was the most effective intermediary throughout this
conflict. The country that shares a long
border and cultural and religious ties with Iran, hosts
the largest Shia Muslim population outside Iran, does
not host U.S. military bases, and has not been targeted by
Iranian missiles. Pakistan has also reemerged as
an important US partner during Trump's second term, partly
because of the enormous trove of rare earths and critical
minerals it is believed to hold, a convergence of interest that
gave Islamabad unusual leverage with Washington at precisely the
moment when that leverage was needed to stop a war.
Sharif's public intervention on Tuesday was the visible tip of
weeks of back channel work by Munir that created the
conditions under which Trump could announce A ceasefire and
frame it as a win. Its emergence as the venue for
the first direct US Iran talks of this entire conflict is not
accidental. It is the culmination of that
work and of the remarkable judgement of two Pakistani
leaders who chose the right moment to step in.
The 10 point Iranian proposal that Trump called a workable
basis contains terms the United States has not agreed to and
almost certainly cannot accept in their current form.
The gap between Iran treating its 10 points as the agreed
foundation for peace and the United States treating those
same points is merely a starting position is the negotiating
chasm. That Islamabad on Friday must
begin to bridge. That chasm is not narrow.
Israel presents the most immediate complication.
Netanyahu's office confirmed Israel supports the two week
ceasefire in relation to Iran, but stated explicitly that it
does not include Lebanon, Pakistan.
Sharif had announced the ceasefire as applying
everywhere, including Lebanon, effective immediately.
Those two statements are directly contradictory.
Hezbollah said it had halted attacks on Israel and on Israeli
soldiers in Lebanon. A significant statement since
Hezbollah's own decision to stand down is not automatic or
guaranteed simply because Iran's Supreme National Security
Council issued A ceasefire confirmation in Tehran.
Hezbollah operates with strategic autonomy even within
the broader Iranian axis. If Israel continues striking
Hezbollah in Lebanon during the ceasefire window, Iran will face
domestic pressure to characterize that as a violation
of the terms under which it agreed to the pause.
The Lebanon ambiguity is not a footnote to the ceasefire.
It is potentially its most immediate fault line.
Missile alerts sounded in Israel and the UAE in the early hours
of Wednesday morning even after the ceasefire was announced,
suggesting either residual attacks already in flight or
that elements of the proxy network had not yet acted on the
ceasefire instruction. The IRGC throughout this
conflict operated with considerable autonomy from
Iran's civilian and political structures.
Whether every IRGC commander in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Gaza
simultaneously received and accepted the ceasefire order is
a question that Wednesday morning is not yet fully
answered. Israel's skepticism about the
ceasefire's durability is a matter of record. 1 senior
Israeli source told CNN that Israeli officials were skeptical
and believe the apparent breakthrough could unravel and
leave deferred or escalation if Iran does not quickly open the
Strait. Senator Lindsey Graham said he
is extremely cautious about what is fact or fiction in the
current state of the ceasefire. He called for a congressional
review process similar to the one connected to the Obama era
Iran nuclear deal, an agreement that Trump himself withdrew from
in 2018. That comparison is not a
reassuring analogy for a ceasefire's longevity.
An American journalist, Shelley Kittleson, who had been abducted
by an Iranian backed militia in Baghdad a week earlier, was
released on Tuesday. Her release came alongside the
ceasefire announcement. Whether as part of the
diplomatic package or as a separate gesture of good faith
is not confirmed. Is 1 further human dimension of
a conflict whose humanitarian toll has been vast.
The international reaction to the ceasefire was swift and
largely welcoming, though hedged.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz hailed the ceasefire and thanked
Pakistan for its mediating role. Ukraine's foreign minister
called for similar American decisiveness in addressing
Russia's war. New Zealand's foreign minister
welcomed the truce but said much more needed to be done.
Iraq's Ministry of Foreign Affairs stressed the need for
full commitment from both parties.
The world's governments reacted to the ceasefire announcement
the way governments react to fragile things with relief
qualified by awareness that it could still break.
What is unambiguously true is this.
