Rubio said Friday morning the United States expects a response
from Iran on the peace proposal. Yesterday, Trump said he is
expecting a letter from Iran. Supposedly tonight Iran's
Foreign Ministry called it a grotesque absurdity for the US
to claim to seek peace while simultaneously threatening one
big glow. Iran's Foreign Minister Arachi
posted on X that every time a diplomatic solution is on the
table, the US opts for a reckless military adventure and
that Iranians never bow to pressure and diplomacy is always
the victim. the US fired on 2 Iranian oil tankers on Friday to
enforce the blockade. Hezbollah attacked an Israeli
military base, the first publicly claimed cross-border
strike since the Lebanon ceasefire extension was
announced, and the State Department announced the second
round of Israel Lebanon peace negotiations to be held later
this month. It is Saturday, May 9th, 2026,
day 71 of Operation Epic Fury. The war is 71st morning.
The ceasefire is intact for Trump, who also fired on 2
Iranian tankers on Friday and named the Hormuz Transit
operation Project Freedom and announced Project Freedom Plus
is available if a deal does not materialize.
Iran's response is expected, according to Rubio today.
And the distance between Iran's grotesque absurdity,
characterization, and assigned framework agreement is precisely
where this war currently lives. This is episode 71 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. Begin with Friday's diplomatic
standoff. Because it contains the most
compressed sequence of contradictory signals this
conflict is produced in any single day, and because embedded
within those signals is the specific question that Day 71
exists to answer. Rubio said on Friday morning
that the United States expected a response from Iran on the
peace proposal that day. He said the US would see what
the response entails and that he hoped it was a serious offer.
Those two formulations, we will see what it entails.
I hope it is a serious offer. Are Rubio managing American
public expectations with deliberate care?
He did not say a response had arrived.
He said the US expects 1 today. He did not say the framework is
agreed or that Iran has committed.
He said he hopes the Iranian response is serious, meaning one
would assume a response that rejects the framework or
restates the grotesque absurdity position would not constitute a
serious offer. By Friday afternoon, Trump
confirmed from the White House that he was expecting a letter
from Iran supposedly tonight as he was departing for the
weekend. Asked whether he believed Iran
was slow rolling the negotiations, Trump replied.
We will find out soon enough that exchange, Rubio expecting a
response, Trump expecting a letter supposedly tonight.
Neither confirming arrival as of the afternoon press pool brings
Day 71 to a specific and unresolved question.
Did the letter arrive and what did it say?
As of this Friday night recording, no public
confirmation of the letters arrival have been reported by
any major news organization. The 48 hour response window the
administration described on Wednesday as the expected
Iranian reply timeline has extended through Thursday
afternoon, through Thursday night, through Friday morning,
and into Friday evening without a publicly confirmed final
Iranian answer. The extension of that window is
itself significant. Iran's civilian diplomatic track
is conducting an internal deliberation on the most
significant and consequential strategic concession its
government has been asked to make since 1979.
The nuclear commitment. The enriched uranium stockpile
removed from Iranian territory, potentially to the United States
for Dow prohibited snap inspections authorized a
framework that binds a 12 to 15 year moratorium on enrichment.
Lebanon included in the war ending declaration.
Each of those elements requires common A's explicit
authorization. Each requires that the Irgc's
hardline position that Iran does not negotiate under military
pressure, that any concession made under duress is
capitulation, That Arachi's grotesque absurdity formulation
is the right characterization be overcome by the civilian tracks
argument. That the cost of not conceding
now under this blockade and this military posture is greater than
the cost of conceding. That deliberation is happening
in meetings, audio calls and internal governmental
communications that no public reporting can see.
In that Pakistan's mediation team may be only partially
informed of whether the letter arrives tonight or over the
weekend, or whether the deliberation ultimately produces
a rejection of the framework rather than agreement to sign
it, is the specific question around which the entire 71 day
arc of this war is currently suspended waiting.
Iran's Foreign ministry spokesperson's characterization
of the situation, a grotesque absurdity, is its most emphatic
and unambiguous public rejection of the diplomatic framing the
administration has used for the past week.
