In Episode 1823 of Cut The Clutter, ThePrint Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta unpacks the emerging “fog of ceasefire” in the ongoing West Asian crisis, where a fragile pause in fighting has produced competing claims of victory rather than clarity. As the US under Donald Trump and Iran push rival narratives, he explains how last-minute brinkmanship, backchannel manoeuvres, and Trump’s “madman theory” of negotiation shaped the truce. Gupta breaks down the sequence of events, the role of regional actors, and the unresolved flashpoints, from continued strikes to tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, highlighting why this is less a lasting peace and more a temporary, uncertain pause whose true outcome will only become clear with time.
Here’s the full transcript edited for clarity:
I bet you’re familiar with the expression ‘the fog of war’. Fog of war is when a war breaks out. All kinds of things happen—claims, counter claims. And nobody who’s finding out facts is actually in the war. So it takes time for the fog to lift. After the war stops, the fog lifts and maybe then you can get closer to the truth, if not close to the truth.
What we are seeing right now in the West Asian crisis is the opposite of the fog of war. It is the ‘fog of peace’, or more specifically the ‘fog of ceasefire’, because what we’ve seen is not peace. It’s not as if the war has been stopped and peace has descended. As General Dan Caine, the American Joint Chief of Staff, said, this is a pause. In this pause itself there is a lot of fog. Where does the fog come in?
First of all, both sides are claiming victory. It’s a bit like any one or two-day, 87-hour India-Pakistan conflagration where both sides claim victory and, usually, public opinion on both sides goes along with it. We don’t know exactly what the public opinion in Iran is.
Although we see visuals of people celebrating with flags and all, remember Iran is also a country which hasn’t had internet for a very long time. It’s easy to collect crowds there for these events. I’m not saying that is the case and that the Iranians are not celebrating. I’m just telling you that we are seeing those pictures.
At the same time, on the American side, Donald Trump and, even more vocally, his Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, have called it a total victory and said that all their objectives have been achieved. He said the objectives were to destroy any possibility of Iran ever having nuclear weapons. That’s now been done, to completely diminish Iran’s ability to make ballistic missiles, and to destroy Iran’s military industrial complex.
So there are claims on both sides. The Iranian side is also claiming victory, saying that ‘it is because of the way we fought back that the Americans finally had to seek an offramp’. The Americans, on the other hand, are saying, and once again Pete Hegseth, because he just spoke, ‘the Iranians begged for ceasefire and we all know it’.
It’s difficult. Maybe in the course of time books will be written, or long articles will come out in New Yorker, Financial Times, places like that, as the people get more wisdom and sources speak out. This is too early for us to get into that. I can only tell you the sequence of this so-called peacemaking.
Because 8 o’clock Eastern Standard Time, that is 8 pm Washington time (5:30 am Indian time), was Trump’s deadline. He said if Iran did not accept his conditions by then, he’d send Iran a 15-point plan through Pakistan’s Field Marshal Asim Munir on March 24, which Iran had dismissed then as maximalist and unreasonable and unacceptable.
He said if Iran did not accept his conditions, then from 8:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time onwards he would launch a massive attack on Iran, after which he said the civilisation would cease to exist, never to come back again. You can see that Truth Social post on your screens.
Now that caused immediate consternation. In fact, even the House Democrats got together and appealed to the Republicans to say ‘look, your president has got unhinged, so you should remove him’. Other people, Ro Khanna, for example, said the 25th Amendment of the American Constitution should be used to remove a president who had lost his mind. That was the threat he used.
But as the day progressed, it was evident. In fact, it’s been evident for the past 10–15 days or so, when it became clear that America thought that most of the targets or most of the objectives that they wanted to achieve militarily had been achieved. They did not want to carry out a ground invasion and they knew that they had no intention of going and occupying Iran. Everybody has learned their lessons from Afghanistan and Iraq. Iran, if anything, is several times bigger and tougher than Iraq or Afghanistan. So, he was also looking for an offramp.
Those who know Trump better, some people said, ‘Oh, this means he’s going to use nuclear weapons’. I also saw some think tanks, including some Indians, doing projections that if America uses nuclear weapons in Iran, because the direction of the winds is from the west right now, what will be or what could be the fallout on India.
