Ramin Kashef Azar, chief executive of Imam Khomeini Airport City, told Iranian media that Najaf airport had stopped accepting Iranian flights at 2 a.m. Friday and that no decision had been made to resume them. His remarks, reported by Saat24, confirmed that another major connection between Iran and Iraq - and a fallback that Iranian authorities had only recently proposed - had closed. Reuters subsequently reported, citing two sources, that Erbil and Sulaimaniya were also suspending Iranian flights from Friday.

Passengers were already encountering the consequences. According to BBC Persian, officials at Najaf prevented travelers from boarding a Meraj Airlines flight to Mashhad, leaving the aircraft to return without passengers. The incident illustrates how restrictions on airport services can prevent a journey even when an aircraft is available.

The cancellations extend restrictions that have already affected several nearby destinations. Iranian newspaper Rah-e Emrooz reported on September 24 that services to the United Arab Emirates, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Oman had been canceled. The disruption follows Washington’s expansion of sanctions against Iranian aviation. After designating 27 Iranian airlines earlier in September and canceling key authorizations allowing overflights and U.S.-origin aircraft to travel to Iran, the administration announced a September 23 deadline for its effort to deny them overseas support.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent threatened exclusion from the dollar system for companies providing Iranian carriers with fuel, airport services or ticket sales. The pressure extends beyond the airlines themselves to the foreign companies whose cooperation is necessary for international passenger flights.

Iranian officials have responded by threatening the operation of airports elsewhere in the region. On September 23, Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, warned on Iranian state television that neighboring countries cooperating with U.S. aviation sanctions would find their own airports unable to operate.

Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, reinforced that warning on September 25. In a statement published by Iranian outlets including Khabar Online and Etemad Online, he said that if Iran lost access to flights and airport services, other countries in the region would lose that ability as well. Neither statement identified specific targets, a timetable or an operational order. They nevertheless raised the possibility of a confrontation affecting civilian aviation beyond Iran, as neighboring governments face both U.S. financial pressure and Iranian threats.

Despite the expanding restrictions, some international connections remain operational. The situation differs by country, airline and route. Turkey provides the clearest example. Mahan Air’s earlier suspension of Istanbul and Ankara services did not end every Iranian airline’s access to Turkey. BBC Persian reported that aircraft operated by Iran Air and Qeshm Air landed at Istanbul International Airport on September 25. Iranian domestic reporting also continued to list Turkey among available destinations.

China remained on the active-route list published by Rah-e Emrooz on September 24, alongside Russia, Armenia, Pakistan, Belarus and Afghanistan. These reports describe a continuing network, although they do not establish that every scheduled flight subsequently operated. Malaysia’s diplomatic mission in Tehran also publicly confirmed that direct connections remained available. Speaking at a tourism promotion event in Tehran on September 24, Malaysia’s chargé d’affaires and head of mission said flights between Iran and Malaysia, as well as connections with Southeast Asia, were continuing. Iranian transport outlet Tinn reported his remarks.

The diplomat expressed hope that the services would continue and that more Iranian tourists would visit Malaysia. His statement provides an official account of continuing connectivity, although it does not confirm the operation of each scheduled departure. Separate reporting based on flight tracking had also recorded Iranian services to Thailand after Washington’s announced deadline.

A flight to Tajikistan demonstrates another way airlines are attempting to preserve international access: changing the route when permission to cross a country’s airspace is denied. A Varesh Airlines service bound for Dushanbe returned to Tehran on September 24 after Turkmenistan refused permission to cross its airspace. According to airline sources cited by BBC Persian, the journey was subsequently completed through Azerbaijani, Kazakh and Uzbek airspace before reaching Tajikistan.

More than 90 passengers traveled on the rerouted outbound service. The return flight departed Dushanbe at approximately 1 a.m. Friday with another 90 passengers bound for Tehran. The episode highlights the distinction between permission to land and permission to cross another country’s airspace. A destination can remain accessible even when the usual route becomes unavailable. Conversely, a flight appearing on a departure board does not establish that all the necessary permissions and services are in place.

For passengers, the result is an extremely unpredictable system, leading to canceled flights, unexpected delays and deep frustration. The Najaf case involves travelers reportedly prevented from boarding; the Dushanbe case involves a return to the departure airport followed by an alternative flight path. Both provide concrete examples of disruption beyond announcements of future restrictions.