The specific absurdity the spokesperson identified is the
following contradiction. The United States claims to be
seeking peace, to be working to avoid a nuclear crisis, to be
engaged in a sincere diplomatic process, while the same
president is publicly offering a solution of one big glow as the
stated alternative to a deal. Those two positions, the
spokesperson argued, are impossible to reconcile in a
single coherent foreign policy. You cannot simultaneously
present yourself as a peace seeking power and threaten what
Trump's phrasing evokes, a single catastrophic strike that
produces a visible glow in the same Friday press availability.
Iran's Foreign ministry is using that contradiction to
characterize the American approach not as a genuine peace
offer, but as a coercive ultimatum dressed in the
language of diplomacy. The framework document in this
framing is not an invitation to negotiate.
It is a pressure instrument. Agree to these terms or face the
glow. The grotesque absurdity
formulation is Iran telling its domestic audience, its regional
allies, and the international community that it does not
regard the American approach as a sincere negotiation and that
its response, whatever the letter being discussed might
contain, is being made under duress, not in genuine
partnership. Foreign Minister Arachi's post
on X articulated the historical pattern that underlies the
grotesque absurdity accusation. He wrote that every time a
diplomatic solution is on the table, the US opts for a
reckless military adventure. He said whatever the causes, the
outcome is the same. Iranians never bow to pressure
and diplomacy is always the victim.
That is Iran's official framing of the sequential pattern of
this entire war. The June 20, 2512 day conflict
came after indirect talks failed and Israel struck.
Operation Epic Fury on February 28th came after the pre war
nuclear negotiations broke down. The May 7th CENTCOM strikes came
while proposed framework was actively under Iranian review.
The pattern Arachi describes is talks, then strikes.
And the lesson he says Iran draws from that consistent
pattern is that pressure does not produce concessions from the
Islamic Republic. It produces defiance.
Whether that lesson is the one Common A is applying as he
considers the letter being drafted, or whether the economic
cost of the blockade has finally produced a different calculation
in the governing councils, is what the Friday letter, if it
arrives, will reveal. That framing is Iran's official
public diplomatic posture on Friday.
It's private posture. What is in the letter Trump says
he is expecting is the operative question that the grotesque
absurdity statement does not answer.
The public defiance and the private response have been
different documents throughout this conflict.
Iran's public statements have consistently been more defiant
than its private proposals through the Pakistan channel.
Every proposal Iran has sent through this process, the first
Hormuz opening offer, the revised 2 stage framework, the
14 point counter proposal was preceded and accompanied by
public statements describing the US as untrustworthy.
The talks is held under unacceptable conditions and any
concession as capitulation to an aggressor.
Whether Friday night's expected letter is more consistent with a
grotesque absurdity framing or with a framework that Trump says
Iran has already agreed to is the specific question the
weekend will answer. the US fired on 2.
Iran flagged oil tankers on Friday in separate incidents,
preventing them from docking at Iranian ports in violation of
the naval blockade. Both vessels were attempting to
transit to Iranian ports. Enact the blockades.
Rules of engagement prohibit the ceasefire Trump confirmed
remains in effect after the tanker incidents.
The tanker firings are the blockade performing its design
function, intercepting and turning away ships carrying
cargo to or from Iranian ports. They do not constitute new
offensive strikes against Iranian military infrastructure
in the way Thursday's CENTCOM self-defense strikes did, but
they represent the continued and active operation of maximum
economic pressure. On the same Friday that
diplomatic correspondence is expected to arrive, The 48th,
49th, and 50th ships turned away from Iranian ports since the
blockade began on April 13th are being turned away on the same
day. Rubio is hoping for a serious
Iranian offer. The blockade does not pause for
diplomacy. The economic pressure on Iran's
fiscal position accumulates whether or not the letter
arrives today, whether or not it arrives tomorrow, whether or not
Rubio's hope for a serious offer is fulfilled.
That is, of course, precisely the point.
The blockade is the primary reason the letter is being
written at all. Without the $500 million a day
drain, without the 53,000,000 barrels trapped in tankers in
the Gulf, without the 49 ships turned away, there is no letter.
Trump named the Hormuz guided transit operation on Friday,
revealing it was officially called Project Freedom.
