The reshuffle represents a political victory for hardline factions that had increasingly attacked Zolghadr and criticized the direction of Iran’s postwar diplomacy. But Rezai’s appointment is also taking place alongside a broader reorganization of Iran’s military and security leadership following the war, making the change potentially more significant than an isolated personnel move at the security council. Whether that broader reshuffle will translate into a fundamental change in Iran’s negotiating strategy, however, remains unclear.

The timing of the change has inevitably raised questions about whether Zolghadr’s departure was connected to disagreements over negotiations with the United States and the arrangements developed after the war. In recent weeks, political figures and media associated with the more uncompromising conservative camp had increasingly criticized Zolghadr and the direction of the Supreme National Security Council. Some of these attacks were also part of a broader struggle over the diplomatic course associated with President Pezeshkian and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has played a central role in Iran’s negotiations over the war.

Those factions were quick to claim Rezai’s appointment as a victory. Amirhossein Sabeti, a parliamentarian close to the Paydari Front, alleged that Pezeshkian had resisted replacing Zolghadr with Rezai and celebrated the eventual appointment as “Ali al-osul 2,” referring to Mojtaba Khamenei’s earlier statement that he had “in principle” disagreed with the path taken by the Supreme National Security Council on the Memorandum of Understanding. Sabeti interpreted the appointment as confirmation that the previous course had been wrong and called on Pezeshkian to change the government’s direction. Raja News and other hardline outlets similarly connected Zolghadr’s departure to their criticism of the diplomatic process and the Islamabad understanding.

These claims do not establish why Zolghadr resigned, but they show clearly how Rezai’s appointment is being understood and promoted by the faction that had been pushing most aggressively against the existing negotiating course. For this camp, Rezai has become a symbol of correcting a security policy they believe moved too far toward accommodation with Washington.

Rezai himself contributed to this interpretation even before his appointment. After Mojtaba Khamenei said that he had “in principle” held a different view regarding the memorandum and the course pursued by the Supreme National Security Council, Rezai offered a much more explicit interpretation: “When the Leader says that ‘in principle’ I had another view, it means that the path he had in mind was better than the path the Supreme National Security Council took.” The statement was subsequently recirculated by opponents of the agreement after Rezai’s appointment.

There were also indications before the official announcement that the change was already being discussed inside the political establishment. Mohammad Bagher Kharrazi, secretary-general of Hezbollah Iran and brother-in-law of Massed Khamenei, publicly predicted several days before the appointment that Zolghadr would leave the Supreme National Security Council and Rezai would replace him. Kharrazi also claimed that Mojtaba Khamenei’s political instincts were considerably more hardline than those of his father. The accuracy of his specific prediction suggests that he had at least some knowledge of the personnel discussions underway inside the establishment, although his broader characterization of the new supreme leader remains his own assessment.

The struggle over Zolghadr has also intersected with a broader factional conflict surrounding Ghalibaf and the negotiating process. Hardline critics have increasingly portrayed the security council under Zolghadr as too accommodating of the diplomatic approach associated with Pezeshkian and Ghalibaf. There is not enough public evidence, however, to conclude that Zolghadr was simply Ghalibaf’s ally or representative inside the council. Zolghadr is himself a longtime Revolutionary Guard commander with deep roots in the conservative security establishment.

Rezai’s own history further complicates any interpretation of his appointment as a straightforward move against Ghalibaf. Ghalibaf rose through the Revolutionary Guards during Rezai’s sixteen-year tenure as commander-in-chief. During the Iran-Iraq war, Ghalibaf commanded the IRGC’s 5th Nasr Division while Rezai headed the Guard as a whole. The two therefore belong to the same generation of wartime commanders who later moved into the highest levels of the Islamic Republic.

Their subsequent political careers have not always been aligned, and they later competed against one another in presidential politics. But they are not products of opposing security networks. Their relationship goes back to the war, when Ghalibaf was one of the senior commanders serving under an IRGC led by Rezai.

Ghalibaf’s immediate reaction is notable in this context. He welcomed Rezai’s appointment, saying Iran was in “one of the most sensitive moments in its history” and emphasizing the confidence placed in Rezai’s military and managerial experience. This does not establish a current political alliance between them, but there is also little public indication so far that Ghalibaf regards Rezai’s arrival as a direct challenge to his position.

The backgrounds of Rezai and Zolghadr also make a simple moderate-versus-hardliner interpretation difficult. Both emerged from the same generation of revolutionary security figures, both were associated before the revolution with the Islamist militant organization Mansouroun, and both subsequently became important figures in the Revolutionary Guards and the Islamic Republic’s security establishment.

Zolghadr therefore cannot reasonably be described as a moderate displaced by a hardliner. Only one day before leaving the council, he declared that the Strait of Hormuz would not reopen unless the United States changed its behavior and accepted Iran’s demands, including ending military operations, lifting the naval blockade and sanctions, paying compensation and releasing blocked Iranian assets. He also insisted that the Supreme National Security Council would retreat neither in war nor in negotiations.

Iranian political analyst Ahmad Zeidabadi has pointed to this contradiction. Zolghadr had traditionally been identified with the harder-line conservative establishment, while Rezai had at times appeared comparatively more pragmatic. Their positions during the recent crisis, however, complicated those older classifications. Following the reshuffle, Zeidabadi argued that, considering the backgrounds and recent positions of the two men, understanding the precise meaning of the replacement from the outside is “if not impossible, extremely difficult.”

Rezai has nevertheless been considerably more outspoken in criticizing the recent diplomatic course. During the postwar period, he repeatedly argued that Iran could not indefinitely pursue negotiations while remaining under military pressure and warned that Tehran could move from retaliation toward a more offensive military posture. His interpretation of Mojtaba Khamenei’s “Ali al-osul” statement also placed him publicly alongside those arguing that the Supreme National Security Council had followed the wrong path. His appointment therefore may give critics of the recent negotiating course a much stronger institutional voice, even if it does not yet prove that their preferred strategy has become government policy.

Rezai also carries unusual institutional weight. He became commander of the Revolutionary Guards at 27 and remained in the position for sixteen years, overseeing almost the entire Iran-Iraq war and a critical period in the IRGC’s transformation into a major military and political institution. He subsequently spent roughly twenty-four years as secretary of the Expediency Council and later served as economic vice president under Ebrahim Raisi. His return puts one of the Islamic Republic’s most experienced military-political figures back at the center of day-to-day national-security decision-making.

Rezai’s appointment also comes amid a broader reorganization of Iran’s postwar military and security command. In a series of new decrees, Mojtaba Khamenei appointed Ali Abdollahi as chief of the Armed Forces General Staff, replacing Abdolrahim Mousavi, who was killed in U.S. and Israeli attacks. The decree specifically called for completing the integration of the Armed Forces General Staff and Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters. Keyomars Heydari was appointed deputy chief of the General Staff, while Ahmad Vahidi received a new decree as IRGC commander and Mostafa Izadi was appointed his deputy. Former IRGC intelligence chief Hossein Taeb was also returned to the leadership of the Basij, replacing Gholamreza Soleimani, who was killed during the war.

Taken together with Rezai’s appointment, the changes suggest that Khamenei is moving relatively quickly to rebuild and consolidate the military-security command after the losses suffered during the war. The reliance on veteran figures such as Rezai, Vahidi and Taeb also points toward a renewed role for experienced members of the Islamic Republic’s older security establishment at the expense of the next generation of security figures.

The meeting between Pezeshkian and Supreme Leader Khamenei also points to continued involvement for the President in high-level security decisionmaking. Pezeshkian says his latest meeting with Mojtaba Khamenei lasted approximately seven hours, with discussions covering living conditions, employment, housing, sanctions, how the government and public should respond to external pressure and the preservation of national unity. According to Pezeshkian, Khamenei particularly emphasized maintaining “unity and cohesion” and warned against efforts to create internal divisions.

The timing of the disclosure is particularly notable. Details of the lengthy meeting emerged alongside the changes at the Supreme National Security Council and the broader reshuffling of Iran’s military-security leadership. While neither Pezeshkian nor Khamenei’s office has said that the appointments were discussed, the timing suggests that major personnel and security decisions were among the issues addressed during such an extensive meeting. The public disclosure of the meeting may also be intended to signal that the president and the new supreme leader are coordinating, and that the changes should not necessarily be interpreted as having been imposed on Pezeshkian against his will.

That possibility is particularly relevant to Rezai’s appointment because the change formally required actions from both sides of the political system: Khamenei appointed Rezai as his representative on the Supreme National Security Council, while Pezeshkian appointed him secretary of the council following Zolghadr’s resignation. The simultaneous emphasis on the Khamenei-Pezeshkian meeting therefore presents the reshuffle publicly as a coordinated transition between the presidency and the new leadership, even as hardline factions are portraying Zolghadr’s departure as their own political victory.

Pezeshkian had previously said that his first meeting with the new leader on May 6 lasted roughly two and a half hours. The latest meeting lasted nearly three times as long, suggesting that despite apparent disagreements over the negotiating course and pressure from hardline factions, Pezeshkian remains directly involved in extensive discussions with Khamenei over the country’s direction.

The meeting also carries extra significance because Mojtaba Khamenei has yet to appear publicly or release an audio or video message since becoming supreme leader. Pezeshkian remains the only senior official to have publicly described an in-person meeting with him and specifically said after the latest meeting that Khamenei was in “complete physical health.”

Rezai’s appointment, together with the wider military reshuffle, demonstrates a significant reorganization of Iran’s postwar security establishment and a likely shift in the internal balance surrounding its strategy. Hardline factions that had attacked Zolghadr and the direction of negotiations have gained ground, while Khamenei is simultaneously rebuilding the military command around experienced figures from the Islamic Republic’s security establishment.

The real indication of a strategic shift will be what happens next: whether negotiations continue, whether Iran changes its conditions surrounding the Strait of Hormuz and a broader agreement, and whether Ghalibaf retains his central role in the diplomatic process. If those elements remain largely intact, the reshuffle may ultimately represent an effort by the new supreme leader to consolidate the postwar security establishment and accommodate hardline pressure while preserving room for negotiations. If the negotiating framework changes substantially or the roles of Pezeshkian and Ghalibaf are reduced, the appointments will look increasingly like the institutional foundation of a broader change of course.

Rajabzadeh, who performed religious mourning songs and was active primarily in southeastern Tehran, disappeared in late July. Iranian media initially treated the case as a missing-person investigation, but the situation changed after a video showing a badly injured man resembling Rajabzadeh appeared online and reports emerged that images of his killing had also been sent to his family. Authorities subsequently confirmed that he had been abducted and killed.

Police moved quickly after the killing became public. Saeed Montazer al-Mahdi, spokesperson for Iran’s Law Enforcement Command, said that four men and one woman had been arrested and that the principal suspect in the killing was among those detained. Police said specialized detectives from Tehran’s criminal investigation unit were continuing to examine the circumstances of the crime.

The investigation reached another stage on August 9 when Tehran criminal prosecutor Mohammad Shahriari announced that Rajabzadeh’s body had been located outside Tehran. A homicide investigator and forensic identification team confirmed the identity before sending the remains to the Legal Medicine Organization for further examination. Shahriari also confirmed that the perpetrators had burned the body after the killing.

The most detailed account of how the killing allegedly occurred has so far come from the Iranian crime news outlet Rokna, based on what it describes as information obtained during the police investigation. According to that account, a woman arrested in the case had been acquainted with Rajabzadeh and told investigators that he had repeatedly confronted her over issues including her clothing and behavior as part of what he regarded as “enjoining good and forbidding wrong.” Rokna reported that this interaction had continued for approximately six months.

According to the same account, the woman eventually arranged to meet Rajabzadeh at a secluded location. Investigators reportedly believe that he was given contaminated food or another substance that incapacitated him before he was attacked with knives. The suspects then allegedly transported his body to an area outside Tehran and attempted to destroy evidence by burning it. Several men are accused of participating in different stages of the crime.

However, the central unresolved question is why Rajabzadeh was killed. The first possibility emerging from the investigation is a personal or retaliatory motive connected to the dispute between Rajabzadeh and the detained woman. Her alleged account of repeated confrontations over hijab and behavior could place the murder within a personal conflict that escalated into a premeditated killing.

But another allegation has also surfaced. Domestic media citing interrogation accounts reported that individuals involved in the case discussed receiving money for killing members of the Basij and sending footage of attacks to an opposition organization outside Iran. Rokna has further alleged that the perpetrators filmed the killing and subsequent treatment of Rajabzadeh’s body and attempted to provide the footage for payment to the Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MEK. These claims have not yet been independently established by Iran’s judiciary or confirmed as the final conclusion of the police investigation.

Political narratives surrounding the killing appeared even before investigators announced arrests. Accounts hostile to the Islamic Republic circulated the video and described Rajabzadeh as a Basij member or government-affiliated figure. At the same time, Iranian state-linked reporting questioned the credibility of the newly established opposition channel that first circulated some of the material, saying an open-source review found that several of its previous claims and images were false or misrepresented. Police therefore initially cautioned against drawing conclusions about whether the murder constituted a terrorist operation.

Authorities themselves have kept that question formally open. Police said investigators would determine whether Rajabzadeh was killed as part of a politically motivated or terrorist act or because of personal circumstances, while Deputy Interior Minister for Security and Law Enforcement Ali-Akbar Pourjamshidian said the government was examining the different dimensions of the killing and would release its conclusions after the investigation was completed.

The case therefore sits at the intersection of two highly sensitive issues in Iran. One is the social conflict surrounding enforcement of religious rules, particularly mandatory hijab and “enjoining good and forbidding wrong.” The other is the growing security concern inside Iran over politically-motivated violence and the possibility that domestic actors may be encouraged or financially rewarded by organizations abroad.

For now, the murder itself, the discovery of Rajabzadeh’s burned body, and multiple arrests are confirmed. The claim that his killing was commissioned, financed, or connected to the MEK remains an allegation emerging from the investigation rather than an established judicial finding. Determining whether the case ultimately remains a brutal personal revenge killing or becomes a terrorism case will depend on evidence authorities have not yet made public.

On the war, Pezeshkian’s message was simple: no outside power can break Iran as long as the public stays with the government. He listed sanctions, a banking blockade, war and a naval siege as compounding pressures and said that when the government stands with the people, “no power can pin us down.” He credited survival not to displays of loyalty but to Iranians who held grievances and stayed off the streets anyway.

On the Islamabad MoU negotiations with the U.S., Pezeshkian disclosed the internal vote behind the deal: 12 of 13 council members present approved the memorandum framework, and Mojtaba Khamenei had said he would accept any proposal backed by three-quarters of the council. On his relationship with the new Supreme Leader more broadly, Pezeshkian was unusually candid: contact is now “very difficult.” Mojtaba Khamenei has not appeared in public since taking over in March. The admission came in the same broadcast where Pezeshkian denied a competing story that had circulated for days: that he had threatened resignation 28 times and been warned the next attempt would be accepted. Both his office and the Leader’s office called that account false.

The sharpest moment came when Pezeshkian addressed the January 2026 protests, disputing the highest casualty figures while defending his own government’s count. He said he still cannot forget the deaths and injuries and that things should never have reached that point. Then, almost in the same breath, accused Washington of arming protesters and called anyone citing tolls of 30,000 or 40,000 dishonorable and traitorous. The record he was disputing is one of the most contested in the Islamic Republic’s history. Iran’s government has put the toll at 3,117 and published a named list of 2,986 victims, attributing the shortfall to unidentified remains.

By contrast, HRANA, a widely-cited independent monitor, has published reports indicating more than 7,000 deaths, including 236 minors and 207 security-related forces. HRANA has published names and case details for more than 4,000 of the deceased, noting that they “deemed additional information inappropriate for public release at this time due to security and protection concerns.”.