The Strait of Hormuz will reopen at least partially, for the
first time since February 28th. Oil fell 13% in a single
evening. 2 delegations, American and Iranian, will sit in the
same room in Islamabad on Friday for the first time in this
conflict. The 40 day air campaign struck
more than 7800 Iranian targets, conducted more than 8000 combat
flights, and damaged or destroyed more than 120 Iranian
ships. the United States and Israel achieved every stated
military objective within the first two weeks.
Iran's air defenses were largely dismantled, its nuclear sites
were repeatedly struck, its naval capacity was destroyed,
its senior military leadership was killed.
And yet Iran is still standing, still claiming victory and still
demanding conditions that no American administration could
accept. The 40 days did not resolve the
underlying conflict. They created the conditions
under which both sides could pause it.
But a two week ceasefire is not a peace deal.
It is a pause. The war killed more than 1900
Iranians, more than 1500 Lebanese, 13 Americans and
produced casualties across nine countries.
More than 80,000 civilian units were damaged across Iran.
Hospitals were struck, schools were struck, A synagogue was
destroyed. The Strait of Hormuz was closed
for 40 days, the longest closure of that waterway in its modern
history, producing an energy supply shock the IEA described
as the largest since the 1970s oil crisis.
By mid March, the cost of the US military alone had been
estimated at $18 billion. The cost to Arab countries
exceeded $120 billion by the 40th day.
This had become one of the most economically destructive
conflicts of the 21st century. The underlying disputes that
produced it Iran's nuclear program, its missile arsenal,
its proxy network, the US military presence in the Gulf
have not been resolved, and Iran's Supreme National Security
Council has been explicit. Our hands remain upon the
trigger. The most significant unanswered
question of the ceasefire is the same question that is defined as
conflict from its opening hour. Who in Iran has the authority to
make and keep a deal? The IRGC barred the civilian
government from negotiations throughout this war.
The ceasefire statement was confirmed by Supreme Leader
Mojtaba Khamenei himself, only weeks in power following his
father's assassination. The Islamabad talks will reveal
whether Iran's negotiating position is being driven by the
civilian foreign ministry, the IRGC, strategic calculus or
Khamenei himself. That answer will determine
whether Islamabad produces a durable framework or collapses
into the same cycle of ultimatum and extension that defined the
past three weeks. For the United States, the
United Kingdom and Australia, the ceasefire is an enormous and
immediate relief. Oil fell 13%.
Gas prices will begin falling as the straight reopens.
Trump is framing this as a decisive military and diplomatic
victory. The rescue of the F15 E Colonel
and now a ceasefire give him two consecutive major political wins
in three days. In Britain, the prospect of LNG
supply normalization will relieve household energy bills
that have been rising since late February.
In Australia, petrol prices will begin to fall and the free
public transport programs introduced by Victoria and
Tasmania to absorb the fuel cost shock may no longer be needed. 4
Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UA, Qatar and
Bahrain. The ceasefire brings immediate
relief from the relentless missile and drone attacks that
have been degrading their infrastructure, closing their
causeways and forcing their populations to live under
missile alert cycles for 40 days.
For the world shipping industry, the ceasefire is the beginning
of the process of reopening the world's most important
commercial waterway, though the process will take months to
complete rather than days. This is where this story stands.
On the morning of Day 40. The bombs have paused.
The Straight will reopen. The markets have surged.
Iranian celebrated in the streets of Tehran.
An American journalist tell by an Iranian backed militia in
Baghdad for a week has been released.
The Islamabad talks are three days away and the most important
two weeks in this conflict in which the war either transitions
toward a durable peace or resumes with the next round of
ultimatums and exchanges begin now.
The ceasefire is fragile, contested in its interpretation
by both sides, complicated by Israel's Lebanon carve out,
uncertain in its implementation and surrounded by forces on
multiple sides that have their own agendas in their own
triggers. But it is a ceasefire, and on
the 40th morning of this war, that is the most consequential
fact in the world. If this podcast is helping you
make sense of what is happening, please take 30 seconds to leave
a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
It makes an enormous difference to how many people find the
show. This has been episode 40 of Epic
Fury, the US Iran war podcast. 40 days the ceasefire.
The Strait reopens Islamabad on Friday.
The war is paused. Whether that pause becomes peace
is the question this podcast will keep following.
We will be back very soon.