However, that was never on the cards. This was Trump with this classical madman behaviour. Remember we had dedicated a full episode of Cut the Clutter to Trump and the ‘madman’ theory. The ‘madman’ theory is that he scares you. He throws at you the worst possible thing he could do to you, and then you start worrying about that and settle somewhere in the middle because he’s ultimately a man who wants to make a deal. That is the kind of thing that’s happened now.
So he first said a civilisation shall cease to exist. I don’t want this to happen. In the same post, he said, ‘I don’t want this to happen’. And then he said that a set of new smart people have taken over in that country and they may be more reasonable. I’m not quoting him exactly, and maybe there will be a deal.
So what’s happened in the process? He’s now started making a claim that his biggest objective of regime change in Iran has taken place. He stated that in the same Truth Social post in which he threatened the extinction of a civilisation. That is something he claimed later in further posts as well, saying the new people who’ve come in are very different. They are smart people. They are reasonable people. A regime change has taken place.
That’s also what Pete Hegseth said in his press conference while claiming victory in this about 40-day war. He, of course, also told us that before the ceasefire came, the night before that, US forces, and Israeli forces I presume also, had carried out more than 800 air raids in Iran. In this case, targeting specifically Iran’s military industrial complex. That is factories that make missiles, factories that make drones, factories that make ammunition, factories that make fuel for missiles, etc. He said these 800 raids took place last night.
Now, we know a couple of other things that happened alongside. For example, last night, Indian time, everything I have I will be using Indian Standard Time, that’s much easier. You know the difference between India and the US is nine and a half hours. Gulf is one and a half hours, so it gets very complicated. It becomes very cluttered if I start putting timestamps according to the time zones from wherever these posts came out. I’m using IST therefore.
So about five hours before Trump’s deadline for bringing apocalypse over Iran, Shehbaz Sharif, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, put out a tweet. It’s quite obvious now that this is a tweet that he was asked to put out. Somebody had sent him a draft, and sometimes these things happen. History takes note of these because these are not just footnotes. These are human errors that help you understand important events.
His tweet basically said that diplomatic efforts had reached somewhere towards a peaceful settlement and that diplomacy should be allowed to run its course. He earnestly requested President Trump to extend the deadline by two weeks. That is because until that night, 8:00 p.m. American time was the deadline for the massive attack. So he said extend this by two more weeks because talks are going on.
That was done obviously on cue by Shehbaz Sharif because Donald Trump wanted an offramp. Talks were going on, but he did not want to say it himself that he was giving two weeks of ceasefire. He wanted somebody else to say it so that he could accept it.
So Shehbaz Sharif was given a draft, it seems. How do we make that presumption? Because when he first put out that tweet, on top of it, it said ‘draft Pakistan’s PM message on X’. Now these things often happen. Sometimes even I can do such a thing. Somebody from my team sends me a tweet to share, and I may post it with a note like ‘share this version’. I’ve done that a couple of times. So anybody can do it.
But in this case, if Sharif’s staff had sent him the draft, they would not have written ‘Pakistan’s PM message on X’. They would have written ‘Prime Minister’s message’ or ‘message for the Prime Minister’. This says ‘Pakistan’s PM message on X’, which suggests it came from somewhere else. It could be Washington, it could be Tehran, it could be GHQ via Asim Munir. We don’t know. But, it came from somewhere.
Sharif gave the first indication that there was likely to be a ceasefire. After that, things moved very fast. About 13 hours later, he announced that all sides had agreed to a complete ceasefire for two weeks, effective immediately. He also said it included Lebanon.
This is where another layer of fog comes in. While he said it includes Lebanon, Israel said it does not include Lebanon. As we speak, almost 12 hours after the supposed ceasefire, Israelis are going all guns blazing in Lebanon. In many parts of Beirut, they are asking people to vacate their homes because bombings are underway.
Israel has said that they have ceased fire with Iran, but in Lebanon they will continue operations until they are convinced that Hezbollah has been dealt with.
At the same time, even as the ceasefire is supposed to be in place, attacks and counterattacks are going on between Gulf countries and Iran. Some Gulf countries have attacked Iranian targets, particularly oil facilities. Iran has continued attacking targets in Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. As we speak, the Saudi East-West pipeline has been hit. That pipeline carries oil to the Red Sea and was meant as a hedge against blockage of the Strait of Hormuz.