Speaking to reporters as he left the White House for the weekend,
he said. I think Project Freedom is good,
but I think we have other ways of doing it also.
We may go back to Project Freedom if things do not happen,
but it would be Project Freedom Plus, meaning Project Freedom
plus other things. The Plus formulation is Trump's
escalation signal delivered in real time.
Project Freedom. The original Monday operation
involved 15,000 service members, more than 100 aircraft and
guided missile destroyers transiting the Strait.
It was paused on Tuesday evening after triggering Iranian fire
and the CENTCOM self-defense strikes that followed.
Trump is now describing a version that builds on that
foundation, with unspecified additions.
Whether those other things include the Dark Eagle
hypersonic missiles that CENTCOM formally requested for
deployment in early May, expanded Carrier Strike Group
operations, strikes on straight adjacent IRGC shore
installations, or elements of a broader reinstatement of
offensive combat operations is not specified by the Plus
formulation alone. That deliberate vagueness is the
point. Project Freedom Plus is a threat
whose specific contents are not disclosed, which makes it more,
not less, effective as a deterrent.
Iran's military planners must plan against the full range of
what the plus could encompass. They cannot dismiss it as
equivalent to the original Monday operation, which the IRGC
tested and survived at the cost of having military facilities
struck inside Iran in self-defense on Thursday.
The plus is Trump's signal that the next version of the straight
operation, if diplomacy fails to produce the letter he is waiting
for, will be something Iran has not yet experienced in the
current conflict. Trump's Truth Social post on
Thursday described the US military response to Iranian
attacks on the destroyers with characteristic directness.
He wrote that the Iranian drones and missiles dropped ever so
beautifully down to the ocean, very much like a butterfly
dropping to its grave. He said Iran trifle with the US
and described the American response as blowing them away.
He named the three destroyers the USS Rafael Peralta, the USS
Mason, and the third vessel is all confirmed unharmed despite
the Iranian onslaught. He separately praised the
American military's ability to deflect the missiles, drones and
small boat attacks simultaneously.
Then he added what is, taken at face value, a significant
strategic claim about Iranian nuclear intentions.
He wrote. A normal country would have
allowed these destroyers to pass, but Iran is not a normal
country. They are led by lunatics and if
they had the chance to use a nuclear weapon, they would do it
without question. That statement, without question
they would use it. Is Trump publicly articulating
the strategic rationale for the nuclear constraint at the center
of the framework being negotiated.
The entire structure of the proposed agreement, the
moratorium, the stockpile removal, the Furt out
prohibition, the SNAP inspections, is premised on the
belief that an Iran with a nuclear weapon would eventually
use it. Trump is saying that explicit
from the Oval Office and on Truth Social simultaneously, he
warned that the US would knock Iran out a lot harder and a lot
more violently in the future if Iran does not get its deal
signed fast. The sign fast formulation is
Trump's deadline expressed as an imperative rather than a
specific timeline. It is directed at the Iranian
government currently reviewing. The framework letter is also
directed at every news organization and government
watching to ensure that the pressure architecture's message
is received at full force by every audience simultaneously.
That warning sign fast is Trump's timeline pressure
applied directly to the question of what is in Friday's expected
letter. The CENTCOM strikes on Thursday
are the most recent demonstration of what happens
when Iran interferes with U.S. military vessels in the Strait.
The tanker firings on Friday are the blockade at work.
Project Freedom Plus? Is the escalated straight
operation available if the letter does not produce a result
and one big glow remains the in state threat if no deal
materializes that architecture of escalating consequences.
Thursday's self-defense strikes. The Friday blockade tanker
firings, Project Freedom Plus on standby.
One big glow as the terminal option is Trump's pressure
ladder fully extended on the 71st day of the war.
Hezbollah's attack on an Israeli military base on Friday is the
first time the Lebanese organization has publicly
claimed responsibility for a cross-border strike since the
Lebanon ceasefire extension was announced.
Previous ceasefire violations, and now up in hundreds on both
sides, frequently went unattributed or were described
through vague statements about responding to provocation.