Fewer direct connections and longer routes can create additional expenses for replacement tickets, accommodation and onward travel. The available reporting does not yet provide a reliable measure of those costs. Their impact will depend on the route, the availability of alternatives and passengers’ ability to meet transit or entry requirements.

These restrictions affect journeys for family visits, education, medical care and religious travel. For Iranians living abroad, they can also make reaching relatives in Iran more difficult. The immediate burden falls on passengers whose travel depends on the airport services and financial arrangements being targeted.

The latest developments show shrinking air options rather than a complete halt to international travel. Iraqi alternatives have closed, while some connections through Turkey, China and other destinations continue. Airlines are trying to preserve access through remaining airports and different flight paths. Tehran’s threats now add the risk that restrictions already disrupting Iranian civilian travel could escalate into a broader confrontation over regional aviation.

A week ago, Iran Unfiltered examined a series of violent incidents in Iran’s Baloch and Kurdish regions and asked whether the country’s widening regional war could intensify longstanding conflicts on its periphery. Since then, the situation in Sistan and Baluchestan has deteriorated further.

The most consequential incident came on September 23 in the Jahadabad area of Saravan, where Iranian security forces and members of the People’s Fighters Front engaged in several hours of heavy fighting. The confrontation came only eleven days after the nine-hour battle in the city’s Bakhshan area previously reported by Iran Unfiltered. According to the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds regional headquarters, the operation was jointly conducted by the IRGC, the Intelligence Ministry and police. Iranian authorities said five members of what they described as a “terrorist-Takfiri” group were killed and that weapons and ammunition were recovered from their hideout.

The fighting also inflicted significant losses on the local IRGC command. The Quds headquarters confirmed that Brigadier General Hossein Zarifi, commander of the IRGC’s Shahid Sajjad operational headquarters in Saravan, and Major Ahmad Herati Zeraati, the headquarters’ intelligence chief, were both killed. Haalvsh, a Baloch outlet that closely covers the province, reported that at least 13 other security personnel were seriously wounded, although that figure has not been independently verified.

The People’s Fighters Front separately confirmed that its members were involved. The group said Iranian security forces attacked a location where its fighters were based in Jahadabad, prompting reinforcements to enter the fighting in support of those who had been surrounded. It said four of its fighters were killed — three from the original group and one from the reinforcements. The competing accounts of how the confrontation began and the overall casualty toll cannot be independently verified.

Videos circulated on social media showed heavy gunfire, flames and black smoke rising from a residential building. The Balochistan Human Rights Documentation Network reported that security forces used a quadcopter to locate the armed men and blocked roads around the fighting while using light and heavier weapons.

This was the second prolonged battle between Iranian security forces and the People’s Fighters Front in Saravan in just eleven days. In both cases, the armed group says it sent additional fighters to support members surrounded by security forces. The latest confrontation ended with two senior figures in the local IRGC command dead. Two battles are not enough to establish that the People’s Fighters Front has developed fundamentally greater military capabilities or can sustain a broader insurgent campaign. But repeated, hours-long engagements involving reinforcements and substantial security-force casualties raise the possibility that the conflict around Saravan is moving beyond a pattern dominated by ambushes, assassinations and hit-and-run attacks.

The escalation is also no longer confined to Saravan. On September 18, armed violence reached Zahedan, the provincial capital and largest city in Sistan and Baluchestan. According to Iranian state media, IRGC forces patrolling near University Street encountered a suspicious vehicle, leading to a gun battle in which two occupants were killed and another arrested. Local reports described sustained shooting and a substantial security deployment in the surrounding area.

The location is significant. Zahedan is the political, administrative and security center of the province and, unlike Saravan and many areas historically associated with cross-border militant activity, is not an immediate border city. Armed confrontation inside the provincial capital makes it harder to explain the recent escalation primarily as a problem of infiltration or insecurity along the Pakistani frontier.

The violence has also extended farther west. On September 21, gunmen opened fire on a vehicle carrying police officers on the Bazman-Iranshahr road. Police Captain Alireza Mehrabi was killed and three other officers were wounded. Provincial police described the shooting as a terrorist attack. No organization had publicly claimed responsibility when the incident was initially reported.