Claims running from 12,000 to 50,000 killed have circulated from Iran International, U.S. officials and Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah, who has cited “activists, political prisoners, and medical authorities” inside the country. Yet, there are no matching casualty records attached to these claims, and they are far from the more substantiated figures. None of the counts have been independently verified end to end, complicated by the severe restrictions on access and repeated internet blackouts during the crackdown.

Pezeshkian’s framing drew a direct rebuttal from Mehdi Mahmoudian, a reformist activist and former political prisoner, who argued the dispute over numbers doesn’t erase the crime. Writing in response, Mahmoudian said that even accepting the government’s own figures, the country is still left with thousands of dead citizens - people with names, families, and a right to life - and that no argument over the count clears anyone of responsibility for the killings. He asked why raising the dead is branded treason while ordering, enabling, justifying, or concealing their deaths is called patriotism, and pressed Pezeshkian to answer who gave the order, who fired, and who concealed the truth, rather than insulting the victims’ families. He closed by asking, “if speaking of the people’s blood is betrayal, what should killing them be called?”

Pezeshkian also revisited talks with the late Ali Khamenei over Iranians stranded abroad, arguing entry bans should be stated up front rather than enforced after the fact. People shouldn’t be let into the country and then detained and blocked from leaving again, he said, calling that practice dishonorable, without naming specific cases.

On the economy, Pezeshkian offered his bluntest language yet about the resistance he says his own government faces from within the system. Forty-seven years into the Islamic Republic, he said, Iran still wants to act properly on water, power, gas, and fuel, but every time, someone says now isn’t the time. He said privatizing Iran Khodro triggered an impeachment attempt against his economy minister, and that the same pattern repeats with every personnel change: critics never credit him with removing someone corrupt, only with pushing out someone deemed loyal. He argued Iran’s Social Security Organization owns enough factories that it shouldn’t struggle to cover members’ medical bills, and said hiring should reward competence over political or religious credentials.

He said gasoline reserves at three sites in Tehran were struck during the war but the country avoided a visible shortage, crediting provincial-level crisis management rather than any centralized fix. Mazandaran absorbed one to three million displaced people during the fighting without running short of bread, fuel, or basic goods, he said, because local administrators coordinated directly rather than waiting on Tehran - the model he’s calling the first step of his reform push. He put the country’s daily winter gas shortfall at 230 million cubic meters and said roughly 7,000 megawatts of power now comes from solar panels installed since his government inherited a system with reserves that wouldn’t last past autumn. He confirmed Saipa will follow Iran Khodro into privatization, and said Ayandeh Bank’s dissolution passed without public backlash because it was coordinated with the judiciary and parliament.

On subsidies, he promised to raise the value of the kalabarg food card but blamed currency shortages for limiting how far that can go, without offering a timeline. He also claimed a foreign-backed plan to seed unrest from Iran’s northwest and southeast borders during the war had failed because neighboring governments refused to let people cross to cause trouble, a claim relayed on state television and not independently confirmed.

Beyond Mahmoudian, the domestic pushback so far has focused on delivery rather than legitimacy. Commentators noted that while Pezeshkian detailed two state automakers going private, he never explained why car-import liberalization - a signature 2024 campaign promise that needs nothing more than a government circular to implement - still hasn’t happened. No hardline voice has directly challenged his account of the January crackdown. Itis a former political prisoner, not a rival faction, who has pressed him hardest on the crackdown and his framing of it.

The throughline across both installments so far is a president asking the public to trust him, even as the public weathers unprecedented challenges in the wake of lingering division triggered by yet another bloody crackdown.

The proposed arrangement closes both existing temporary routes and replaces them with a new corridor. According to Gharibabadi, the northern route near Larak Island and the southern route through Oman’s internal waters - both established as strictly temporary arrangements - will be closed. The new route runs largely through Iranian territorial waters on the inbound leg and partly through Iranian waters on parts of the outbound leg as well, with the remainder passing through Omani waters. In practice, this means both inbound and outbound traffic passes at least partly through Iranian territory, giving Tehran a sovereign hand over the corridor. Reuters, citing a senior Iranian official and two regional officials, reported the arrangement would give Iran control over vessels entering the Gulf, describing it as among the largest concessions extended to Tehran to date. A Rokna report citing Gharibabadi said the temporary route could remain in place for two to four months or longer, pending a second phase of talks toward a permanent arrangement.

Tehran and Muscat insist the deal is strictly bilateral and does not involve Washington. Gharibabadi said third-country involvement in the arrangements is not accepted. Iranian state broadcaster IRIB, citing an informed official, said the talks concern “purely Iranian-Omani” transit arrangements and that even with an Iran-Oman deal, the strait will not reopen unless the United States halts what Tehran calls its violations. On the other side, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last week a deal to reopen Hormuz could be close, and President Trump has repeatedly called an agreement imminent, claims Iranian outlets have denied. Whether informal US-Iran contacts are occurring alongside the Iran-Oman track remains disputed and unverified.

Two Iranian officials made statements last week that are easy to conflate but address different things. Asked directly by Khabaronline whether a US return to its Islamabad MoU commitments would be the condition for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, Gharibabadi said it would be a necessary condition but not a sufficient one. As Iran has faced what he called a “breach of commitment and violation of obligations” by the United States, that breach “ultimately has to be resolved somewhere.” It remains unclear whether this could take the form of a new formal commitment or some other form of assurance.

Gharibabadi’s emphasis, in other words, was less about the U.S. formally rejoining the MoU in name than about Tehran needing credible proof that Washington will actually implement steps this time, given the past track record of violations. Baghaei’s separate remark - that the Iran-Oman corridor deal “by itself” does not mean the strait has become secure - was about a narrower point: even a finalized bilateral understanding with Muscat cannot neutralize what Tehran calls the destabilizing factor - the U.S. naval blockade - which exists independently of anything Iran and Oman agree on.

The hardline paper Kayhan reported that Mojtaba Khamenei’s office permitted the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding in June only on condition that Pezeshkian preserve Iran’s rights and those of the “resistance front,” and stating that the Leader’s office would be “waiting” to see those conditions fulfilled. Kayhan’s August 3 column attacked Pezeshkian for “continuing to insist” on implementing what it called a “torn-up” agreement, arguing that none of the conditions tied to his signature were met before Washington declared the MoU over. Gharibabadi, separately, has said Iran halted all of its own obligations under the MoU once the US did the same, and accused American forces of pressuring commercial vessels to shut off radar and navigation systems to force them onto the disputed southern route. Read together, this suggests Tehran’s bottleneck is less a refusal in principle to reengage with the MoU than the absence, in its view, of any mechanism to guarantee Washington won’t abandon it again.

Domestically, hardliners have mobilized against any arrangement touching Iranian waters, citing sovereignty. MP Hosseinali Haji-Deligani told Didban-e Iran that surrendering “a centimeter” of Iranian waters in any agreement would violate the constitution and would require approval by four-fifths of parliament. Moreover, he said a group of MPs is compiling documentation with an aim of impeaching Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. This follows an earlier statement from the presidium of the Assembly of Experts branding any talk of accommodation as treason. Still, the diplomatic track - run through the Foreign Ministry and the Supreme National Security Council - has so far retained control of the file.

Two competing and not necessarily contradictory explanations have circulated for why Trump called off the large-scale strike he had threatened against Iran last week. The first, reported by the Washington Post, CBS and CNN citing unnamed sources, holds that concern over dwindling stocks of precision munitions and air-defense interceptors - particularly Patriot and THAAD systems - factored into the decision. CNN’s report indicated that the US military has expended nearly 80 percent of its THAAD interceptor stockpile. Trump has called these reports “fake news” and threatened leakers with lengthy prison sentences;.

The second explanation, reported by AFP and Reuters citing informed sources, holds that Iran warned Gulf states it would strike US assets and regional energy infrastructure in retaliation for any renewed attack, and that if the US targeted Iran’s power grid, Tehran would “plunge the entire region into blackout.“ Backing up this threat, Iran reportedly shared a target list with regional governments. Araghchi, per the same reporting, asked Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and Pakistan to press Trump to call off a new strike. Trump subsequently held a call with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, in which the Saudi head of state reportedly pressed the President to hold off on this escalation.

Alongside the Hormuz standoff, a separate maritime war between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia continues to squeeze another global energy chokepoint. The Houthis declared a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia on July 22 and, according to military spokesman Yahya Saree, have since struck at least nine Saudi tankers, including the Wafa and Daisy near Yanbu and the Gulf of Aden. According to India’s shipping minister, an Indian-flagged cargo vessel sank off Yemen’s coast after being struck by a drone, with all 14 crew rescued before it sank. The maritime intelligence firm Windward reported that over the same period, 22 China-linked vessels transited Bab al-Mandeb and berthed at Saudi ports without incident, a pattern the firm described as an apparent exemption for Chinese-flagged shipping. Kpler analyst Matthew Wright said the threat to crude shipping in the region is now at its worst point since the crisis began, with Kpler data showing traffic through the Strait of Hormuz falling from more than 100 vessels a day before the war to fewer than ten a day now. Saudi Arabia has leaned on its East-West pipeline and Yanbu terminal on the Red Sea for exports, though that route is now threatened by a partial Houthi blockade.

This week’s immediate outcome is not a reopened Hormuz but a pending negotiated corridor. Even if the joint Iran-Oman statement is released as planned, the larger questions - the fate of the US naval blockade, the nuclear file, Israel’s Lebanon obligations under the Islamabad MoU, and Iran’s frozen assets - remain, by Tehran’s own account, deferred to a later and undefined stage, contingent on assurances neither side has yet found a way to make credible to the other. Until then, the cost of the standoff falls on those with no say in it: the crews navigating two contested waterways, the residents of southern Iran who have absorbed the heaviest strikes, and global energy markets that shed or gain billions in value with every shift in optimism or pessimism about Hormuz.

The strongest statement so far came from imprisoned reformist politician Mostafa Tajzadeh, who released a message from Evin Prison on August 3. Tajzadeh acknowledged that Iran had weathered significant external pressure during the war, but argued that the country now needs reconciliation, not another cycle of repression. Executing mostly young defendants after what he described as opaque and flawed trials, he warned, risks repeating the same mistakes that have repeatedly fueled public anger instead of restoring stability.

Tajzadeh did not argue against accountability for violence. Instead, he insisted that accountability requires fair and transparent justice. He called for an independent fact-finding commission into the January 8–9 events, public trials, access to independent lawyers, and a form of restorative justice that respects the rights of defendants, victims, and their families alike. In his view, executions neither deter future violence nor heal society’s wounds. Instead, they deepen mistrust between the state and the public while perpetuating a cycle of retaliation.

A different but complementary critique came from reformist theologian Hassan Yousefi Eshkevari, who grounded his argument in Islamic jurisprudence rather than politics. In a July 30 essay, Eshkevari argued that Islamic law requires punishments to serve justice and the public good, standards he believes Iran’s current use of the death penalty fails to meet.

He argued that qisas - or retributive justice - was originally intended to limit private revenge, not encourage it, and that capital punishment can only be justified when due process, proportionality, and reliable evidence are fully respected. Eshkevari questioned whether Iran’s judiciary meets those standards, particularly in cases relying on confessions allegedly extracted under psychological or physical pressure. He also noted that many executions - especially in drug-related cases - have historically reflected security policy more than traditional Islamic jurisprudence. While stressing that he was speaking generally rather than judging individual cases, he repeated his longstanding criticism of what he has previously called the Islamic Republic’s transformation into a “Republic of Death.”

Three other prisoners held in Evin - Abolfazl Ghadyani, Mohammad Najafi, and Reza Valizadeh - offered a more explicitly political critique in a joint statement released around July 29–30. The veteran dissident, human rights lawyer, and Iranian-American journalist jointly argued that authorities are using executions to rebuild political authority after the war, portraying the death sentences as instruments of state power rather than justice. Their statement came shortly after two more defendants were executed on July 28 in the Isfahan “Alikhani Square” case, bringing the total number executed in that case to four, while eight others remain on death row.

The broader debate has also expanded to the government’s handling of the January crackdown itself. After President Masoud Pezeshkian criticized those citing estimates of 30,000 to 40,000 deaths, imprisoned activist Mehdi Mahmoudian argued that focusing on the exact number misses the central issue. Even by the government’s own figures, he wrote, thousands of people were killed and deserve accountability. He questioned who gave the orders, who carried them out, and who concealed what happened, arguing that those seeking answers are branded traitors while those responsible have faced little scrutiny.

Longtime journalist and human rights advocate Emadeddin Baghi remains one of the most influential voices behind this broader movement. For decades, Baghi has documented executions in Iran and argued against capital punishment from within an Islamic legal framework. Many of the arguments in Eshkevari’s recent essay build directly on that work. A campaign launched after Baghi’s Panorama interview earlier this year has likewise focused on improving judicial transparency by calling for the publication of death sentences and opportunities for retrials, rather than the swift implementation of executions.

These domestic concerns closely mirror those raised internationally. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk recently warned of the sharp increase in executions, saying at least 56 people have been executed on national security charges since March 19, including 27 connected to the January protests, while more than 100 others remain at risk. Amnesty International has similarly warned that at least 60 people face imminent execution, including three people who were minors at the time of their alleged offenses.

Taken together, these statements point to an increasingly coordinated challenge to Iran’s post-war execution campaign. Although the critics approach the issue from different perspectives - constitutional rights, Islamic jurisprudence, political reform, or international human rights - they arrive at much the same conclusion: Iran’s judiciary is moving quickly to carry out irreversible punishments through proceedings that critics argue fall short of basic standards of fairness and due process. However, this growing pressure from inside and outside Iran to halt and slow executions faces a judicial system that has long defied public pressure and accountability.

The video organized the case around five axes. The first is room acoustics and geometry: every enclosed space has a unique acoustic signature, and by measuring how long sound energy takes to fall 60 decibels after the source stops, the approximate volume of the room can be estimated, with early reflections indicating the speaker’s distance from the walls and the ceiling height, and frequency absorption revealing whether the surfaces are carpet, concrete or glass. The second is electrical network frequency: grids run at 50 or 60 hertz but fluctuate slightly, and that faint electromagnetic hum is captured in the background of any recording, so services matching the fluctuations against national moment-by-moment databases can recover the exact date, the time, and even the specific section of the grid where the recording was made. The third is hardware fingerprinting — phone microphones filter out low frequencies and cheap components produce characteristic harmonic distortion, functioning like a device signature. The fourth is background noise: cooling systems, generators and filtration equipment identify a site indoors, while outdoors wind, traffic patterns, passing aircraft and even native insects and birds narrow the geography.

The fifth axis is the one that undercut the reassurance. The video says vocal-tract resonances, or formant frequencies, reveal the physical dimensions of the throat, mouth and nose, and that voice-conversion software offers no protection because the underlying filter can be recovered. It then adds that breathing patterns and the pauses between words indicate the speaker’s physical condition, heart rate and stress level. A brief meant to explain the silence ends by telling Iranians precisely which questions about the leader’s body a recording would answer.

The same video volunteered how the leader now communicates. Citing Mossad officers quoted in the Times, it says that if Mojtaba Khamenei is alive he is probably in an underground shelter beneath a mountain near Qom or Tehran, that he relays messages through multiple layers of couriers who do not know the full chain, and that Mossad’s effort is focused on identifying and analyzing those couriers. The only real route to him, the narrator concludes, would be recruiting an agent in contact with him — difficult given Iran’s security apparatus, since probably only two or three members of the IRGC know how to reach him. That is an unusual thing for a state-aligned outlet to broadcast as comfort.

The foreign minister has said the breach that made this necessary is human, and unresolved. In a wide-ranging appearance on the YouTube program Majaray-e Jang (Story of War) published in mid-July, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi discussed wartime security planning, succession preparations and negotiations with Washington, and said the security gaps that enabled attacks on senior officials and leadership sites probably have not been fully resolved. He said he was at Khamenei’s headquarters on February 28 when it was struck, and that the attack was carried out through a breach that still exists. Describing the accuracy of Israeli intelligence on the movements of Iran’s leadership — and the fact that the strike came at 9:30 in the morning — he said he no longer attributed it to technology or artificial factors, and that the security services were pursuing the possibility of human infiltration. He then went further than officials usually do: the breach, he said, is not limited to infiltration and obtaining information, and sometimes extends to influencing the direction of decision-making itself. In his phrasing, it also shapes the psychological environment.

