Don’t worry, Donald Trump has a plan.

At some point early this week, likely on Tuesday, the US asked Islamabad to convey a 15-point peace proposal to the powers that be in Tehran.

Although Western media outlets weren’t privy to the actual document, officials familiar with the specifics described a proposition not unlike that presented to Iran earlier this year.

In exchange for curbs on the country’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, the US would provide sanctions relief (in addition to that already on offer). Iran would also cease to throttle maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz where, on Wednesday, the IRGC tightened conditions for transit.

According to reports, the Guards are demanding crew manifests, a comprehensive accounting of cargo and detailed travel plans from tankers hoping to secure an Iranian escort through the Strait. (“Well, there are 27 of us total, we’ve got 42,000 tons of LPG, 27,000 liters of water, some chicken, beans and rice. We were going to stop off at The St. Regis in Muscat, then maybe hit Shangri-La Colombo and–” “And what about him? Who’s that?” “Oh, that’s just Roscoe. He’s our pet monkey.” )

Egyptian officials participating in the peace effort said Trump’s plan reiterates a ban on Iran’s financial and logistical support for armed proxies in the region.

During the last round of nuclear talks prior to the onset of open hostilities late last month, Iran rejected, almost out of hand, curbs on its missile program and any formalized restrictions on its relationships with regional militia, including Hezbollah and the Quds’ network in Iraq. It wasn’t immediately clear why they’d agree to those terms now.

Presumably, Trump thinks the four-week show of US military force has changed the calculus in Tehran, and that the “new” leadership will be more amenable to negotiations.

“We have really — regime change. You know this is a change in the regime because the leaders are all very different than the ones that we started off with,” Trump said Tuesday, at The White House. “I think we can say that this is regime change.”

Yes and no:

• Yes, because now the IRGC’s in charge with Bagher Ghalibaf serving as acting head of state. Obligatory public oaths of fealty to a still-MIA Mojtaba Khamenei notwithstanding, the clergy’s sidelined.
• No, because Ali Khamenei’s Iran morphed, over the years, into a mafia state defined by a symbiotic relationship between the Supreme Leader’s office and the IRGC who largely sang from the same hymn sheet (figuratively and literally).

In my view, it’s useful to think of the regime’s religious fanaticism as a cover story (an excuse, a justification, etc.) for domestic repression, rampant corruption and expeditionary militarism.

Killing the biggest turban might’ve diminished clerics’ sway in the system, but by the time the elder Khamenei met his end, the distinction between the IRGC and the Supreme Leader himself was one without a difference.

This wasn’t a theocracy as much as it was a mafia where the boss happened to be a high priest. Killing him and relegating lesser clerics to the sidelines won’t change the fundamental modus operandi, only the role of fundamentalism in justifying it.

Simply put: Trump had a military dictatorship masquerading as a theocracy. Now he just has a military dictatorship.

That might be preferable to the extent the leadership in Tehran will no longer feel compelled to couch every foreign policy decision in terms of existential religious imperatives, but modern history’s replete with examples of American presidents overestimating their wherewithal to manage relationships with military dictatorships.

As a quick aside, the IRGC’s both rigidly top-down and deliberately bottom-up. So, if Khamenei conveyed an order, the IRGC was obliged to carry it out, but at the same time, he took care to structure the Guards such that the IRGC can carry on a war of attrition even if the leadership’s all dead.

That materially increases the odds of warlordism in a failed state scenario, but more immediately, it raises questions about someone like Ghalibaf’s capacity to make promises about what the Guards will or won’t do in pursuit of adhering to a hypothetical ceasefire.

It doesn’t help that Trump’s still forcing Iran to negotiate at gunpoint. Just 24 hours (roughly) after Pakistan delivered his peace terms, the Pentagon deployed paratroopers to the Mideast and is reportedly in the process of sending as many as 5,000 amphibious assault Marines to the Gulf.

If you’re wondering whether 1,000 paratroopers and a few thousand Marines trained for seaborne landings are capable of holding coastal territory on the Iranian mainland, the answer’s almost surely “no.” But if your question’s whether 1,000 paratroopers and 5,000 amphibious assault Marines could seize and hold Kharg Island, the answer’s just as surely “yes.”

Finally, it’s worth noting that everyone’s picked up my “Ghalibaf as de facto leader” narrative which, while clear enough now, was the furthest thing from obvious when I first broached the subject in mid-January. The Wall Street Journal ran a feature piece on Ghalibaf mid-week called, “A ‘Wannabe Strongman’ Rises in Iran as Trump Seeks a Dealmaker.”

Ghalibaf warned Trump against putting boots on Iranian ground. “We are closely monitoring all US movements in the region, especially troop deployments,” he said. “What the generals have broke, the soldiers can’t fix. Do not test our resolve to defend our land.”

Iran on Wednesday rejected the US peace plan. Trump, the military quipped, is “negotiating with himself.”