The two Saravan battles can be linked because the People’s Fighters Front has acknowledged its involvement in both. There is no evidence, however, that the Zahedan confrontation or the attack near Iranshahr involved the same organization or formed part of a centrally coordinated campaign.

What has changed since Iran Unfiltered examined the issue last week is the combination of frequency, geography and intensity. The September 12 Saravan battle could have been an unusually intense but isolated confrontation in a volatile border area. Eleven days later, the same armed coalition was involved in another hours-long battle there, while armed incidents were also occurring elsewhere in the province.

Notably, the Iranian government is portraying the escalation through the lens of the wider regional war. Following the latest Saravan confrontation, the IRGC’s Quds regional headquarters accused the United States and Israel of seeking to activate and strengthen what it called “terrorist-Takfiri groups” in southeastern Iran after failing to achieve their objectives in the war.

Iranian authorities have not publicly presented evidence establishing that Washington or Israel directed or supported the recent attacks. Baloch armed opposition also long predates the current regional war. The People’s Fighters Front itself was formed before the latest escalation through the consolidation of several existing armed organizations. Instability in Sistan and Baluchestan has deep domestic roots. The province contains a much wider spectrum of religious, political and civil activity that should not be conflated with armed militancy. Longstanding Baloch grievances include economic marginalization, discrimination, inadequate development, political representation, Sunni religious rights and the conduct of security forces.

As violence increases, it is important to distinguish some of these grievances. A broader security response that treats peaceful political activity, civil society and armed militancy as part of the same threat could deepen existing tensions rather than contain them.

The regional war nevertheless changes the environment in which these longstanding conflicts are unfolding. Iran is simultaneously confronting external military pressure, protecting critical infrastructure and shipping routes, managing severe economic strains and trying to prevent armed organizations from exploiting vulnerabilities inside the country. For armed groups already fighting the Islamic Republic, that environment could create opportunities; for Tehran, it creates greater pressure to prevent local violence from developing into a larger internal security challenge.

The escalation in Sistan and Baluchestan is becoming harder to dismiss as an isolated flare-up as it becomes more active, geographically dispersed and costly for Iranian security forces. Whether this is a temporary escalation or the beginning of a more sustained phase remains unclear. But the events of the past two weeks provide stronger reason to watch Sistan and Baluchestan as one of the places where Iran’s external war and its longstanding internal conflicts could increasingly intersect.

Iran’s House of Cinema announced his death on Monday, saying Ebrahimzadeh had died “away from his homeland” after an illness. Iranian media did not initially provide details about the nature of his illness.

Born in Ardabil in 1937, Ebrahimzadeh belonged to a generation of Iranian performers whose careers bridged the country’s dramatically different cultural periods before and after the 1979 revolution. He studied English language and literature at the University of Tehran before traveling to Britain to continue his education in theater. He later returned to Iran and became active across theater, radio and television. His professional work in Iranian broadcasting began in the late 1960s, and his first major film appearance came in Ali Hatami’s “Hassan Kachal” (Hassan the Bald), the influential 1970 musical that became Iran’s first musical feature film.

Over the following decades, Ebrahimzadeh appeared in a wide range of Iranian films, including “Sattar Khan,” “Kamal-ol-Molk,” “Hamsar” (The Spouse), “Chehreh,” “Hotel Carton,” “Mosafer-e Rey,” “Shami dar Bad” and “Moomiaei 3.” His television work included popular series such as “Arayeshgah-e Ziba,” “Velayat-e Eshgh,” “Cactus,” “Ashpazbashi” and “Sakhteman-e Pezeshkan.” That range made Ebrahimzadeh recognizable to several generations of Iranian audiences. His career moved between historical drama, comedy and popular television, while his distinctive voice and delivery became one of his most recognizable characteristics.

He was also more than a screen actor. Ebrahimzadeh’s roots were in theater, and he worked as a playwright, writer and director in addition to performing. His stage career included both Iranian works and productions connected to the European dramatic tradition, while he also performed radio adaptations of major works of theater and literature.

One of the major formal recognitions of his film career came in 2000, when he received the House of Cinema’s Golden Statue for Best Supporting Actor for “Moomiaei 3,” a popular comedy directed by Mohammadreza Honarmand. His later screen appearances became less frequent. The last film featuring him to receive a theatrical release was “Orange Taxi,” directed by Ebrahim Vahid-Zadeh, in 2008, although Iranian audiences continued to encounter him through television and reruns of older productions.