Those remarks reframe the Hamshahri brief rather than confirming it. The newspaper treats the leader’s silence as a countermeasure against a technical threat — microphones, grid hum, room echo. The foreign minister describes a penetration deep enough to place officials at a specific address at a specific hour, still unfixed five months later, and possibly operating on Iranian decisions rather than merely observing them. If Araghchi is right, no amount of audio hygiene addresses the problem, and the leader’s invisibility looks less like a precaution than a necessity.

The interview also produced a security disclosure of its own. Describing how officials were protected during the fighting, Araghchi said none of them carried mobile phones, called his own situation exceptional, and noted that Iran has many protective tunnels. He said he attended two meetings in a tunnel, that he and his deputies never left the Foreign Ministry building during the war, and that for some hours of the day they simply circulated through the city by car because he could not put his phone aside. The host, the documentary filmmaker Javad Mogoei, then offered to be more specific: everyone knows about the tunnels, he said, and asked whether the audience wanted the locations as well — one at the end of Piruzi Street, the other in Darband, where commanders come and go frequently. Mogoei added that Iran’s adversaries already have information on the tunnels and have struck one of them.

That exchange, not the infiltration warning, drew the sharpest criticism. Raja News, the press organ of the hardline Paydari Front and close to supporters of the late president Ebrahim Raisi, asked in unusually blunt terms why a television host knows where commanders shelter. It argued that Araghchi’s disclosure was itself improper because it fills in the enemy’s target database, that the producers should have removed in the final edit, and that the host’s volunteering of a precise address was more questionable still — the enemy may have struck those tunnels on the basis of earlier information and then dropped them from its target list, without knowing that senior commanders are again using them heavily. Raising such security gaps while the country is fighting in the south, the outlet wrote, invites obvious questions. State-television analyst Mostafa Khoshcheshm separately said Araghchi had damaged his own standing with the interview.

The absence being explained is now roughly five months old. Mojtaba Khamenei has not been seen in public since the February 28 strike that wounded him and killed his father, Ali Khamenei, along with his wife, Zahra Haddad-Adel, and other family members. He was named to succeed his father on March 8, and when Norooz arrived on March 20, a speech attributed to him was read out on state television alongside a still photograph and an Iranian flag. Since then: written statements, but no image or voice.

The funeral was the moment many Iranians expected that to change, and it did not. The state staged a weeklong funeral procession for Ali Khamenei that drew hundreds of thousands of mourners across the country and ended with burial in Mashhad on July 9. His son and successor was absent throughout, including from the earlier funeral for his own wife; officials cited the continuing threat of assassination. Ali Khamenei’s other sons — Mostafa, Meysam and Masoud — attended, as did much of the political leadership and dozens of foreign delegations, which made the one absence more conspicuous. As the procession moved through Tehran on July 6, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a Hebrew-language statement that Ali Khamenei had been assassinated because he led the plan to destroy Israel, and warned that any Iranian leader reviving such plans would be stopped as well.

Questions about his physical condition have not been answered by any of this. People close to his inner circle told Reuters he sustained serious injuries, including damage to his face and significant harm to one or both legs. Asked in the July interview about his own contact with the new leader, Araghchi said he had never met him and had not seen him during this period, and that he did not think anyone beyond perhaps one or a few people had.

The likely near term is more of the same, with a narrowing margin. A technical brief explaining why the leader cannot be recorded, a foreign minister saying the breach that killed the last leader is still open and may be steering decisions, and an official account of a courier chain known to two or three people have all landed within a few weeks of each other. Together they describe a security problem the state does not claim to have solved. That is not evidence of incapacity and should not be treated as confirmation of it. But the explanation is now doing heavy work: five months on, the reasoning that made the silence understandable in March is being asked to carry a leadership that has been neither seen nor heard through a war, a succession, and his own father’s funeral — and it is being offered to a public, including much of the system’s own base, that expected the funeral to be the end of it.

The statement answers a claim made two days earlier by a cleric who holds no office. Mohammad Bagher Kharrazi, secretary-general of a group called Hezbollah of Iran and the brother of the wife of Masoud Khamenei — a younger brother of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei — said in a video carried by Tabnak on Monday that Pezeshkian had resigned or threatened to resign 28 times, and that the Leader had written that if the president did it once more, the resignation would be accepted. Kharrazi said the message had been formally conveyed, and that Pezeshkian no longer dared. He also claimed the Leader intended to replace Mohammad Bagher Zolqadr as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council.

The Leader’s office denied the account without naming him. In a statement from its public relations department, the office said quotations attributed to the Leader had been circulating online, that these were causing public agitation and sowing division, and that the specific claim about his response to a letter from the president was false and contrary to fact from its foundation. The statement said the only authoritative outlets for messages, news and material attributed to the Leader are the official website of his office and the institute for the preservation and publication of his works.

The presidency issued its own denial hours before the video excerpt appeared. Mehdi Tabatabaei, deputy for communications at the president’s office, wrote on X that the resignation claim was baseless and outright false, and described what he called a sinister coalition of lying whisperers and partisans of extremism and imprudence targeting national cohesion. The presidency separately rejected the figure of 28 resignations.

The underlying report is months old and has never been confirmed. On May 31, Iran International — a London-based outlet aligned with the opposition, citing an unnamed source — reported that Pezeshkian had sent a formal letter to the Leader’s office asking to step down, arguing that the IRGC had taken control of key parts of government and that his administration had been excluded from major decisions since the war began in February. Officials denied it at the time. The pattern predates the war: Executive Vice President Mohammad Jafar Qaem-Panah dismissed similar reports as rumors in November 2025, and Pezeshkian himself denied stepping-down reports in February 2025. When the story resurfaced roughly two months ago, Tabatabaei said resignation was not in Pezeshkian’s nature and that conditions in the country did not leave him room to think about it, while chief of staff Mohsen Haji-Mirzaei said there was no gap between the president and senior IRGC commanders, and that decisions in joint sessions had been taken unanimously.

What is new is that the dispute has become an argument inside the conservative camp specifically. The hardline former lawmaker Hamid Rasaei suggested Pezeshkian resign in order to test whether Kharrazi’s account was true. Mojtaba Zarei, a member of the Majles National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, dismissed Rasaei’s jab, noting that out of 90 million Iranians only one man had come forward to vouch for Kharrazi’s claim. Ali Asghar Shafieian, an adviser to the presidency and founder of Ensaf News, wrote that Kharrazi has neither met the Leader nor has any channel to him and is known for unusual accounts, pointing out that Kharrazi had previously accused Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi of a hand in the assassination of Ali Khamenei. Raja News, close to supporters of the late president Ebrahim Raisi, ran the claim under a headline describing a decisive answer from the Leader to a resignation performance.

The episode is legible mainly as a problem of verification. Mojtaba Khamenei has not been seen or heard in public since taking office in March; his positions reach the country as written statements, and Araghchi said in a July interview that he had never met him and did not believe more than one or a few people had. In that condition, a claim relayed by a relative with no institutional role can occupy a political week and require public statements from both the president’s office and the Leader’s office. The denial from the Leader’s office was, in substance, a reminder that only two websites may speak for him — an assertion of channel control rather than of content.

The fight over resignation sits on top of a fight over negotiations. Pro-government rallies held nightly since the war began have criticized Pezeshkian and Araghchi over talks with Washington. A letter attributed to Mojtaba Khamenei said that he had in principle held a different view of the memorandum of understanding with the United States, but permitted its signing after Pezeshkian accepted responsibility for it — a formulation that assigns the president both the authority and the blame. Pezeshkian has since described the memorandum as the product of the Supreme National Security Council’s collective judgment rather than his own initiative, and the presidium of the Assembly of Experts has warned in severe terms against the diplomatic track.

On the same day, the president restated his position on the war itself. Pezeshkian said Iran is not seeking to continue or expand the conflict, called war a disease, and said the country would defend its limits against any threat. His comments came as President Trump said negotiations with Iran were underway and Tehran denied that any talks with the United States were scheduled, maintaining that its discussions concern a temporary transit arrangement with Oman.

What the week signals about the institutional balance is modest, and should be read that way. Pezeshkian won a snap election in July 2024 after Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash, and roughly two years of his term remain. His statement resolves nothing about whether he attempted to resign; it establishes that he intends to stay and that he will not concede a public rift. The more durable observation is structural: a president who must periodically deny that he has quit, a Leader whose office must periodically deny words attributed to him, and a security establishment that both of them describe as fully aligned with them. Each denial is plausible on its own. Together they describe a system in which the location of authority is contested enough that its participants have to keep saying it is not.

The reversal followed direct appeals from Gulf capitals, chiefly Riyadh. Axios reporter Barak Ravid, citing two U.S. officials and a source familiar with the call, reported that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman raised concerns about the planned strikes in a Saturday phone call with Trump, asked for details of the operational plan and urged him to de-escalate. President Trump had been seriously weighing strikes on Iran’s energy facilities, with reports of an imminent escalation leaking over the weekend. Saudi Arabia’s state news agency SPA confirmed the call, saying the crown prince stressed prioritizing dialogue to reduce escalation and achieving calm that paves the way for diplomatic solutions.

Axios added that Qatar, the UAE, Turkey, and Pakistan were also working to lower tensions, and that Qatari mediators spoke separately Saturday with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, and Omani officials about a Hormuz reopening deal. Israel’s Channel 12, citing senior U.S. officials, reported that CENTCOM had prepared strikes on Iranian energy and infrastructure targets with Israeli participation expected, that Qatar asked Trump for another 24 hours, and that negotiators were close to an arrangement including a renewed ceasefire, a toll-free opening of the strait for 60 days, new shipping routes, and resumed U.S.-Iran talks based on the June 17 memorandum of understanding. Neither government has confirmed these reported terms.

On Sunday, Trump said negotiations with Iran would begin Monday afternoon and repeatedly called a deal imminent. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, he said the U.S. had been prepared to launch the attack Sunday before Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Iran urged him to hold off, saying “we were all set to go” and that it would have been a massive attack. “The deal is imminent, having to do with the Hormuz Strait and also, ultimately, the denuclearization of Iran,” he said. Asked about resuming strikes, he said the U.S. was ready to go at any time but that he was not looking to kill people, and that Gulf leaders preferred a deal to a refugee crisis spilling across their borders. Oil markets moved on the announcement: Brent crude fell $4.08, or about 4.6 percent, to $83.85 a barrel late Sunday, with WTI down $4.01 at $80.66, per Reuters.

Iranian outlets denied nearly every element of the American account. The semi-official Mehr news agency rejected Trump’s claim that Tehran had asked the U.S. to refrain from attacking, and Iranian semi-official media denied reports that Iran had agreed to a deal dividing control of the Strait of Hormuz. The state news agency IRNA reported that Araghchi spent Saturday on the phone with senior officials in Pakistan, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia - including Field Marshal Asim Munir and Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan - warning against any adventurous action by the U.S. military and emphasizing Iran’s full readiness to safeguard its sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national security.

On Monday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei told his weekly press conference in Tehran that no negotiations between Iran and the United States are under way: “We are not going to host a delegation or be guests of a country during these days.” However, the denial does not appear to extend to indirect talks through mediators, which appear to be ongoing.

Trump answered Iran’s denial Monday morning with a post accusing Iran’s leadership of lying about the nature of negotiations. “Iranian Leadership is unbelievably duplicitous!” he wrote on Truth Social, saying Tehran asked for meetings - “some would say ‘beg’” - with talks beginning and more scheduled. He dismissed Iran’s statements that it would operate the strait powerfully, claiming that the waterway is already completely controlled by the U.S. Navy and its blockade, which he called “The United States Wall of Steel,” and that nothing would get through to Iran unless a deal or total surrender was accomplished, ending with the declaration that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a Fox News interview, said “regime change” in Iran need not mean full overthrow but a change in the regime’s nature and behavior, achieved by imposing costs it can no longer pay. He added that unlike a nuclear agreement, which can be signed and verified, forcing a government to abandon its regional strategy is a continuing process, and pressure toward it would have no defined endpoint.

The negotiation that does exist, by Tehran’s account, is between Iran and Oman, over a new transit corridor through the Strait of Hormuz. Araghchi told Monday’s cabinet session, per Iranian state media, that the talks are on a path to being finalized and are in their final stages. Baghaei said the discussions, running for the past seven to eight days, aim to agree on a specific corridor for transit between the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman. He indicated the route would be temporary and meant to provide safe navigation “in consultation and cooperation with Oman.” He said the agreed path would be neither the current northern route nor the existing Oman-approved southern route, which he said had made the region insecure and harmed Iran’s national interests, but a new route both sides settle on.

Araghchi asserted that the strait was closed by American treaty violations and the U.S. blockade, not by any dispute with Muscat, and that an Iran-Oman understanding is therefore a necessary but not sufficient condition for reopening the waterway. Israel’s Channel 12, citing two informed diplomats, reported the corridor under discussion would have ships enter the strait from the Iranian-controlled side and exit on the Omani side, and that Araghchi’s reported assent to a reopening deal was what prompted Trump’s decision to cancel the attack. Al Mayadeen, the Lebanese network close to Iran, cited an unnamed Iranian source said Washington had offered concessions on the southern route, which Tehran rejected while telling the U.S. the strait would not open until the war fully ends. None of these accounts has been independently verified.

Mediation channels multiplied through the weekend. Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar invited Araghchi to visit Islamabad at the earliest opportunity in a Monday phone call, according to a Pakistani Foreign Ministry statement that said the two discussed regional and international developments. Araghchi is currently in Najaf, Iraq, and Pakistan has been the principal mediator between Tehran and Washington.

President Masoud Pezeshkian, meanwhile, posted on X that the Islamabad MoU was the product of the collective wisdom of the Supreme National Security Council, that all its members are aligned behind it, and that the agreement “will be the center of gravity of our foreign relations” going forward, adding that the security of Iran, the region, and Iran’s allies would be enhanced by it. The statement serves as a call to compel American adherence to the framework rather than abandon it.

Hardline institutions in Tehran warned against the diplomatic track in unusually severe terms. The presidium of the Assembly of Experts issued a statement, carried by Iranian media, cautioning against any simplistic thinking at this sensitive juncture, saying the recent attacks and repeated violations of the MoU proved the American president’s signature invalid and that trust in this government is nothing but a mirage. The statement declared that whispers of capitulation by plotters acting in the name of defending peace constitute an unforgivable treason, that confronting such actions legally is the clear duty of relevant officials, and that all steps must remain within the views, directives, and judgments of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei. The same presidium declared Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu “mahdoor al-dam” - deserving of death - in early July, a statement the Assembly’s own secretariat described the next day as unusual and unconventional and in need of further review.

Acting Defense Minister Majid Ebn-Reza wrote on X that even if the enemy’s recent statements are made as psychological operations and a war of calculations, Iran regards every threat as a real and serious one, and would be neither surprised nor passive, treating threats as grounds to raise readiness and strengthen deterrence.

Military signaling continued through the pause on both sides. The IRGC announced, in a statement carried by the Tasnim news agency, that it had shot down a U.S. MQ-9 drone over the Strait of Hormuz with fire from a new advanced Aerospace Force air-defense system; the statement gave no date or time, and CENTCOM has neither confirmed nor denied the claim. On Sunday, the UK Maritime Trade Operations agency reported that a tanker’s master heard an explosion in close proximity to the vessel 20 nautical miles northeast of Khasab, Oman; the ship and crew were safe and authorities were investigating.