This question was raised before Pete Hegseth at his press conference. He said,”We destroyed all of Iran’s command and control systems. All their communication nodes were gone. So maybe it’s taking time for instructions to reach all their commanders.” He even joked about ‘carrier pigeons’.
So in a way, he announced a grace period. But this again adds to the fog of ceasefire.
An important statement from Iran came from Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. He said, in response to the ‘brotherly request’ of PM Sharif, and considering the US request for negotiations based on its 15-point proposal, and acceptance of the general framework of Iran’s 10-point proposal, that if attacks against Iran are halted, Iran’s armed forces will cease defensive operations for two weeks.
He also said safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz will be possible via coordination with Iran’s armed forces, subject to technical limitations.
Again, when Hegseth was asked about continued attacks, he avoided a direct answer, saying instructions take time to reach everyone. Trump also said that the US will help manage traffic in the region so that trade can resume.
But once again, there is fog. Iran’s parliament has passed a law saying they will collect a toll on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. They also suggested coordination with Oman to jointly charge this toll, with the money used for reconstruction. Oman has denied this, saying they will not charge any toll and will respect maritime agreements.
This could be a face-saving measure for Iran’s domestic and international audience. Iran is seen as the underdog in this conflict, and it has to play to that perception as well. What happens in the Strait of Hormuz will become clearer in the next 48 hours. Meanwhile, global oil prices have fallen.
Now if we look at the sequence over the past 24 to 27 hours, at 5:36 p.m. IST, Trump put out his ‘civilisation’ tweet. He said a whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again. He added that he does not want it to happen, but it probably will. Then he said that now that there has been complete regime change, maybe something wonderful can happen.
Just days earlier, he had put out a profane tweet about opening the Strait.
If you read these together, this fits the ‘madman theory’. He raises the stakes very high, and within the same communication, signals a possible deal.
Around 1 or 2 a.m. IST on 8 April, he said that based on conversations with Shehbaz Sharif and Asim Munir, and their request to hold off the attack, he would suspend bombing for two weeks, subject to Iran agreeing to open the Strait of Hormuz. He called it a ‘double-sided ceasefire’.
At 5:12 a.m. IST, Trump reposted Araghchi’s statement accepting the ceasefire. By then it was clear a ceasefire was coming.
At 9:31 a.m. IST, he said it was a ‘big day for world peace’. He said Iran wants it, they have had enough, and so has everyone else. He said the US will help manage traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, there will be positive action, and Iran can begin reconstruction.
He also made it clear that US forces will remain in the region. He repeated that regime change had taken place in Iran, a claim he made multiple times within about 36 hours.
Later, at 4:52 p.m. IST, he said there will be no enrichment of uranium, and that the US will work with Iran to remove nuclear material under surveillance. He also mentioned tariffs and sanctions relief, saying many of the 15 points had already been agreed to.
At 5:20 p.m., he added that any country supplying weapons to Iran would face a 50 percent tariff on goods exported to the US, clearly aimed at China and Russia.
Now coming to the proposals. Iran has put forward 10 points. These include a guarantee of non-aggression, continued control over the Strait of Hormuz, the right to enrich uranium, removal of sanctions, ending UN and IAEA resolutions, compensation for war damage, withdrawal of the US forces, and a ceasefire across all fronts including Lebanon. Many of these are maximalist.
On the American side, the 15 points begin with the nuclear issue. Iran must dismantle its key nuclear facilities, commit never to build nuclear weapons, transfer or dilute its enriched uranium to 3.67 percent under IAEA monitoring, and end all domestic enrichment.
Iran argues that it has the right to nuclear energy as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The US proposal instead suggests a regional enrichment consortium involving Iran, the US, the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, under international supervision.
Other points include limiting Iran’s missile programme, ending support to proxies like Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis, opening the Strait of Hormuz, and sanctions relief, initially limited to nuclear-related sanctions. The US would also support development of the Bushehr nuclear plant.
There are also provisions ensuring that released funds are not used for missile programme, and that UN ‘snapback’ sanctions mechanisms become redundant if enrichment stops. Some of these are also maximalist demands.
So we can conclude that both sides will come to the table with maximalist positions. Who concedes what will depend on leverage and relative strength? Right now, both sides are claiming victory in this fog of peace, or fog of ceasefire.
Also Read: Trump’s cabinet was divided over war in Iran while he backed Netanyahu’s ‘hawkish’ stance—NYT report