Ebrahimzadeh’s death is notable beyond the loss of a familiar actor. His career represented a generation of Iranian artists who developed in the country’s pre-revolutionary theater and broadcasting institutions but continued working after 1979, adapting to profound changes in Iranian cinema, television and cultural life.

From Ali Hatami’s early cinema to popular television decades later, Ebrahimzadeh remained part of Iran’s cultural landscape across more than half a century of political and social transformation. His death removes another figure from a generation whose careers connect several distinct eras of modern Iranian cultural history.

The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) extends its condolences to Ebrahimzadeh’s family, friends and the Iranian artistic community, and honors his more than five decades of contributions to Iranian theater, cinema and television. His work connected generations of Iranian audiences across periods of profound social and cultural change, leaving a lasting place in Iran’s contemporary cultural memory.

Speaking one day after President Donald Trump used the same UN podium to threaten Iran with further military escalation, Pezeshkian repeatedly returned to the question of power. He argued that Iran’s experience during the war had demonstrated the consequences for countries unable to adequately defend themselves, while distinguishing defensive strength from aggression.

“We want power to defend ourselves, not to invade other countries,” Pezeshkian said. At another point, he put the argument more starkly: in today’s international system, without power, “we will be crushed.” Pezeshkian opened his speech with a direct response to Trump’s portrayal of Iran a day earlier. Holding up photographs of Iranians killed during the conflict, including children killed in the U.S. strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab, victims of the bombing of a sports facility in Lamerd, and Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, he rejected the characterization of Iran as a terrorist state.

“We are not terrorists. We are victims of terrorism,” Pezeshkian said, arguing that Iran had been attacked by the United States and Israel and had responded in self-defense. He said Iran had not attacked another country in roughly two centuries and questioned why Iran was accused of terrorism while Iranian civilians, political leaders and infrastructure had been targeted. Pezeshkian credited the Iranian public with preventing those efforts from succeeding.

The broader argument running through the speech was that the war had strengthened Tehran’s belief in deterrence rather than weakened it. Pezeshkian said Iran’s defensive systems exist so that “no one imagines that bombing Iranian cities will go unanswered,” adding that Iran would not seek anyone’s permission to defend itself. At the same time, he emphasized that Iran does not seek regional domination. Its objective, he said, is sufficient strength to defend the country and pursue development, not to invade its neighbors.

That distinction shaped Pezeshkian’s message to surrounding countries. He argued that Iran’s security cannot ultimately be separated from the security of its neighbors and called for cooperation, shared security and economic development. His message also carried a warning: Iran and its neighbors could build peace and security together, or ultimately share the consequences of regional insecurity. Despite his emphasis on military strength, Pezeshkian repeatedly left the door open to negotiations.

“For our defense, we do not fear war, and for peace, we do not run from negotiations,” he said. Pezeshkian said Iran had demonstrated its willingness to pursue diplomacy but would not negotiate under military coercion. “We are ready for dialogue with the world, but we will not accept the language of force.”

The remarks directly answered Trump’s speech a day earlier, in which the U.S. president paired the possibility of an agreement with threats of military “annihilation.” Pezeshkian argued that such threats violate the principles of the UN Charter and would not force Iran to surrender. The exchange highlighted a central obstacle facing renewed diplomacy: Washington is seeking to use military and economic pressure as leverage, while Tehran insists that meaningful negotiations cannot take place under the threat of additional attacks.

Pezeshkian also addressed Iran’s nuclear program, reiterating that Tehran does not seek nuclear weapons but will not surrender its nuclear knowledge or peaceful nuclear technology. Iran, he said, wants nuclear energy for development and does not accept that nuclear science should effectively remain the exclusive domain of a small number of countries. His formulation was straightforward: “No nuclear weapon, but no deprivation of Iran from nuclear knowledge.”

Pezeshkian contrasted Iran’s treatment with that of Israel, which is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons but is not a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. “The atomic bomb is in Israel, but the inspectors are in Iran,” he said. He argued that Israel has not subjected its nuclear program to the inspection system applied to Iran while Tehran continues to face sanctions and scrutiny. “Israel kills, but Iran is sanctioned,” Pezeshkian said, presenting the comparison as an example of what Iran views as a double standard.