Separately, CNN reported that an officer in CENTCOM’s intelligence branch emailed a broad group of military analysts last Wednesday soliciting “new creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran,” an approach military officials described as unusual. However, Capt. Timothy Hawkins responded that the command has a long history of innovative thinking and that Adm. Brad Cooper seeks input from personnel regardless of rank. The same reporting said U.S. intelligence assessments have concluded the bombing campaign alone is unlikely to change Iran’s negotiating position, and that CENTCOM has developed - though Trump has not approved - a plan for one to two weeks of heavy bombardment aimed at Iran’s remaining missile capabilities. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted Monday that the U.S. remains “locked and loaded” and ready to strike at levels not seen since World War II.

An adviser to Iran’s army command disclosed ground campaigns inside Iraqi Kurdistan. Brig. Gen. Mojtaba Jafari, adviser to the commander-in-chief of the regular army, said at a ceremony Monday, in remarks carried by Iranian media, that commandos of the 23rd NOHED Brigade - the Army Ground Force’s airborne special forces - have carried out 14 ground operations in Sulaymaniyah and Erbil against what he called counter-revolutionaries, destroying and capturing their personnel and returning without losses. Al Mayadeen reported that the operations included the killing of Soran Mohammadzadeh, whom it described as an intelligence commander in the Kurdish opposition, along with strikes on intelligence figures of separatist groups and several Iraqis.

The Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK) said in a July 3 statement that Mohammadzadeh, a member of its general organization, was assassinated in an Erbil hotel on the evening of June 26 by a team of IRGC intelligence operatives using local collaborators, that he was buried a week later, and that the party withheld details at the time to deny the Islamic Republic an intelligence advantage. These accounts come from parties to the conflict and have not been independently confirmed, but they point to a ground dimension of the war inside Iraqi Kurdistan larger than previously acknowledged.

Shipping data showed traffic through the strait still falling as negotiations have continued. Maritime tracker Kpler recorded 51 vessel transits through Hormuz from July 30 to August 2, down about 28 percent from 71 in the preceding four days. Most of the vessels - 30 were headed toward Iran, and a substantial share involved sanctioned tonnage, including 10 ships under U.S. sanctions and 10 counted in the Russia-Iran “shadow fleet.” AIS data from MarineTraffic and LSEG showed six Saudi-flagged supertankers, returning empty from Asian destinations, diverting toward southern Africa rather than transiting the Bab al-Mandeb Strait after Houthi threats against Saudi shipping.

The maritime intelligence firm Windward reported an apparent Chinese exception at both chokepoints: 22 China-linked vessels passed Bab al-Mandeb and berthed at Saudi ports between July 20 and August 2 without a single incident, even as the Houthis attacked four Saudi tankers in the same window, while a Hong Kong-flagged very large crude carrier exited Hormuz on July 30-31 broadcasting “Chinese crew/owner” in its AIS destination field, having loaded roughly 2.14 million barrels at Iraq’s Basra terminal for Singapore. CENTCOM, for its part, said it has redirected 35 commercial vessels and disabled two others since restarting its blockade of Iranian ports - figures that, like the IRGC’s tanker-strike claims, come from a party to the conflict.

The weekend’s sequence follows a pattern the war has produced before. A threatened escalation, a pause announced from Washington, contested claims about what was agreed, and then recriminations within a day. The June 17 MoU and the early-July truce each traveled a similar arc before collapsing within weeks. The likely near-term outcome, if the Oman channel holds, is a narrow and explicitly temporary transit corridor rather than a settlement. Baghaei’s own framing sets that ceiling: even a finalized Iran-Oman understanding is a necessary but not sufficient condition for reopening the strait, with the broader questions on the blockade, the nuclear file and the collapsed MoU potentially deferred to talks that Tehran currently denies are happening. Whether Monday’s exchange of accusations derails the corridor talks themselves should be clearer within days.

The cost of another failed off-ramp would fall, as before, on people with no say in it. The crews navigating two contested straits, the families in southern Iran’s coastal cities who have absorbed the heaviest recent strikes, and the millions already displaced are living with decisions made in Washington, Tehran, and the Gulf capitals. By OCHA and UNHCR counts from the war’s first phase alone, as many as 2,362 civilians were killed and 3.2 million people displaced. Similarly, 18 U.S. service members have been killed in action since February with many hundreds more injured. A corridor through the Strait of Hormuz may not end the war, but it would be a key step away from it that could build toward greater progress.

Iranian outlets and local officials reported explosions across a wide area, including Qeshm, Kish, and Abu Musa islands, the waters off Qeshm and the Strait of Hormuz, and points in Khuzestan (Abadan, Shadegan, Arvandkenar, and seven blasts reported in Ahvaz), Bushehr, and Fars provinces (Nurabad Mamasani and Kazerun).

In Qeshm, Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences said a residential building in the Chah-Tangu neighbourhood of Qeshm city was struck, killing a mother, father, and a two-year-old child, with two other children pulled from the rubble and hospitalized. A provincial crisis-management official said the condition of the surviving children was stable. Iranian state broadcaster IRIB aired rescue footage through the night and into the morning. The governor of Bushehr said two points near the town of Chaghadak were hit by what he called American missiles at around 4 a.m. local time, without casualties, and did not specify whether the targets were military or civilian. Zanjan’s IRGC unit announced that three of its members were killed in the strikes “in defense of the homeland,” without giving a location. CENTCOM did not detail its targets, areas of operation, or damage.

Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s chief negotiator, said the United States would pay for the Qeshm deaths. Writing on X, Ghalibaf said Washington “stains its hands with a new crime every day,” calling the strike on civilian homes in Qeshm a continuation of earlier attacks in Minab and Lamerd. Ghalibaf claimed Americans were accustomed to answering battlefield setbacks by shedding innocent blood. Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei separately pressed UN Secretary-General António Guterres to name the United States and Israel explicitly as the war’s principal instigators, saying the UN’s credibility was at stake.

Iran claimed retaliation against three separate bases, across three countries. The IRGC and the regular army issued numbered communiqués - the channel through which Tehran consistently owns its direct attacks - claiming strikes on U.S. forces at Muwaffaq Salti (Al-Azraq) Air Base in Jordan, Ahmad al-Jaber and Ali al-Salem air bases in Kuwait, and Sheikh Isa Air Base in Bahrain. The IRGC’s communiqués 55 and 56, issued under what it called “Operation Nasr 2,” claimed the complete destruction of three American F-35 jets and heavy damage to three others at the Jordanian base, along with the killing of several U.S. officers and technical personnel. Iran’s army, under the 27th phase of “Operation Saeqeh,” said drones hit fighter hangars, satellite-communications systems and equipment warehouses at Ahmad al-Jaber in Kuwait in response to the Qeshm strike. A separate army statement said drones struck power generators, navigation systems, and administrative buildings at Sheikh Isa in Bahrain - home to facilities used by the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet - framing it as revenge for Su-24 pilot Brigadier General Majid Kazemi, killed early in the war.

CENTCOM rejected the Iranian claims in its own public communications. It said no American aircraft, including F-35s, were destroyed or damaged, and that all missiles and drones had been intercepted or failed to reach their targets. Jordan’s armed forces said their air defenses intercepted and destroyed five missiles fired from Iran early Thursday, without casualties. Kuwait’s military said it downed drones that entered its airspace and that falling debris caused damage but no deaths or injuries, though it also said several important military facilities were targeted in what it called Iranian aggression. Separately, Kuwait’s Defence Ministry said an Iranian missile-and-drone attack the previous day hit a building belonging to a Chinese company in the country’s north, killing one worker and causing significant material damage, calling it a heinous act of aggression. China’s Foreign Ministry said no Chinese nationals were harmed and asked Kuwait to protect its citizens and institutions. Neither Bahrain nor the United States had commented on the Sheikh Isa claim as of the time of publication.

A drone strike appears to have hit an Egyptian port for the first time in the war, and no one has claimed it. Egypt’s Cabinet said the fire that damaged two ships at the Mediterranean port of Damietta on Wednesday was caused by a drone, and that authorities were investigating. The oil ministry said Minister Karim Badawi went to the site and that there were no casualties. Reuters, citing trade and security sources, reported the drone struck the U.S.-owned floating LNG unit Energos Winter, with the fire spreading to a second vessel, the Gaslog Salim. The tracking firm Kpler said the incident disrupted one of the region’s key LNG import terminals.

Iran denied involvement, with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi calling Egypt an important friend and warning against what he described as Israeli false-flag operations. Yemen’s Houthis also denied responsibility, with a foreign-affairs official calling the reports baseless. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, in a call with Spain’s Pedro Sánchez, warned against regional escalation. The Damietta strike matters because it shows how far the war’s geography can stretch: following the July 25 drone attack on an Iranian commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea - which Iran blamed on Ukraine and protested by summoning Kyiv’s envoy - a hit on a U.S.-owned LNG unit in the Mediterranean widens the war well beyond the Gulf. With no claim of responsibility, one reading is that the strike was an indirect signal from Tehran, tying its answer to the Caspian incident and the Ukrainian attack to a target far from the front. Yet this remains an inference, not a confirmed link.

Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has effectively stopped. Iran’s Persian Gulf Waterway Management body - established by Tehran to control vessel transits after Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and the U.S. imposed a naval blockade - announced that passage was no longer possible because of continued “aggressive actions” by American forces, and said requests to transit would be reviewed and permits issued once stability returned. The body had earlier published a map of a “monitoring zone” running from a line linking Mount Mubarak in Iran to south of Fujairah in the UAE in the east, to a line linking the tip of Qeshm to Umm al-Quwain in the west, and said transit through required coordination. While the United States sanctioned the body weeks ago, the IRGC, for its part, said the strait cannot reopen while U.S. threats and interference persist, and warned that unnamed countries aiding “the aggressor” would face a hard response.

The IRGC said two more tankers in the Strait of Hormuz were struck and warned shippers to disregard CENTCOM. According to the statement, two “violating” tankers moving under American air escort on an unsafe and illegal path were hit early Thursday, and that four other tankers quickly reversed course. It told shipping and insurance firms to ignore CENTCOM notices and to “ask those who were deceived and met with disaster.” An account linked to the IRGC Navy posted footage of burning tankers captioned “the fate of violation.” CENTCOM had rejected the IRGC’s characterization of the routes as unsafe, saying the main danger to commercial ships and their civilian crews was the Guard’s own threats and attacks, and that more than 20 warships, hundreds of aircraft, and thousands of American personnel were still enforcing the blockade in full. CENTCOM also disputed Iranian reports that a tanker named Nora had slipped through, saying it had not.

With the Strait of Hormuz choked off, the Bab al-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea - impacted by Houthi threats to Saudi shipping - has carried far more traffic. Kpler data showed 25 commercial cargo vessels transited Bab al-Mandeb on Thursday - 18 entering and seven exiting, including two very large crude carriers and five Aframax-class ships - while only two tankers passed through Hormuz in the same span, both empty.

Saudi Arabia has responded to the maritime pressure by forming a multinational naval coalition. Riyadh’s Defence Ministry announced a Multinational Maritime Defense Alliance on Thursday to secure navigation through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, the Red Sea, and the Gulf of Aden, after Yemen’s Houthis declared a blockade on the kingdom on July 20 and claimed attacks on Saudi tankers and oil infrastructure. In a joint statement on behalf of 14 member states, the ministry named Bahrain, Bangladesh, Djibouti, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Turkey and the Saudi-backed government in Yemen. It said 51 countries and organizations were invited to a founding meeting in Riyadh, that representatives of 43 countries and an EU delegation attended, and that 14 declared their support while others were still considering. Notably absent from the signatories were the UAE and Oman.

Riyadh and the Houthis exchanged fire earlier this month for the first time in years, testing a truce that had held since 2022. Reuters, citing two regional officials, reported that Saudi and allied assessments concluded the Houthi attacks on the kingdom were coordinated with Iraqi armed groups and launched from Iraqi soil under IRGC direction. This account differs from public statements, in which the Houthis claimed the strikes on Saudi Arabia and Iraq said it was investigating. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a coalition of Iran-aligned armed groups, warned that a response to the U.S.–Saudi strikes earlier in the week is “inevitable” and could reach American assets in Saudi Arabia. The bodies of five IRGC members killed in the Iraq strikes were returned to Iran via the Mehran crossing, per IRNA.

The economic costs surfaced on both sides. Saudi state broadcaster Al-Arabiya reported the kingdom’s GDP fell 4.8 percent year-on-year in the second quarter, with “oil activities” down 24.7 percent. In Washington, the Commerce Department reported U.S. growth slowed to 1.5 percent in the second quarter, below the roughly 2 percent expected and attributed in part to the war’s effect on energy prices. Household finances and the economy are expected to figure heavily in November’s midterm elections, when Democrats will try to retake Congress from Trump’s Republicans. Brent crude has traded above $100 a barrel amid the disruption to Gulf exports.

Diplomacy has narrowed but not closed. Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Tahir Andrabi said Islamabad was still working to bring Iran and the United States back to the Islamabad MoU, which was signed June 18 with Pakistani mediation. Andrabi urged both the U.S. and Iran to honor commitments and to hold technical talks. Iran has again rejected the Omani proposal, backed by Gulf states, to manage the Strait of Hormuz through voluntary transit fees.

The through-line across these days is that the war now has more participants than principals. What began on February 28 as a U.S.–Israeli assault on Iran now runs across Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq and two blocked sea lanes, with a Saudi-led naval coalition on one side and the Houthis and Iraqi militias operating on their own timelines on the other, with many recent strikes unclaimed or disputed. Talks continue and mediators remain engaged, but each new front lengthens the road to a settlement, and each new actor with its own grievance makes it harder for the two governments that started the fighting to stop it.

The cost, as ever, falls on people who had no say in it. A worker killed in Kuwait, a family of three killed in a home on Qeshm, port workers and crews on burning tankers off Egypt and in the Red Sea and the sailors now navigating two contested straits are absorbing decisions made in Tehran, Washington, Riyadh and elsewhere.

Two official bodies publish two different sets of numbers, and they should not be conflated. For the same stretch, the Central Bank of Iran reported twelve-month inflation at 61.4 percent — below the SCI figure. The gap is not new; it has recurred for years and is largely methodological, reflecting differences in the composition of the household consumption basket, the weighting of individual goods and sampling technique. While the exact number is contested, the upward direction of inflation is the same in both reports.

The burden of that inflation does not fall evenly across households, a key finding of the report. While the national average was 87.9 percent, that figure masks a wide spread: by the SCI’s estimate, point-to-point inflation stayed above 100 percent for the lowest-income groups for a second straight month - 100.6 percent for the second decile and 99.6 percent for the first - against roughly 85 percent for the top deciles. The driver of the spread is runaway food prices, since food takes up a larger share of the spending of low-income households. Over the past twelve months the price of food and beverages rose an average of 129 percent, against an average of 66 percent for other goods and services. Put plainly, the larger the share of a family’s budget spent on food, the heavier the real inflation it experiences.

A similar divide between the countryside and cities is evident, with harsher impacts on rural households. By the SCI’s breakdown, point-to-point inflation reached 106.9 percent in rural areas against 84.6 percent in urban ones, meaning villagers paid more than double than in July 2025 for the same basket. The twelve-month rate showed the same pattern, at 77.9 percent for rural households versus 64 percent for urban ones, a gap of roughly 14 percentage points. Even month-on-month, rural inflation ran slightly ahead. The likely driver is the same one behind the income-decile gap: food weighs more heavily in rural household budgets, so food-price surges hit villages hardest.

The SCI’s second report sets the labor market alongside the price data. Employment in spring 1405 (the Iranian spring, roughly March–June 2026) fell by about 450,000 from the previous spring, from 25.12 million to 24.67 million. This decline occurred even as the working-age population above 15 years old grew by roughly 800,000. The number of unemployed actively seeking work rose from two million to two and a half million. More striking is the drop in full-time work: more than 1.3 million full-time jobs disappeared, falling from 18.34 million to 17.03 million.

The sharpest contraction was in industry. Industrial employment fell by roughly 629,000 from the prior spring, while agriculture and services added 70,000 and 111,000 workers respectively. This pattern is consistent with the shutdown or slowdown of manufacturing during the war and the naval blockade.