Hezbollah publicly claiming this strike by name is a different
kind of communication. It is Hezbollah telling Israel,
the US and the international community that it is operating
under its own rules of engagement regardless of any
ceasefire framework, That its strategic calculation has
changed since Operation Eternal Darkness killed 92 people in
Beirut on Tuesday, and that the Lebanon ceasefire announced
extended shattered by Operation Eternal Darkness is not a
constraint on its military posture.
The State Department announced on Friday that a second round of
Israel Lebanon peace negotiations will be held later
this month. The first round produced the
three-week ceasefire extension that Operation Eternal Darkness
shattered on Tuesday after 11 days, the second round being
announced while Hezbollah is claiming cross-border strikes
and while Israel is conducting daily operations in southern
Lebanon. Is the United States attempting
to reassemble a Lebanon diplomatic architecture even as
both sides demonstrate it has no operational reality?
The State Department described the second round as seeking A
framework for lasting peace, the full restoration of Lebanese
sovereignty, and the delineation of borders.
Those objectives, lasting peace, sovereignty, restoration, border
delineation, are the right long term targets for a Lebanon
settlement. They presuppose conditions that
Operation Eternal Darkness and Hezbollah's Friday strike have
made more rather than less distant in the immediate term,
but which the State Department is correct to pursue as the
eventual architecture of a Lebanon settlement whenever that
settlement becomes achievable. The United States imposed new
sanctions on Chinese entities on Friday for supporting Iran's
military and defense industrial base.
Rubio said the United States will take all necessary action
at its disposal to target third country entities and individuals
aiding Iran's military. Chinese entities that have been
supplying Iran with components and materials throughout the
war, drone parts, avionics, industrial precursors and other
dual use materials are now formally sanctioned by
Washington. The China sanctions are
simultaneously A substantive pressure measure and a
diplomatic signal. Substantively, they are designed
to close the supply chain channels through which Iran has
been partially offsetting the blockades economic impact.
Diplomatically, they are Washington telling Beijing that
supporting Iran's military and defense industrial base during
active nuclear negotiations will be penalized regardless of US
China trade diplomacy happening simultaneously.
Rubio sanctioning China based entities on the same day he is
hoping for a serious Iranian offer.
Is the administration maintaining maximum pressure on
every dimension simultaneously on Iran directly on the blockade
and on the third party networks that have been cushioning Iran's
economic position? The ASEAN summit in the
Philippines adopted A contingency plan on Friday to
mitigate the Iran war's impact on member economies.
The Philippines, among the worst affected by fuel price spikes
caused by the hormones closure, hosted the summit with President
Ferdinand Marcos ordering it stripped of traditional ceremony
in acknowledgement of the economic emergency facing the
region. The contingency plan includes
establishing a regional fuel reserve and coordinating energy
supply alternatives. Southeast Asia's collective
acknowledgement that the Iran war requires a formal regional
economic contingency plan, separate from an additional to
any diplomatic resolution, is a measure of how broadly and
deeply the 71 day conflict has embedded itself in global
economic planning. EU NS Food and Agriculture
Organization separately reported Friday that global cereal
supplies are forecast to hold through 2026, with production
rising 6% year on year, but that the Hormuz closure is driving up
energy and fertilizer costs significantly, adding meaningful
uncertainty to next year's wheat output projections in importing
countries. Day 71.
Rubio expected Iran's response today.
Trump expected a letter supposedly tonight.
Iran's Foreign ministry called it a grotesque absurdity.
Arachi said Iranians never bow to pressure and diplomacy is
always the victim. Two tankers fired on as the
blockade held Project Freedom Plus on standby if things do not
happen. Hezbollah attacked an Israeli
military base, the first publicly claimed cross-border
strike in weeks. The State Department announced
the second round of Israel, Lebanon peace negotiations.
China sanctioned for supporting Iran's defense industrial base.
ASEAN adopted a war economic contingency plan and somewhere a
letter is either on its way to Washington through Pakistan or
it is not 71 days of war have brought the conflict to this
specific moment. A Friday night, a channel in
Islamabad, and a world waiting to find out what is inside the
envelope. If this podcast is helping you
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This has been episode 71 of Epic Fury, the US Iran War Podcast,
and we will be back very soon.