Pezeshkian also connected sanctions directly to their impact on ordinary Iranians. He argued that U.S. sanctions disproportionately harm the sick, the poor and other vulnerable people, rather than simply putting pressure on the government. He also pointed to Iran being attacked while engaged in negotiations, arguing that Tehran continues to face military pressure and sanctions even as it maintains that it is prepared for diplomacy.

Another major portion of the speech concerned the Strait of Hormuz, which has become both a military flashpoint and an important source of Iranian leverage. “We cannot allow everyone to benefit from the Strait of Hormuz while Iran is deprived of it,” Pezeshkian said. He argued that Iran could not be expected to accept restrictions on its own commerce while weapons, missiles and military supplies continued to move through the same waters. “They close the way to Iran and then move weapons, ammunition and missiles through the strait to destroy countries. This is not possible, and we will not allow it.”

The remarks came as indirect contacts between Iran and the United States continued in New York. Tehran has linked the future of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz to U.S. military pressure and restrictions on Iranian ports, while signaling that diplomacy remains possible.

The speech also came amid a broader Iranian response to Trump’s UN address. Earlier Wednesday, Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei said Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had been authorized to communicate Iran’s conditions through intermediaries in New York. The announcement suggested that despite escalating rhetoric, Tehran continues to authorize diplomatic engagement.

At the same time, Rezaei emphasized Iran’s military and geographic leverage. He described the Strait of Hormuz as an instrument for securing Iran’s rights in negotiations and warned that Tehran would respond to further U.S. attacks. He also warned neighboring countries against allowing their territory, airspace or infrastructure to be used for military operations against Iran.

Rezaei separately made claims about Iran’s military capabilities, including that an Iranian missile had been detonated above the aircraft carrier USS George Washington and that Iran was reverse-engineering a U.S. autonomous underwater vehicle. Those claims have not been independently verified. Iran’s military leadership delivered an even sharper response. The General Staff of the Armed Forces and the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters said Iran was prepared to answer new attacks with “more severe, more crushing and unpredictable blows.”

The military’s language was considerably more confrontational than Pezeshkian’s. The president instead sought to combine deterrence with an explicit willingness to negotiate. Taken together, however, the messages point to a two-track Iranian strategy: demonstrating military leverage while keeping diplomatic channels open.

Pezeshkian also addressed the humanitarian consequences of war in the region, particularly in Gaza. He cited the large number of Palestinians killed and displaced and argued that international institutions had failed to protect civilians. He said it was impossible to speak credibly about peace while the Palestinian conflict remained unresolved and argued that resistance could not simply be eliminated through bombing.

For Pezeshkian, the lesson of Iran’s own experience appeared similar: military pressure can impose enormous costs on civilians, but Tehran does not believe that pressure alone will produce political capitulation. His address therefore presented military strength and diplomacy not as competing approaches, but as interconnected elements of Iran’s strategy after seven months of war. Pezeshkian’s central argument was that credible defensive power is necessary for diplomacy to occur on more equal terms.

His message to Washington was that Iran remains willing to negotiate but will not accept negotiations framed as surrender. To neighboring states, he argued that their security and Iran’s are ultimately intertwined. On the nuclear issue, he rejected both nuclear weapons and demands that Iran abandon peaceful nuclear knowledge. And on Hormuz, he made clear that Tehran does not believe freedom of navigation can mean unrestricted access for others while Iran itself faces blockade and economic exclusion.

One day after Trump paired diplomacy with threats of further military force, Pezeshkian offered Iran’s response from the same UN podium: Tehran intends to strengthen its ability to defend itself while leaving a path open for negotiations. “We do not fear war,” Pezeshkian said, “and we do not run from negotiations.”

President Trump, in his remarks before the General Assembly, framed Iran as unwilling to strike a deal, a consistent terrorist threat to the U.S., and the globe and his war as justified. He repeated a recent refrain suggesting he can choose between a deal and annihilation. “I have a big decision to make: Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before, maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world?” Trump continued, “Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic, and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? Do I drive them into hell, with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations? But I believe we’ll make a deal right after the election…they’re waiting to see how I do in the midterm election. What they don’t realize is I did that already…I’ll be here for two and a half years.” He suggested he will give no credence to the midterms influencing his approach toward Iran, and declared the U.S. has more munitions than ever before.