Gholamhossein Mohammadi, a deputy labor minister, said in April 2026 that the war had, by preliminary estimate, directly destroyed more than one million jobs and left roughly two million people unemployed once indirect effects were counted. Labor activists such as Hamid Haj-Esmaili have called that figure an undercount, putting the true total at three to four million once online platforms and the informal market are included. None of these figures have been independently verified.

Still, what emerges from the economic report is a clear image of an economy - and tens of millions of households - that have been harmed by war. Prices are up somewhere between 60 and 88 percent over the year, food has passed triple-digit inflation for the poorest households, and jobs - particularly full-time jobs and industrial work - are fewer.

The pressure is heaviest on those least able to absorb it: the lowest-income deciles and rural households, where food fills most of the basket. The combination of rising prices and shrinking employment, in a “neither war nor peace” holding pattern that has kept the market in recession, reaches the Iranian household before any diplomatic or battlefield decision does. With renewed regional tension and the reimposed naval blockade, analysts expect price pressure to build again.

Early Wednesday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Aerospace Force fired ballistic missiles at U.S. forces in Jordan and announced as much in a numbered communiqué, the same channel through which Tehran has consistently owned its direct attacks throughout this war. U.S. Central Command said it intercepted all of them and cast the barrage as an IRGC “surprise” attack that failed. President Trump promised a forceful reprisal in blunt terms, telling American media that Iran would be hit hard, while CENTCOM warned the Guard and its proxies to stop or face further strikes.

The genuinely new development, and the one with the widest implications, is that a Gulf state has now openly claimed its strikes. Late Tuesday into Wednesday, Saudi and American aircraft hit what CENTCOM described as logistics hubs and weapons sites of Iran-aligned groups across eastern Iraq. Riyadh’s Defense Ministry confirmed its role, citing self-defense after repeated drone attacks on its Eastern Province oil facilities, and said it does not seek escalation but reserves the right to respond. This is the first acknowledged offensive action against Iran or its allies by a Persian Gulf state since the war began on February 28 — a line Saudi Arabia had been careful, at least publicly, not to cross even as American forces have used its skies and territory.

Responsibility for the earlier strikes on Saudi Arabia may have been deliberately blurred. Saudi Arabia attributed the recent drone assaults on its oil infrastructure to Iran-backed militias operating from Iraq, yet Yemen’s Houthis had separately claimed some of the strikes on Saudi facilities, while Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) denied responsibility. Iraqi officials said they had found no evidence the drones were launched from their soil. None of the denials stopped the operation.

The PMF, an umbrella of predominantly Shia paramilitary groups formally folded into Iraq’s official security forces, said its Baghdad headquarters and sites across as many as seven provinces were hit, putting its initial nationwide count at 20 killed and 32 wounded. However, that toll could rise. A separate statement on its northern bases cited eight killed, roughly aligning with separate independent accounts. Resistance-aligned channels said some of the wounded were taken across the border for treatment at a hospital in western Iran.

For Baghdad, the strikes were less a blow against Iran than a wound to its own sovereignty and its careful tilt toward the Gulf. Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi convened an emergency National Security Council session, pressed ahead with an investigation into the drone-launch claims, and canceled an official visit to Saudi Arabia set for Thursday. That trip had reportedly been meant to reassure Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that Iraqi territory would not be used against its neighbors and to discuss a September deadline to disarm unauthorized armed groups. As Al-Monitor noted, the cancellation is a real setback to al-Zaidi’s effort to steer Iraq away from Tehran’s orbit. Condemnation crossed factional lines, from the presidency to former Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani. Complicating the picture further, President Trump claimed the operation had been coordinated with Iraqi officials - an assertion Baghdad’s own denunciation flatly contradicts.

Beneath the official anger is a combustible fault line: the contest between the Iraqi state and the militias it cannot fully command. The influential cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, in a post on X, emphasized respect for Iraqi sovereignty. He urged the IRGC not to strike Iraqi soil, while simultaneously warning Iraqi armed groups not to hand the Gulf states a pretext to hit Iraq. He also pressed the government to assert its sovereignty and shield civilians and holy sites. The Iran-aligned Islamic Resistance in Iraq, for its part, promised a “certain” response but said it would hold fire until after the Arbaeen commemoration, hinting the eventual retaliation could reach U.S. assets in Saudi Arabia. In the same breath, it dared Baghdad to defend the country in the militias’ stead, an implicit challenge to the state’s monopoly on force.

The strikes falling on the eve of one of the world’s largest religious gatherings in Arbaeen sharpened all of these tensions. Millions of pilgrims from Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Azerbaijan and beyond are converging on Karbala, and some Iraqi voices read the timing as a deliberate signal of anger toward a procession long associated with solidarity for the “Axis of Resistance.” Western and regional security services, by contrast, have viewed the pilgrimage as a season when Quds Force personnel move more freely into Iraq and coordinate with allied militias. Regardless, a mass of civilians now sits in the middle of a widening war, and the militias’ decision to postpone their reprisal is bound up with the pilgrimage they say they are protecting.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry condemned the Iraq strikes as a flagrant violation of the UN Charter and an attempt to widen the war across West Asia. Tehran’s sharpest message, though, was about the blockade it indicates is intertwined with the war itself. Iran has cast the U.S. naval blockade of its ports — reimposed in mid-July — not as pressure short of war but as an act of war in its own right. Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters warned that the blockade, which it called illegal, amounts to an expansion of the conflict, said American forces had been menacing Iranian commercial vessels and tankers in Iran’s own coastal waters, and signaled that the armed forces would answer accordingly.

The IRGC Navy also announced Wednesday that three tankers transiting an unsafe route through the Strait of Hormuz and ignoring warnings from Iranian authorities were struck and halted. The statement asserted that Iran maintained complete control over the Strait of Hormuz, and that no safe alternative for transit exists. It also signaled that Iran will not accept being cordoned at sea indefinitely, and that its tolerance for the blockade is running out.

Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has collapsed to a fraction of its normal volume. Additionally, a senior Iranian official told Reuters that Tehran had rejected a proposed fifty-fifty arrangement with Oman to manage the strait as insufficient to its interests — leaving the Muscat mediation track strained even as it stays open. Off the Arabian Peninsula’s other coast, the Houthis said they had fired on a Saudi tanker in the Red Sea. Both of the corridors Riyadh uses to move oil around a blocked Hormuz are now under threat at once.

Washington, meanwhile, tightened the economic and maritime vise even as it promised military reprisal. The Treasury announced fresh sanctions on eight tankers and ten entities, six of them based in China, extending the pressure on Iran’s oil revenue and shadow fleet as the blockade continues to stop Iran-linked ships. Iranian state-linked media also reported a U.S. strike on an uninhabited stretch of the Piranshahr border area inside Iran, with a provincial official quoted saying it caused no casualties. While the claim has not been independently confirmed, if accurate it would push the target set back onto Iranian soil at the very moment the direct exchange resumed.

While Iran’s leaders could have sat back and accepted the lull in the war, instead they chose to try to set the tempo of escalation. The blockade sharpens that test: having declared the cordon at sea an act of war in itself, Iran is signaling it will no longer absorb restrictions on its maritime access without a military answer.

Seen this way, the strikes are not scattered reprisals but pieces of a single regional design. The missiles aimed at Jordan, the drones directed at Saudi and Israeli-linked targets and the pressure on Gulf shipping are exerting continued pressure on the United States and the regional order as a whole.

Some of this may stem from change at the top. Since the assassination of Ali Khamenei and the elevation of his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, analysts have detected a harder doctrine that is less reactive and more tolerant of risk.

The aim is likely to deny Washington the ability to dial back pressure at a time of its own choosing. This forces the United States to choose between deepening the war or accepting a revised set of facts acceptable to Iran on the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s position in the reshaping regional order, denying a third path of on and off warfare on Washington’s terms.

The widening war now has participants who answer to no one at the table. Saudi Arabia and the Houthis are trading blows directly, straining a truce that had largely held since 2022, Gulf states are pursuing their own forms of retaliation against Iran and other aligned groups, and the militias inside Iraq have their own timeline, grievances, and preferences. Each of these actors was drawn into a conflict that began as an assault on Iran, and each now has reasons to keep fighting that neither Washington nor Tehran fully controls. Iraq - a state formally allied with Washington and the Gulf and host to militias loyal to Tehran - is once again a battlefield for external powers.

The cost, as ever, is being paid by people who did not choose the escalation. Iraqi civilians near the struck sites, pilgrims on the roads to Karbala, sailors and oil workers along two threatened coastlines are potentially in the line of fire as officials from multiple nations calibrate their next moves. The war the United States and Israel set in motion in February has acquired a life of its own, and the diplomatic path to its end has only grown more complicated as the war grinds on.

Born in 1960 to an Ardabili father and a Tehrani mother in the working-class Nazi-Abad district of south Tehran, Abdi rose from modest beginnings to national fame. He first appeared before a camera in 1980 and entered television that same year, winning the affection of a generation of young viewers through the children’s series Late for School Again. Popular programs that followed made him one of the most recognizable television faces of the 1980s, before he moved decisively into film.

Though cherished above all as a comedian, Abdi’s gifts reached well beyond comedy, and some of his most admired work was dramatic. He worked alongside towering figures of Iranian cinema, including Dariush Mehrjui in The Tenants, Naser Taghvai in Ey Iran, Mohsen Makhmalbaf in The Actor, and Ali Hatami in both Delshodegan and Mother. His portrayal of Gholamreza in Hatami’s Mother remains among the most admired performances in the country’s cinema and brought him the first of two Crystal Simorghs, Iran’s highest film honor. He received the second more than two decades later, in 2011, for playing an elderly woman in Reza Attaran’s comedy I Feel Sleepy — a breadth of recognition rare for any actor.

Abdi’s remarkable range came to reflect, within a single career, some of the deeper tensions of Iranian cultural life. In Snowman, filmed abroad and banned for years before its eventual release, he played a man who disguises himself as a woman in pursuit of a visa to the West — a role that made the film a sensation even as it tested the boundaries of what audiences were permitted to see. Years later, his most commercially dominant work came in the state-supported Ekhrajiha trilogy directed by Masoud Dehnamaki, films that broke box-office records and drew criticism given the director’s past as a hardline editor and pressure-group figure. That Abdi could move so freely between such different worlds spoke to his singular standing: an artist embraced across a spectrum of Iranians who agreed on little else, because the laughter he offered belonged to all of them.

In his later years, Abdi increasingly turned his voice toward the hardships of ordinary Iranians. In a video shared in his final days, he pointed to the soaring price of basic goods and questioned the worth of a modest government food subsidy against such inflation. On another occasion, he spoke on behalf of retirees struggling to live on meager pensions while officials drew comfortable salaries — giving plain expression to a frustration felt widely across the country. Having spent a lifetime becoming other people on screen, he chose, near the end, to speak candidly as himself about the lives his audiences were actually living.

He also lent his voice to moments of national grief. During the protests that swept Iran in 2022 following the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of the morality police, Abdi released a video message expressing solidarity with the Iranian people and appealing for compassion, asking how long the nation would be left to mourn — today for Mahsa, he said, and tomorrow for another young person. In that moment, a beloved entertainer placed himself alongside a grieving public rather than apart from it.

Word of his death drew tributes across Iran’s political and cultural divides. President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote that the history of the nation’s art would preserve Abdi’s name among the enduring pillars of Iranian culture, and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi described his place in the country’s cinema and collective memory as lofty and lasting. His fellow artists mourned him in more personal terms: the actor Jamshid Hashempour called him a dear friend and said he had been left without a companion in his craft, while the filmmaker Babak Rezvani wrote that the salt of Iranian cinema was gone. Across social media, many Iranians recalled his roles as part of their own family memories — the crowded Norooz afternoons and quiet Friday evenings when households gathered to laugh together at the many faces of Akbar Abdi.

At NIAC, we recognize that Iran’s cultural richness lives not only in its monuments and masterpieces, but in the artists whose work becomes part of the fabric of everyday life. Akbar Abdi was such an artist. Across five decades — through comedy and drama, celebration and censorship, and in his willingness late in life to speak to the economic pain and the grief of ordinary people — his career mirrored both the contradictions and the resilience of the society that produced him. For millions of Iranians, across generations and divisions, he was simply the face that made them laugh, and the voice that reminded them they were not alone.

We extend our heartfelt condolences to Akbar Abdi’s family, friends, and colleagues, and to all Iranians who cherished his artistry. His funeral was held Sunday morning outside Tehran’s Vahdat Hall, after which he was laid to rest in the Artists’ Section of Behesht-e Zahra cemetery — among the many figures of Iranian arts and letters whose memory endures in the culture they helped to shape.

• Senate Weighs Adding Iran to Bipartisan Russia Sanctions Bill

• The House Approves $95 Billion Spending Package

• The House Passes Another War Powers Resolution, and the Senate Falls Short

• Hegseth Testifies in Congress for More Iran War Funding

• NDAA Advances in the House After Stalling in the Senate

The House of Representatives has now adjourned for August recess and will return in September, while the Senate remains in session. As Congress enters the final stretch before recess, lawmakers spent last week continuing to grapple with the administration’s ongoing, illegal war in Iran – from renewed efforts to assert Congress’s war powers authority to growing disputes over how to fund and oversee the conflict.

With the House advancing additional war funding through the reconciliation process, the Senate blocking movement on the NDAA, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle raising questions about the administration’s strategy and endgame, debates over Congress’s power of the purse are poised to play a central role in shaping the next phase of the Iran war debate.

Senate Weighs Adding Iran to Bipartisan Russia Sanctions Bill

This week, Senate Republicans are continuing negotiations over whether to add new sanctions on Iran to a bipartisan Russia sanctions bill named after the late Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC). While the original bill is intended to increase economic pressure on Russia through new sanctions targeting its energy sector, the scope of any Iran-related provisions is not yet known. An initial vote on the measure could come as soon as Tuesday, with final passage later in the week.

Originally developed by the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), the legislation is now being led by interim Sen. Darline Graham Nordone (R-SC), Graham’s sister and successor, who has been working with Blumenthal on the proposal to include Iran.

The proposal has drawn a mixed response from Senate Democrats. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), the lead Democratic sponsor of the Russia sanctions bill, said he would support sanctions on Iran if considered separately but indicated he would prefer to keep the legislation focused on Russia. Other Democrats, including Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), said they had not yet seen enough details to evaluate the proposal, while Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) suggested adding Iran was unlikely to become a deal breaker and could serve as an additional deterrent without putting U.S. troops at greater risk.

Entirely absent from the debate on Capitol Hill thus far is why sanction Iran now, amid a war, particularly when economic pressure has failed to achieve any outcome other than impoverishing ordinary people in Iran and paving the path to war. Moreover, any new sanctions are likely to provoke a sharp response from Iran, potentially undermining diplomatic negotiations to end the war, which will likely entail the relief of sanctions.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has indicated that negotiations are ongoing as lawmakers work to finalize the package before the Senate departs for August recess. Whether Iran is ultimately included remains unresolved, but the discussions signal that sanctions legislation may become another major avenue through which Congress debates and legislates on Iran.

The House Approves $95 Billion Budget Resolution

Last week, the House approved a budget resolution that includes approximately $60 billion in additional defense spending related to the Iran war, alongside funding for other national security initiatives and domestic priorities. However, the resolution itself does not provide funding; House committees must still draft the underlying legislation before Congress can consider a final package.

The 216-214 vote serves as the first procedural step of this special legislative maneuver known as “reconciliation.” Several more steps would be needed in order to pass the funding into law.

Reconciliation is a special budget process that allows certain spending and tax-related legislation to pass the Senate with a simple majority of votes, bypassing the usual 60-vote threshold needed to overcome procedural delays in the Senate. By using reconciliation, House Republicans are attempting to advance the package through a divided Congress with fewer obstacles.

For lawmakers opposed to the war, the reconciliation process could become the next major congressional battleground. While recent War Powers votes have focused on the President’s authority to continue military operations without congressional authorization, the upcoming funding debate will test whether Congress is willing to continue financing those operations through the appropriations process. The Senate is not necessarily sold on the reconciliation strategy, though ultimately it may follow the House’s lead and begin its own work on a matching package.

The House Passes Another War Powers Resolution, and the Senate Falls Short

Last week, the House once again moved to assert Congress’s constitutional authority over decisions of war and peace, narrowly passing a War Powers Resolution offered by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) directing the administration to end unauthorized U.S. military action against Iran. The 214-208 vote marked the second time in recent weeks that the House has approved a measure seeking to halt the war, with four Republicans voting in favor.

Despite the House’s successful vote, the Senate narrowly rejected its own War Powers Resolution, offered by Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), by a vote of 47-49. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) was the only Republican to support the measure. Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Rand Paul (R-KY), who had voted in favor of past war powers resolutions on Iran, were absent, while Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) voted against the resolution after voting in favor on several earlier votes.

The latest votes also come as questions remain unresolved regarding the legal force of H.Con.Res. 86, the bipartisan Iran War Powers Resolution led by Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) that passed both the House and Senate in June. Democrats have continued to argue that the administration is obligated to comply with the resolution and have signaled they are prepared to pursue legal action to clarify its enforceability should the administration continue military operations without congressional authorization. To that end, Rep. Meeks has introduced a resolution directing Speaker of the House Mike Johnson to initiate legal action on behalf of the House to enforce H.Con.Res. 86.

While neither last week’s House vote nor the failed Senate measure is expected to immediately alter U.S. military operations, the repeated votes have continued to increase political pressure on the administration and congressional leadership. The House, in particular, has now twice demonstrated bipartisan support for reasserting Congress’s war powers, with a small but consistent group of Republicans breaking with their party to support efforts to limit unauthorized military action. As the conflict continues, conversations are increasingly turning to Congress’s power of the purse – funding – as the next potential avenue for constraining further military escalation.

Hegseth Testifies in Congress for More Iran War Funding

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee last week to defend the administration’s request for $87.6 billion in additional Pentagon funding, much of which would support ongoing military operations in Iran. The hearing provided lawmakers - and the public - with an opportunity to press senior administration officials on the cost, strategy, and long-term objectives of the conflict.

Lawmakers from both parties questioned whether the administration has a clear plan for ending the war. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said lawmakers needed more information on “the strategy and endgame for the war” as well as the consequences of withholding additional military funding.

Other Republicans raised concerns over the conflict’s duration and consequences. Sen. Jim Justice (R-WV) warned there “has to be an off-ramp,” citing U.S. casualties and mounting civilian deaths in Iran.

Democrats also challenged the administration’s request for additional funding without a clear end strategy. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) pressed Hegseth on the cost of the war, which the Defense Secretary estimated at approximately $37.5 billion to date. Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) criticized the administration’s lack of a long-term plan, while Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) raised concerns over continued strikes on civilian infrastructure, including desalination plants. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) criticized the administration’s priorities, arguing that Congress was being asked for “unlimited money for bombs” while Americans struggle with rising costs at home.

The hearing underscored the growing questions over the cost, strategy, and endgame of the conflict. While the House has taken the first step toward advancing additional war funding through the reconciliation process, the future of the package remains uncertain in a Senate context, where lawmakers from both parties are expected to continue pressing the administration for answers on the path forward while also continuing to criticize U.S. conduct throughout the war.

NDAA Advances in the House After Stalling in the Senate

Congress took sharply different approaches to the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) over the past two weeks, underscoring how the Iran war has become a defining issue in this year’s defense authorization process.

Senate Democrats blocked advancement of the fiscal year 2027 defense bill earlier this month with a 50-46 vote along party lines.Republicans ultimately fell short of the 60 votes needed to bring the $1.14 trillion defense authorization bill to the Senate floor. NIAC Action was among 14 groups including the ACLU, Center for International Policy, J Street and Win Without War urging lawmakers to reject any defense authorization or appropriation amid the Iran war, which came out ahead of the vote.

Democrats argued that Congress should not move forward with the NDAA while the United States remains engaged in an unauthorized war with Iran. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) characterized the bill as effectively giving the administration permission to continue military operations without congressional oversight.

Several Democratic Senators also objected to a provision that would enhance U.S.-Israel defense cooperation, including joint weapons research, production, and military technology integration. Senators including Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and Peter Welch (D-VT) urged their colleagues not to advance the NDAA until these issues could be debated and amendments considered.

Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said both the war and unresolved budget issues influenced his opposition to advancing the bill, while Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) called for restrictions preventing funds authorized through the NDAA from being used for the Iran war. Sen. Angus King (I-ME) similarly argued that Congress should have a broader debate about the war, its costs, and the administration’s strategy before moving forward.

Republicans criticized the move, arguing that delaying the NDAA risks holding up funding for service members, military readiness, and other defense priorities.

By contrast, the House moved forward with its own version of the NDAA last week, passing a $1.15 trillion defense authorization package by a vote of 216-212 before departing for August recess. The House bill includes military pay increases, investments in defense modernization, and other priorities backed by House Republicans, but advanced largely along party lines as Democrats objected to the administration’s ongoing war with Iran, the bill’s overall cost, and the inclusion of other controversial provisions, including voting-related measures and expanded U.S.-Israel defense cooperation. Six House Democrats, Representatives Henry Cuellar (D-TX), Don Davis (D-NC), Jared Golden (D-ME), Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX), Adam Gray (D-CA) and Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez (D-WA), joined Republicans in advancing the legislation.

This is particularly damaging as it increases the likelihood that Congress will advance the NDAA even amid the Iran war, reducing leverage to end the war. Lawmakers may now try to find a way around Senate opposition to advance the bill.

As the two chambers consider the path forward, the NDAA will remain another key forum for debate over Iran war funding, defense priorities, and Congress’s role in overseeing U.S. military operations.

The pause itself is real but fragile, and both sides are careful not to call it peace. After thirteen consecutive nights of American strikes and Iranian retaliation, the United States halted its bombing late Friday at the request of mediators, and Iran’s military confirmed it had stopped its own operations in kind, describing its posture throughout this phase as “retaliatory.” U.S. officials framed the halt as space for diplomacy; the American ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, said President Trump had given negotiations “a little room.” Reporting in Axios indicated that the commander of U.S. Central Command, Admiral Brad Cooper, had advised the Pentagon and the White House that the campaign around the Strait of Hormuz had reached the limits of its effectiveness, with most designated targets already struck and no purpose in continuing short of a decision to escalate into major combat operations.

Behind that assessment lay a quieter concern about the cost of the war to the United States itself. American media, citing administration officials, reported that a dangerously depleted stock of Patriot interceptors and other air-defense munitions had weighed on the decision to pause — a worry brought into focus earlier in the month when three U.S. soldiers were killed at a base in Jordan after an Iranian ballistic missile penetrated American defenses. Those deaths, on July 17 and 18, were the first American fatalities since the fighting resumed, and the episode fed a broader anxiety in Washington that a wider war could drain interceptor stocks to dangerous levels while pushing the Gulf Arab states further from the United States.

Iran, for its part, has sought to deny Washington the ability to define the tempo of war and peace. Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei declined to describe the current moment as a ceasefire, saying only that the atmosphere had grown “calmer” and crediting the restraint to Iran’s own armed forces rather than to any American concession. Tehran also insists that the Strait of Hormuz remains closed: only a handful of commercial vessels — by some tracking data as few as three to eight a day — crossed the strait over the weekend, a fraction of normal traffic. Two days of talks with Omani envoys in Tehran were described as “useful” but produced no change to the strait’s status. This is the leverage stalemate of recent weeks frozen in place, with each side wagering that time improves its bargaining position.

Beneath the quiet, mediators are moving, and the sequence Iran wants reveals its priorities. Turkey’s Anadolu agency, citing Pakistani officials, reported that Iran and the United States had both responded to a joint Islamabad-Doha proposal whose “first step” would return the two sides to the positions they held before fighting resumed seventeen days earlier. Al Arabiya, citing a source, reported that Iran had signaled to Pakistan its readiness to resume talks in Geneva, Doha or Islamabad — but on its own terms, and in a specific order: the Strait of Hormuz first, then frozen Iranian assets, and only last the nuclear file. Iran, according to the same account, has rejected any new corridor arrangement in the strait. Whether that sequence is acceptable to Washington is the hinge on which the whole pause turns.

While the center held its breath, the Red Sea front escalated sharply past where it stood only days ago. The Houthi movement, having declared a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia, claimed missile and drone strikes on Saudi Aramco facilities at Jizan and Yanbu on the Red Sea coast — the group’s first attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure since 2022. According to Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree, the strikes were launched in retaliation for Saudi airstrikes on the Yemeni port of Hodeidah. A fire at the Jizan refinery was confirmed by AFP-verified footage and by NASA satellite fire-detection data. Then, on July 27, drones struck the vast Abqaiq processing complex in Saudi Arabia’s east — the largest crude-stabilization plant in the world — along with the East-West pipeline’s pumping station, with satellite imagery confirming extensive fires. That strike, unlike the Red Sea attacks, was not claimed by the Houthis; Saudi Arabia reportedly attributed it to Iran-backed militias in Iraq. The pattern shows the war’s authorship deliberately blurred: Iran’s allies strike from multiple directions, while Iran itself claims nothing.

The significance of the Red Sea strikes lies in the geography they threaten. Yanbu is the western terminus of Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline, which runs from the Abqaiq complex across the kingdom to the Red Sea — the very route designed to let Saudi crude bypass a blocked Strait of Hormuz. By tracking data, Yanbu handled the overwhelming majority of Saudi seaborne crude exports in June. Traffic through the Bab el-Mandeb, the strait at the southern mouth of the Red Sea, fell to roughly eleven vessels in a day, among the lowest levels in months. With both the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea outlets now under threat, the principal alternative to the Strait of Hormuz has become nearly as unreliable as the strait itself.

The genuinely new theater, and the one the could have the widest implications, is the Caspian Sea. On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that his forces had carried out long-range strikes on Russian vessels on the Caspian Sea that were allegedly used to move military cargo from Iran, along with a Russian warship and the Filanovsky oil platform operated by Lukoil. Iran told a very different story. Tehran said one of the vessels struck was a civilian Iranian commercial ship, and that the attack killed one sailor and wounded another. Iran’s ambassador to Moscow, Kazem Jalali, identified the vessel as the Anna and said it was “entirely non-military,” carrying no weapons, and had been struck while anchored near the mouth of the Volga in what he described as Russian territorial waters. The deceased sailor was identified by numerous outlets as Nima Moradi. Ukraine’s security service said the ships it hit were moving military cargo while evading international sanctions. The competing claims about the vessel’s cargo, nationality and the circumstances of the strike have not been independently verified.

The diplomatic reaction was immediate and unusually personal, signaling how seriously Tehran regards the precedent. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called Zelensky a “freeloader,” warned that the attack “will not go unanswered,” and said he had raised it in separate calls with the European Union’s Kaja Kallas and Russia’s Sergei Lavrov; Iran also summoned Ukraine’s chargé d’affaires in Tehran. Araghchi framed the strike as an Israeli-instigated attempt to drag Europe into the war, likening it to the recklessness of actors “on the eve of the First World War.” Lavrov offered condolences for the dead sailor. Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, answered that Tehran is a direct accomplice in Russia’s aggression, fueling Moscow’s war with the same weapons that have killed Ukrainians since 2022.

It is unclear what retaliatory options Iran could have. For the first time, a fourth party has opened a front against Iran — and it is one Tehran is poorly positioned to answer. Iran’s instruments of retaliation are largely regional: closing the Strait of Hormuz, striking Gulf bases, activating allied militias, threatening shipping in waters it can reach. None of that touches Ukraine, which shares no border, no sea lane, and no exposed infrastructure with Iran. The usual Iranian threat — that any attack “will not go unanswered” — runs into hard geographic facts, and the warnings from Araghchi and the parliament’s Ebrahim Azizi that the strike “cannot remain without a response” read less as a credible deterrent than as an admission of the problem.

The asymmetry runs deeper than geography. Ukraine is already fighting for its survival against Russia; it has absorbed years of Iranian-designed Shahed drones launched at its cities, and it has little left to lose in a relationship with Tehran that Iran could credibly take away. There is no major trade to sever, no diplomacy to rupture, no deterrent Iran holds over Kyiv. If anything, the antagonism already runs in the other direction: during the recent war Ukraine offered its drone-interception expertise to the Gulf and other Middle Eastern states under Iranian fire, positioning itself as a working adversary of Tehran well before the Caspian strike. Ukraine is meanwhile among the most combat-experienced drone and long-range-strike forces in the world, well equipped to keep harassing the Iran-Russia supply corridor across the Caspian whenever it chooses — as its foreign ministry all but promised, calling such shipments legitimate targets and signaling more strikes to come. That combination — a capable adversary with nothing to lose, striking a target Iran might be hard pressed to reach — is precisely what makes this front hard to contain.

Unable to strike Ukraine directly, Iran may look for leverage through Ukraine’s Western backers. Tehran has already declared British bases legitimate targets over London’s role in the U.S. campaign — after an American B-1 bomber flew from RAF Fairford, the Revolutionary Guard warned that any base used against Iran would be a “definite and legitimate” target, and the Foreign Ministry called Britain a “partner in the crime.” Britain is also one of Kyiv’s most prominent supporters; its new prime minister, Andy Burnham, hosted Zelensky at a British naval base in the same days. The logic of pressuring Ukraine indirectly — raising the cost for the allies who arm and shelter it, rather than attempting the retaliation against Kyiv that Iran cannot easily mount — points toward exactly this kind of displacement. It would also be characteristic: denied a target it can reach, Iran has historically pressed on the ones it can.

The strike risks widening the war along its most combustible seam: the point where Iran’s conflict meets Russia’s. By hitting a vessel on the Iran-to-Russia arms route, Ukraine could fuse the two wars at their supply line, turning Iran’s northern lifeline to Moscow into a theater of the Ukraine war. Kyiv sharpened the linkage further by announcing it would share intelligence with partners about Russian satellite surveillance of Gulf states and U.S. bases that, it alleged, was feeding Iranian targeting. Stepping back, the pattern across all the fronts points to a single, troubling dynamic: the war is acquiring a life beyond its two principals. Saudi Arabia and the Houthis are now trading blows directly for the first time in years, straining a truce that had been held since 2022. Bahrain and Kuwait, according to the Wall Street Journal, carried out their own first direct strikes inside Iran earlier this month, with Emirati intelligence and air cover. Ukraine has opened a northern front of its own. Each of these actors has its own logic and its own grievances, none of them fully controlled from Washington or Tehran. That is the deeper problem the pause exposes: even if the United States and Iran return to the table and hold, the conflict they set in motion now has independent participants who may not stop when they do.

The costs are landing on ordinary people, rather than on the officials escalating the war. Now, mediators must work overtime to see if they can get the U.S. and Iran back to the “first step,” and make it hold long enough to matter. Working against it are a reported American military buildup in the region, the pressure of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s visit to Washington — where he has said Iran tops the agenda and pressed for an end to its nuclear program “with or without a deal” — and Trump’s own warning that if talks fail he is prepared to resume “very severe” military action. Working for it are exhaustion, depleted munitions, rising economic costs on all sides, and a shared sense that airpower has reached its limits. The war that began around a single strait now has at least three fuses — the Red Sea, the Caspian, and the Gulf bases — and whether the next phase is negotiation or a far wider war will depend not only on what Washington and Tehran decide, but on whether the actors they have drawn in are willing to stand down with them.

On July 22, Iran’s Judiciary announced the execution of Mehdi Khanaki, who was arrested for charges related to his activity in the January protests. According to the Judiciary’s news agency, Mizan, Khanki was convicted of “operational actions” on behalf of Israel, the United States, and hostile groups, as well as manufacturing and possessing weapons, explosives, and ammunition. Officials also announced the confiscation of all of his property.