Trump also suggested that Iran had killed 72,000 of its own people - roughly 10 times the figure produced by the Iran human rights group HRANA after the protests and 24 times the figure announced by the Iranian government. Moreover, without explanation, Trump suggested that 10,000 Iranians had been killed recently. While dozens of individuals who have been accused of violence in the protests have been executed, there is no indication of recent widespread protests or a crackdown on such a scale.

Trump’s frame raises a question as to whether the President might be preparing for a climb down or an escalation. Heated, genocidal rhetoric accompanied the pivot to a ceasefire in April. This rhetoric echoes a similar tone, though the President has defied easy predictions on Iran for years.

On Tuesday, Reuters reported that Iran is prepared to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if the United States eases military pressure and lifts its blockade of Iranian ports. According to a senior Iranian official who was not identified, Tehran’s proposal for ending hostilities was conveyed to Washington through intermediaries on September 16. The official said Iran’s delegation in New York has full authority to revive diplomacy and that details of an agreement could be discussed there through mediators, although a direct meeting between Pezeshkian and President Donald Trump is not planned. Iran has not publicly confirmed the seven-day proposal in these terms.

The timing is significant because Tehran has spent the past several days publicly signaling an interest in negotiations without backing away from its leverage in Hormuz. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said on September 19 that Iran had conveyed seven conditions to Washington for the beginning of negotiations. Rezaei did not publicly enumerate all seven in his statement. In an interview with Al Jazeera, however, he identified three principal demands: an end to the war “on all fronts,” the release of Iran’s frozen assets and an end to the U.S. naval blockade. He said Qatar had transmitted Iran’s conditions to Washington and that Tehran was awaiting Trump’s response.

The complete list remains undisclosed, but the reported seven-day proposal suggests a potentially important change in sequencing. Previous Iranian statements presented reopening Hormuz as something that would follow fulfillment of Tehran’s conditions. The latest proposal, if accurately reported, appears more incremental: Washington would formally commit to diplomacy and take tangible steps to reduce military pressure and end the blockade, after which Iran could reopen the strait within seven days while negotiations over a broader settlement proceed.

That would amount to an action-for-action process rather than requiring every outstanding dispute to be resolved before Hormuz reopens. The stakes remain enormous. Preliminary shipping data showed only two large commercial vessels crossing the strait on Monday, down from ten the previous day and roughly 125 per day before the war began on February 28. The figures do not include ships that may have crossed with their tracking systems switched off. Two vessels were also attacked in separate incidents around the strait, although responsibility had not been established.

The disruption gives Tehran leverage, but sustaining the confrontation is imposing serious costs on both sides. Trump is approaching the November 3 midterm elections amid record diesel prices, stubborn inflation and growing voter dissatisfaction over the cost of living and the Iran war. His approval rating has fallen to 32 percent, the lowest of his political career in Reuters/Ipsos polling, while some Republican candidates in competitive races are openly calling for the war to end quickly.

Iran is under severe pressure of its own. The U.S. naval blockade and intensified sanctions have constrained oil exports and access to foreign currency, while sharp currency fluctuations, inflation and import pressures are further eroding household purchasing power. Iranian officials have increasingly acknowledged that the economy and people’s livelihoods have become a central challenge of the war. Those pressures do not guarantee compromise, but they give both governments powerful reasons to explore an arrangement that preserves core interests while ending an economically costly conflict.

Another important piece is a separate Iran-Oman framework for navigation through Hormuz. Iranian officials say Tehran and Muscat have developed a plan for reopening shipping through the strait. The proposal surfaced prominently during Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s visit to Beijing on September 16, the same date on which Iran’s latest proposal was reportedly transmitted to Washington.

According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s account of Araghchi’s meeting with Foreign Minister Wang Yi, the Iranian side said Iran had reached a plan with Oman to open the Strait of Hormuz and argued that the United States should fulfill commitments it had made. Wang urged Iran and the United States to exercise restraint, return to the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, rebuild a negotiating mechanism and begin substantive consultations. China also explicitly called for effective measures to reopen Hormuz as soon as possible.