According to the Judiciary, Khanki’s death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court before being carried out. However, authorities disclosed few details regarding the judicial proceedings, including the identity of the trial court judges, the substance of his legal defense, or the arguments presented by his attorney. The official report also did not identify the opposition group that Khanki was accused of joining.

Khanki is among the first known protesters to be executed under Iran’s new “Law on Intensifying Punishment for Espionage and Cooperation with the Zionist Regime and Hostile States.” The legislation was initially approved by Parliament shortly before the end of the twelve-day war with Israel and later became law after review by the Guardian Council. Under the statute, a broad range of activities described as espionage, intelligence cooperation, or “operational action” on behalf of hostile governments or organizations may be punished by execution and confiscation of assets.

The legislation drew criticism from numerous Iranian legal scholars, lawyers, and civil society figures, who argued that its broad definitions could undermine constitutional protections and fair trial guarantees while expanding the use of capital punishment in political and national security cases. Khanki’s execution follows a broader surge in executions carried out after the recent conflict between Iran, Israel, and the United States. Human rights organizations report that Iranian authorities have increasingly pursued death sentences against individuals accused of espionage, collaboration with foreign governments, and participation in the January protests.

During the past week alone, Mohammad Amini Dehaghani, Mohieddin Abdollahi, and Hossein Palani were also executed after being convicted in national security-related cases. In separate proceedings, Gol-Mohammad Mohammadi and Erfan Esfandiari, two detainees connected to the Alikhani Square case in Isfahan, were executed following convictions stemming from the January unrest.

Meanwhile, Iran Human Rights has reported that Mojtaba Dehbandi and Kianoush Hamzehei Kazerouni have also been sentenced to death over allegations linked to the Dey uprising, while UN-appointed independent human rights experts have urged Iran to immediately halt the executions of ten additional men arrested in connection with the Alikhani Square case. According to the experts, several families have reportedly been summoned for final visits, raising concerns that further executions may be imminent.

International human rights bodies have expressed growing concern over both the pace of the executions and the fairness of the judicial process. They have questioned whether defendants received meaningful access to legal counsel and due process, particularly in politically sensitive national security cases. UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran Mai Sato has warned that the death penalty is increasingly being used as a tool to spread fear and suppress dissent, noting that executions have risen to unusually high levels over the past year and have accelerated further since the recent regional conflict.

At the same time, Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei has repeatedly instructed prosecutors to process cases involving wartime detainees and participants in the January protests rapidly and without leniency, reinforcing the government’s determination to conclude these cases swiftly and harshly.

The convergence of the new espionage law, expedited judicial procedures, and the growing number of executions suggests that Iran has entered a new phase of post-conflict repression in which national security legislation is being used more extensively against individuals accused of involvement in political unrest.

The scale of the maritime disruption is striking. Ship-tracking data showed that only three vessels per day passed through the Strait of Hormuz between July 22 and July 24, a tiny fraction of the normal volume through the world’s most important oil and gas corridor. Although this does not amount to complete physical closure, it gives Iran what can reasonably be described as effective coercive control over the waterway: Tehran does not need to stop every vessel if the threat of missiles, drones, mines, seizures, and rising insurance costs persuades most shipowners to abstain from transit.

Iran does not legally control the Strait of Hormuz, nor has it established an uncontested naval occupation of the channel. Yet it has demonstrated the capacity to determine, through the selective application of force and risk, whether the strait functions as an ordinary commercial route or not. The United States resumed its blockade of Iran-related shipping in part to weaken Tehran’s economy and break this position. Instead, renewed fighting has again largely halted commercial traffic and with new disruptions to traffic in the Red Sea, physical crude prices have risen sharply and some grades have approached $110 per barrel. Brent crude surpassed $105 on July 24 as traders struggled to replace disrupted Middle Eastern supplies.

Iran has simultaneously sought to transform pressure on its own exports into a wider counter-blockade against the Gulf states supporting the American campaign. Bahrain and Kuwait have borne much of the retaliation as both have provided important military facilities, logistics, air defenses and staging capacity to the United States. Iran has targeted American-linked military sites in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan, while Kuwait has also reported damage to power-generation facilities connected to freshwater production.

This is not simply retaliation for individual U.S. strikes. The pattern suggests that Tehran is trying to increase the cost of hosting American forces and supporting operations against Iran. Bases, radar sites, air-defense systems, logistics centers, fuel facilities, troop accommodations, communications infrastructure, and dual-use installations across the region are being placed under continuing pressure. Iran appears to be trying to reduce the geographic freedom from which Washington can conduct the war.

After concentrating much of its earlier retaliation on Bahrain and Kuwait, Iran has increasingly focused on American positions in Jordan. The shift is strategically significant. Jordan provides the United States with access to an area connecting the Persian Gulf, Iraq, Syria and Israel. Sustained attacks there have resulted in casualties and appear to be aimed at dispersing America’s regional presence, forcing it to consolidate personnel and materiel in fewer and more heavily defended locations - like Israel - or those further from Iran.

Iran has not driven the United States out of the region, but it may have achieved partial success in limiting the operational flexibility that America’s regional basing network was designed to provide. Every threatened base has either been largely abandoned or now requires additional interceptors, protection systems, medical support, personnel dispersal, hardened shelters and contingency planning. Even unsuccessful attacks impose costs by compelling the United States to expend expensive defensive missiles and divert assets from offensive operations.

This pressure also changes how the effectiveness of Iranian missile and drone attacks should be assessed. The debate is no longer whether Iranian weapons are reaching important areas, but how much military and economic damage they are causing. Iranian claims regarding individual aircraft, intelligence sites, radar systems, and command facilities still require careful verification, but the broader effectiveness of the campaign can no longer be dismissed simply as an unverified Iranian narrative.

American acknowledgments of casualties, damage, rising operational costs, and the need for additional personnel demonstrate that the strikes are producing consequences. Reports that U.S. officials are considering whether outside assistance - including possible Russian and Chinese intelligence, targeting support, or technology - may have contributed to Iran’s improving performance further illustrate how unexpected some of the attacks have appeared in Washington.

What can be said with greater confidence is that Iran’s missiles and drones appear to be imposing more serious costs than many U.S. planners expected, and perhaps operating more effectively than during the earlier phase of the conflict. Iran may be combining lessons from previous exchanges, improved targeting, new tactics, dispersed launch systems, and a greater willingness to strike the logistical architecture behind American operations rather than focusing only on heavily-defended flagship bases.

The United States, for its part, has responded with an increasingly sustained campaign inside Iran. By July 23, the U.S. military had completed twelve consecutive nights of strikes against command centers, missile and drone storage facilities, coastal surveillance positions, maritime capabilities, air defenses and launch sites. Washington has also attacked or threatened infrastructure whose military and civilian functions overlap, including bridges, energy systems, coastal installations, and facilities connected to Iran’s ability to sustain operations around Hormuz.

The attacks on bridges illustrate both the power and limitations of this approach. Destroying transportation links can slow military movement, disrupt supply chains, increase domestic costs and signal that the United States is prepared to widen its target list. But many Iranian bridges cross seasonal or dry riverbeds and can be bypassed through temporary roads, engineering work, or alternative routes. Unless conducted as part of a sustained campaign against transportation, electricity, fuel, communications, and repair capacity, isolated bridge attacks are unlikely to paralyze Iran.

Strikes targeting infrastructure that is primarily used by civilians are also war crimes. Those that impact reservoirs, water networks, desalination facilities or electricity plants are particularly consequential. They can impose immediate pressure on civilians and create significant humanitarian costs, particularly in southern Iran. Yet such attacks may not produce the political result Washington seeks. Infrastructure destruction can weaken state capacity while simultaneously strengthening nationalist sentiment and making compromise appear equivalent to capitulation. Economic pain does not automatically translate into political surrender.

Meanwhile, the Houthis have announced a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia and attacked Saudi-linked oil tankers, making both the Straits of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb unsafe simultaneously for certain ships. The southern Red Sea is particularly important because Saudi Arabia has relied on its east-west pipeline and Red Sea ports to bypass disruptions in the Persian Gulf. If both chokepoints are threatened, one of the principal alternatives to the Strait of Hormuz becomes far less reliable.

The economic effects are already visible. War-risk insurance premiums for some southern Red Sea routes have increased from roughly 0.3 percent to more than 1 percent of a vessel’s value, with some quotations reaching 3 percent. Some tankers have rerouted through the Suez Canal and around the Cape of Good Hope, adding approximately one month to voyages and millions of dollars in additional operating costs.

This two-chokepoint strategy creates a difficult problem for Washington. Military superiority alone cannot reopen maritime trade. The United States must also convince insurers, tanker operators, crews, exporters and importers that shipping will remain safe after the next missile launch, drone attack, mine incident, or tanker seizure. Destroying launch sites does not automatically restore commercial confidence, particularly when Iran can disperse its weapons and the Houthis can generate an independent threat environment.

That helps explain the growing debate over broader American escalation. President Donald Trump has threatened to expand the target list to include energy facilities and additional bridges, seize Kharg Island and strike the deeply buried nuclear-related facility known as Pickaxe Mountain (Kuh-e Kolang). The movement of additional troops, aircraft, medical personnel and logistical units may therefore represent preparations for a longer air campaign, enhanced force protection, mounting casualties, or even a limited ground operation.

The reduction of diplomatic personnel by Britain and several European governments similarly reflects expectations that the conflict could intensify. Possible scenarios include special operations, an attempt to seize and hold an island or coastal position or operations targeting infrastructure connected to Hormuz. Any attack on Kuh-e Kolang would carry considerable uncertainty. A deeply-buried facility may require repeated use of specialized munitions, and even extensive physical destruction would not eliminate Iran’s scientific expertise, dispersed equipment or long-term rebuilding capacity. Several analysts have argued that such an attack could strengthen the argument inside Iran for eventually acquiring a nuclear deterrent rather than eliminating that possibility.

Iranian figures, including Mehdi Mohammadi, have explicitly advanced this argument: that attacks intended to eliminate the nuclear program could instead accelerate a political decision to reconstruct it under more secretive and militarized conditions. Whether Iran currently intends to build a nuclear weapon remains uncertain, but the strategic risk is clear: destroying physical infrastructure could strengthen the internal case for pursuing a future deterrent.

The United States therefore faces a difficult strategic choice. Its campaign has damaged Iran’s military, naval, energy and nuclear infrastructure, but it has not removed Iran’s leverage over Hormuz, halted attacks on regional bases or prevented the conflict from expanding into the Red Sea. A significantly larger campaign might reduce Iran’s retaliatory capacity, but it also may fail to do so while exacerbating the global energy crisis, increasing American casualties, exposing Gulf partners to greater retaliation and making disengagement even more difficult.

Iran faces difficult calculations as well. Its chokepoint strategy has demonstrated that the United States cannot wage war without imposing substantial military and economic costs on the region and global markets. Yet prolonged disruption also damages Iran’s own economy, threatens export revenues, consumes military inventories and increases the risk of devastating attacks on critical infrastructure and civilian population centers.

Ultimately, Iran wants to demonstrate that it cannot be bombed, blockaded, or stripped of its missile and nuclear capabilities without imposing unacceptable costs. The United States, in the thick of a war in which it did not expect extensive pushback, appears to be searching for an endstate that it can more reasonably claim as a win. Yet many of the goals it has pursued are extraordinarily difficult to achieve by military means alone.

Washington’s immediate objective has been to deprive Tehran of its Strait of Hormuz leverage. It has not yet achieved that goal. Commercial shipping remains severely restricted, energy prices continue to rise and insecurity has spread beyond the Persian Gulf into the Red Sea. Iran, meanwhile, has preserved much of its retaliatory capability and increased pressure on the American regional military network, though at considerable cost and while remaining vulnerable to a much larger American campaign.

President Trump appears to have concluded that only a dramatically expanded offensive can alter this balance. Such an escalation could include broader attacks on Iran’s electricity, transportation, water, energy, and communications infrastructure, renewed strikes against deeply buried nuclear facilities or attempts to seize strategically important territory such as Kharg Island. The United States would be betting that overwhelming pressure can compel Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and agree to other far-reaching American terms.

The alternative is that both governments conclude the risks of further escalation now outweigh the benefits. Each side may believe it has accumulated sufficient leverage to return to negotiations without appearing to surrender: Iran through its continued influence over Hormuz, the Red Sea, and regional bases; and the United States through the damage it has inflicted and the credible threat of much broader escalation. Whether the next phase is diplomacy or a far more destructive war will depend on which side believes time is improving its bargaining position, and whether either side fatally miscalculates the other’s willingness to escalate.

Born in 1931 in Bampur, in Iran’s southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchistan, Espandar first learned to play the reed flute from his father. As a young man, he traveled to what is now Pakistan, where he encountered the doneli. Without formal instruction, he mastered the instrument simply by observing experienced musicians, revealing an exceptional musical ear and unwavering determination. After spending roughly fifteen years abroad, he returned to Iran in 1958 and dedicated the rest of his life to preserving and promoting the musical traditions of Baluchistan.

The doneli is among the most technically demanding instruments in Iranian folk music. Consisting of two flutes played simultaneously, it requires extraordinary breath control, coordination, and the ability to sustain two melodic lines at once through circular breathing. Espandar elevated this challenging instrument into a refined artistic medium, captivating audiences with performances that combined technical brilliance, emotional depth, and profound respect for Baluchi musical traditions.

Before Espandar gained national recognition, the doneli remained largely unknown outside Baluchistan. Through decades of performances at cultural festivals and international events, he introduced audiences across Iran and beyond to the beauty of Baluchi music. In doing so, he became one of the country’s most important cultural ambassadors, demonstrating that regional traditions are an essential part of Iran’s national identity and deserve recognition on the global stage.

His contribution extended beyond performance. Espandar was also a skilled craftsman who built many of the instruments he played, preserving not only the music but also the traditional knowledge required to create the doneli. His recordings—particularly the album Music of Baluchistan: Shir-Mohammad Espandar, released by the Mahoor Institute—remain invaluable documents of one of Iran’s oldest living musical traditions and continue to inspire musicians and researchers alike.

Throughout his career, Espandar received numerous honors in recognition of his artistic achievements and cultural significance. His distinctive style of doneli performance was registered in 2017 as part of Iran’s intangible cultural heritage, acknowledging his central role in safeguarding this remarkable tradition. His first doneli and a sculpture commemorating his life are preserved in Tehran’s Museum of Anthropology, ensuring that future generations will remember both the artist and the heritage he dedicated his life to protecting.

In his later years, despite losing his eyesight to cataracts, Espandar remained deeply concerned about the future of the doneli. He devoted considerable effort to teaching younger musicians, yet often lamented that the instrument’s extraordinary technical demands made it difficult to find a successor capable of carrying his tradition forward. His passing therefore serves as both a moment of remembrance and a reminder of the urgent need to preserve Iran’s rich and diverse intangible cultural heritage.

At NIAC, we recognize that Iran’s greatest treasures are found not only in its historic monuments but also in the people who dedicate their lives to preserving its cultural traditions. Shir-Mohammad Espandar’s artistry transcended regional boundaries, reminding audiences around the world of the richness, diversity, and resilience of Iranian culture. His legacy belongs not only to the people of Baluchistan, but to all who believe that music has the power to preserve identity, foster understanding, and connect generations.

We extend our heartfelt condolences to Shir-Mohammad Espandar’s family, friends, students, and colleagues, and to the people of Baluchistan and all Iranians who cherished his music and his extraordinary artistic legacy. May his memory endure through every note of the doneli and through the generations of artists and listeners who continue to celebrate the cultural heritage he devoted his life to preserving.

During a live broadcast, Ferdosipour revealed that Football 360’s website had gone offline only minutes before the program was scheduled to begin, forcing the show to continue through YouTube, Instagram, and Telegram. He initially expressed hope that the outage was the result of a technical problem but later suggested that it reflected years of pressure against him and his independent media platform.

The timing immediately drew attention. The disruption occurred one day after the World Cup final and came on the heels of a highly public confrontation between Ferdosipour and Iran national team head coach Amir Ghalenoei over criticism of the team’s performances.

The dispute began after Ghalenoei sharply criticized journalists and commentators who had questioned Iran’s performance during the tournament. Without naming Ferdosipour directly, he accused some media figures of disappearing during the war and returning only to attack the national team. He also questioned why the authorities continued to provide such critics with public platforms, comments widely interpreted as an appeal for official action against independent sports commentators.

Ferdosipour strongly rejected the accusations, stating that he had remained in Tehran throughout the war, while noting that Ghalenoei himself had spent part of that period at his residence in Antalya, Turkey. Defending the role of independent journalism, Ferdosipour declared, “If they expected me to say the national team played wonderfully regardless of reality, I am not that kind of person.”

While Ferdosipour linked the disruption to criticism of the national team, another explanation has emerged from Iranian media. According to Asr-e Iran, the disruption may have stemmed from a series of complaints filed by Iran’s state broadcaster (IRIB) against Adel Ferdosipour and Football 360. The report alleges that government authorities and regulatory bodies deliberately postponed intervention until after the World Cup had concluded to avoid controversy during the tournament.

According to the same report, Ferdosipour’s live interview with internationally renowned Iranian referee Alireza Faghani further intensified pressure from IRIB, ultimately leading to action against the platform the day after the World Cup final. Faghani - a referee in key matches in the World Cup - has been a target of criticism by state media after Faghani was photographed with and shook the hand of U.S. President Donald Trump after officiating a match in the United States in 2025. Yet, the possible connection to the Faghani interview could not be independently confirmed, and neither IRIB nor Iranian judicial or regulatory authorities have publicly commented on the reports. No official explanation has been provided for the disruption.

For Ferdosipour, however, the incident represented the latest chapter in a much longer history of pressure. Visibly emotional during the broadcast, he said it was the first time in his broadcasting career that he had struggled to hold back tears. Ferdosipour reflected on his earlier removal from Iranian state television in 2018 despite the immense popularity of his iconic football program Navad (90), saying that after being dismissed he had been reduced to “absolute zero.”

Rather than leaving journalism, he rebuilt his career from scratch. Football 360, launched in 2022, quickly became one of Iran’s largest independent football media platforms, covering men’s and women’s football through articles, podcasts, interviews, mobile applications and live online broadcasts. Its success provided Ferdosipour with an independent audience after years away from state television.

He argued that the platform’s growth had been accompanied by continuous efforts to undermine its work. According to Ferdosipour, guests were regularly contacted by unidentified callers and warned not to appear on Football 360, while Iran’s Football Federation prohibited members of the Referees Committee from giving interviews to the program. He also alleged that authorities had spent years scrutinizing every aspect of his finances, professional activities and private life in an effort to find material that could be used against him.

Declaring that he would not compromise his principles, Ferdosipour said, “I was never a yes-man. I am not one, and I never will be. When I see something wrong, I will say it, whatever the consequences.” One of the most striking moments of the broadcast came when he questioned why such extensive pressure was being directed at a single independent sports platform. “You have all the media. You have all the resources. You control the national team. You have everything. Can you really not tolerate one website and one application?” he asked.

The precise nature and cause of the disruption remain unclear. Reports indicated that Football 360’s website became inaccessible shortly before the live broadcast, while its Android application was reportedly removed from Café Bazaar, one of Iran’s largest Android application marketplaces. Iranian authorities have provided no official explanation for the disruption, and it remains unclear whether it resulted from legal action, regulatory intervention, technical factors, or a combination of these. The absence of any official statement has only intensified speculation about the role of government regulators, judicial authorities and state media institutions.

The controversy underscores how sports journalism in Iran has increasingly become intertwined with politics and freedom of expression. Football remains one of the country’s most influential public arenas, and criticism of the national team has increasingly become entangled with broader debates over patriotism, political loyalty and the boundaries of permissible public criticism.

Whether the disruption was triggered by criticism of the national team, long-running complaints from Iran’s state broadcaster, the interview with Alireza Faghani, or a combination of these factors, the sequence of events has heightened concerns that one of Iran’s most influential independent media platforms was subjected to political pressure because of its editorial independence. In the absence of an official explanation, the incident stands as another example of the uncertain environment facing independent journalists and digital media outlets operating outside Iran’s state-controlled broadcasting system.

The letter is the latest installment in an ongoing exchange between Madani and Bayat that began in May 2024 after Bayat responded to an interview Madani gave from prison about Iran following the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement. Since then, the two scholars have exchanged several lengthy letters debating Iran’s protest movements, democratic transition, revolution, civil society, and the role of violence in political change. Madani’s newest response focuses extensively on the future of Iran’s opposition and the risks he associates with monarchist strategies and reliance on foreign powers.

Madani, a sociologist and longtime researcher on poverty, inequality, social movements, and civil society, argues that Iran’s democratic future cannot be built either through the continuation of the Islamic Republic or through foreign-backed regime change. Instead, he advocates what he calls a nonviolent democratic transition based on organized civil society, sustained domestic pressure, negotiations, a referendum, and a constituent assembly.

A central part of Madani’s argument is his distinction between two phases of the January protests. He argues that the demonstrations before January 8 were fundamentally different from those that followed Reza Pahlavi’s public call for nationwide mobilization on January 8 and 9.

According to Madani, the protests that began in early January emerged organically from Iran’s worsening economic and social conditions. He writes that demonstrations initially spread from Tehran’s commercial districts, including the Alaeddin market, where currency depreciation, inflation, economic instability, and declining purchasing power had placed enormous pressure on merchants, shop employees, delivery workers, informal laborers, and members of Iran’s shrinking middle class.

Madani argues that these early demonstrations were not organized by monarchists or any single opposition leader abroad. Rather, they reflected accumulated public frustration over inflation, corruption, unemployment, inequality, political repression, and the absence of economic prospects. Similar to previous nationwide protests, including those of 2017, 2019, and the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement, the demonstrations combined economic grievances with broader political demands and spread through decentralized social networks rather than centralized leadership.

Madani argues that Reza Pahlavi’s attempts on January 8-9 to direct the protest movement via calls for mobilization and action fundamentally altered the political atmosphere surrounding the protests. Rather than remaining a decentralized social movement, the demonstrations increasingly became associated with a final confrontation aimed at immediate regime change under a specific political alternative.

Madani emphasizes that the the Islamic Republic bears direct responsibility for the deaths and repression that followed, arguing that the government likely would have suppressed the protests violently regardless of Reza Pahlavi’s intervention.

Still, Madani sharply criticizes Pahlavi’s call as “irresponsible” and “opportunistic,” arguing that people were encouraged to confront one of the region’s most heavily armed security apparatuses without organized domestic leadership, protective structures, or any realistic mechanism to reduce the risks facing protesters. His criticism is not directed at encouraging protest itself. Instead, he argues that political leaders who call on citizens to risk their lives have an ethical responsibility to accurately assess the risks, avoid unrealistic promises, and accept responsibility for the consequences of their appeals.

One of Madani’s strongest criticisms concerns what he describes as the expectation that foreign assistance would arrive if demonstrations intensified. According to him, many opposition media outlets and activists created the impression that if protesters remained in the streets long enough, the United States or Israel would intervene militarily, weaken the Islamic Republic, and pave the way for Reza Pahlavi’s return to power.

Madani argues that those making such claims had no authority to guarantee foreign intervention, yet many protesters came to believe that regime collapse was imminent. Drawing on conversations with detainees following the protests, Madani writes that many had embraced three central assumptions: that pre-revolutionary Iran had been a period of comprehensive prosperity and freedom; that the monarchy represented the only viable alternative to the Islamic Republic; and that Donald Trump would ultimately help install Reza Pahlavi in Tehran after the government’s rapid collapse. Madani notes that some detainees even referred to Trump as “Uncle Trump,” which he interprets as evidence that parts of the opposition had come to view the United States not as a foreign state pursuing its own strategic interests, but as a benevolent actor committed to liberating Iran.

He rejects all three assumptions as historically inaccurate and politically misleading. In his view, pre-1979 Iran should neither be portrayed as an ideal democracy nor reduced to a simple narrative of prosperity. Likewise, he argues that Iran’s future should not be presented as a binary choice between the Islamic Republic and the restoration of the monarchy.

Madani devotes considerable attention to what he calls the monarchist reconstruction of history. He argues that parts of the opposition have created an idealized and selective image of the Pahlavi era, emphasizing stability and economic development while minimizing political repression, inequality, corruption, and the absence of democratic institutions.

According to Madani, distorting history for political purposes undermines democratic legitimacy. A political movement that relies on selective historical narratives, he argues, cannot simply assume that it will respect democratic principles once in power.

His criticism extends beyond evaluations of Mohammad Reza Shah himself. Instead, Madani questions the principle of hereditary political legitimacy, arguing that political authority in a democratic society must derive exclusively from the free choice of citizens, rather than family lineage, historical nostalgia, or foreign sponsorship. Madani also criticizes the revival of symbols such as the Imperial Guard (”Javidan Guard”), arguing that such symbolism allowed the government to portray a broad social protest movement as an organized attempt to restore the monarchy.

Madani stresses that none of these criticisms diminish the Islamic Republic’s responsibility for the violence. Regardless of the political orientation of protesters or opposition groups, the government remains fully responsible for the killings, arrests, and repression.

His second major criticism concerns calls for American and Israeli military intervention. Madani argues that parts of the monarchist opposition have increasingly linked regime change to foreign military action rather than domestic political mobilization. In this framework, Iranian society no longer serves as the principal engine of change; instead, foreign governments are expected to weaken or overthrow the Islamic Republic through military force before transferring power to a preferred political alternative.

He rejects this strategy on both political and ethical grounds. Politically, Madani argues that it wrongly assumes Iran’s domestic protest movements have failed simply because they have not yet overthrown the government. He maintains that social movements should not be judged solely by immediate regime change. Even when governments survive, movements can fundamentally reshape public attitudes, political culture, gender relations, and the boundaries of acceptable state authority. He cites the lasting social transformations following the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement as evidence that profound change can occur without immediate governmental collapse.

Ethically, Madani questions how human rights advocates can support military attacks that would inevitably endanger civilians, conscript soldiers, hospital workers, and other individuals who may have no role in government decision-making. He argues that support for bombing military or government facilities cannot ignore the human costs involved.

Madani also challenges the assumption that the United States or Israel would prioritize Iran’s democratic future over their own strategic interests. Foreign governments, he argues, pursue national security and geopolitical objectives, not democratic transformation in other countries.

Even if military intervention succeeded in weakening or toppling the Islamic Republic, Madani warns that there is no guarantee such an outcome would produce democracy. Instead, it could result in institutional collapse, civil conflict, territorial fragmentation, or prolonged instability similar to experiences elsewhere in the region.

He therefore argues that welcoming foreign military attacks in the name of Iranian nationalism presents a fundamental contradiction. In his view, one cannot simultaneously claim to defend Iran while encouraging military strikes against Iranian territory and infrastructure.

Madani similarly cautions against viewing uncontrolled state collapse as a desirable outcome. Without functioning institutions and a broadly negotiated political transition, he argues, the collapse of the state could produce civil war or fragmentation rather than democracy.

As an alternative, Madani advocates a negotiated, nonviolent democratic transition rooted in Iranian civil society. He argues that labor organizations, students, women, teachers, retirees, professional associations, and other social groups remain the country’s primary agents of democratic change.

His vision closely resembles Bayat’s concept of a “negotiated revolution,” in which sustained civic mobilization ultimately creates the conditions for negotiations, a national referendum, and the election of a constituent assembly to determine Iran’s future political system. In this framework, no individual, dynasty, or foreign government has the authority to predetermine Iran’s political future. Whether Iran ultimately chooses a republic, constitutional monarchy, or another political system, Madani argues that such decisions must emerge through free public participation rather than hereditary claims or foreign military intervention.

Madani concludes that the protests before January 8 represented an authentic, internally generated social movement that did not originate with Reza Pahlavi’s call. While maintaining that the Islamic Republic bears full responsibility for the subsequent killings, he argues that the January 8-9 mobilization changed both the political framing and the risks facing protesters by promoting expectations of rapid regime collapse and possible American or Israeli intervention.

Ultimately, Madani argues that the path to power cannot be separated from the nature of the political system that follows. In his view, a democratic Iran cannot emerge through historical revisionism, hereditary political claims, or foreign military intervention, but only through a democratic process led by Iranian society itself.

Published under the title “We Do Not Want War,” the statement represents one of the broadest anti-war appeals to emerge from inside Iran since the conflict began. Unlike previous declarations that focused primarily on domestic political issues, this appeal directly condemns continued military escalation, rejects attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, and calls for an immediate return to diplomacy before the conflict expands beyond anyone’s ability to control.

The declaration begins by affirming that the Iranian people possess the fundamental right to live in peace, dignity, and security. It describes peace as both a universal human right and a divine blessing, arguing that genuine peace requires the complete cessation of war, military threats, incitement, hatred, and policies built upon perpetual confrontation.

The signatories argue that the overwhelming majority of Iranians seek peace rather than endless conflict and insist that no decision to continue the war should be imposed upon the country without regard to the wishes of its citizens. Addressing governments, military organizations, and international actors involved in the war, they warn that denying the Iranian people their right to peace would constitute a profound injustice.

“Despite all our differences, we raise the call of ‘No to War,’” the declaration states, inviting Iranians of every political orientation, religion, ethnicity, profession, and intellectual tradition to unite behind that message. It concludes with a verse from the Persian poet Saadi, expressing the timeless principle that even those strong enough to prevail in war should choose peace instead.

The breadth of the signatories gives the declaration exceptional political significance. Conservatives, reformists, independent intellectuals, economists, physicians, teachers, lawyers, environmental activists, Sunni religious leaders, former parliamentarians, and former senior government officials all appear on the list, reflecting a rare convergence across Iran’s deeply fragmented political landscape. Among those signing are Kak Hassan Amini, a Sunni activist; Faezeh Hashemi - former member of parliament and daughter of former President Rafsanjani; Maryam Kabiri — teachers’ labor rights activist; Zahra Karimi — Economist; Elaheh Koulaei —university professor and Former member of parliament; Parvaneh Salahshouri, former member of parliament; Valiollah Seif - former Central Bank Governor; Fatemeh Qeypour - Teachers’ labor rights activist; and dozens of prominent academics.

The timing of the declaration is especially important because it coincides with what appears to be a fundamental transformation in the character of the war itself. During the earlier forty-day conflict, military operations largely centered on missile bases, command facilities, and conventional military infrastructure. The latest escalation suggests that both sides are increasingly extending their campaigns beyond purely military objectives toward the infrastructure that sustains modern economies and civilian life.

The text of the joint statement is translated below:

To Our Fellow Iranians and to People Around the World

We, the undersigned, together with all citizens of Iran, have the fundamental right to live in peace and security, with dignity and honor. Peace is both a divine blessing and a universal human right. The minimum condition for enjoying that right is the complete and unconditional end of war, and the cessation of all threats, incitement to hatred, and warmongering.

We believe that the overwhelming majority of the Iranian people desire peace and the right to live a dignified life. Therefore, since no decision should be imposed upon the country against the will of its people—and because that will can only be legitimately determined through the free expression of public opinion—we firmly remind all governments, military forces involved in the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, and all members of the international community that violating this fundamental right of the Iranian people is a grave injustice against a nation that does not want war and stands for peace.

Despite all our differences, we raise our collective voice to say “No to War.” We sincerely call upon all our fellow Iranians—regardless of gender, political or ideological beliefs, religion, ethnicity, or any other distinction—to join this call and strengthen its echo by adding their voices.

Even if you possess the strength of an elephant or the claws of a lion,

To me, peace is still better than war.

— Saadi