The Beijing meeting is significant because it shows that the Hormuz arrangement and a broader return to negotiations were already being discussed at a high diplomatic level immediately before the latest Iranian initiative became public. It also places China directly inside the diplomatic picture at a moment when Beijing is communicating with both Tehran and Washington.

Inside Iran, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has also begun speaking unusually explicitly about avoiding an indefinite conflict. On September 20, he criticized two competing approaches: one that advocates continued war without offering a mechanism for ending it and, by rejecting diplomacy, risks pushing Iran toward “attrition and endless war”; and another that, in his view, underestimates Iran’s capabilities and favors accepting unilateral American demands. Ghalibaf instead argued for combining military pressure with diplomacy and converting what Iran considers its battlefield leverage into political gains. His comments provide further evidence of an increasingly public discussion within Iran’s political establishment over how the war should end, rather than a simple choice between fighting and negotiating.

China may now become particularly important to that process. Beijing wants the Strait of Hormuz reopened and international energy flows stabilized but has simultaneously called for negotiations based on reciprocal steps rather than unilateral Iranian concessions. China is also a major economic partner of Iran and has significantly more leverage than smaller regional mediators. In its official account of the September 16 meeting, Beijing said it was prepared to play a “constructive role” in resolving the conflict while supporting Iran’s legitimate rights and interests and urging both Tehran and Washington toward substantive negotiations.

What happened immediately afterward makes the Chinese channel more noteworthy. On September 17, one day after meeting Araghchi, Wang spoke by telephone with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The Middle East was among the issues discussed, and Beijing again called for restraint, renewed negotiations and a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Within roughly 24 hours, China’s foreign minister had therefore been in direct communication with senior officials from both Tehran and Washington as diplomatic activity around the war intensified.

The diplomatic calendar creates another opportunity. Chinese President Xi Jinping is due to visit the United States from September 23 to 25 and meet Trump in Washington. Their agenda extends far beyond Iran, encompassing trade, artificial intelligence, Taiwan and the broader U.S.-China relationship, but the Iran war is also expected to be discussed.

This gives China a potentially distinctive role. Qatar and Oman can carry messages and develop practical arrangements; Beijing has direct access to Tehran, a major economic relationship with Iran and simultaneous high-level access to Washington. Washington could seek Chinese help in encouraging a stable reopening of Hormuz, while Tehran may see Beijing as a major-power channel supportive of reciprocal implementation rather than surrendering its principal leverage before negotiations begin.

The sequence is therefore notable: Araghchi discussed Hormuz and negotiations in Beijing; Wang spoke with Rubio the following day; Iran says its conditions have been conveyed through regional intermediaries; Pezeshkian is now heading to New York; and Xi is preparing for talks with Trump in Washington.

Major obstacles remain. Iran insists Washington must take concrete steps before Tehran relinquishes its leverage in Hormuz. The Trump administration continues to threaten renewed military action, while maritime attacks and broader regional fighting have not stopped. The full seven Iranian conditions remain undisclosed, and Washington has not publicly accepted either Tehran’s reported sequencing proposal or the Iran-Oman framework.

Pezeshkian is therefore not arriving in New York with an announced peace agreement, and a meeting with Trump is not currently expected. What makes this UN gathering different is the diplomatic activity surrounding it: Iran has transmitted conditions for negotiations, senior officials in Tehran are publicly discussing how military leverage could be converted into a political outcome, a concrete proposal for Hormuz has reportedly reached Washington, and governments with access to both sides are actively engaged.

The coming days may show whether these separate channels remain another round of indirect messaging or begin to form a workable negotiating process. Pezeshkian’s presence in New York provides an immediate venue for testing that possibility, while Xi’s talks with Trump could determine whether China assumes a larger role in the diplomacy surrounding the war.

Mahan Air announced this week that it would suspend flights between Tehran and Muscat, Oman, beginning September 17, followed by its routes to Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey on September 21. Flights to Georgia are also set to stop on September 21. The airline attributed the suspensions to decisions by aviation authorities in those countries.

The cancellations come less than two weeks after the United States dramatically expanded sanctions on Iran’s aviation industry, designating all Iranian airlines under sanctions along with the foreign companies that provide them with cargo, sales, aircraft and logistical services. Key sanctions licensing that allowed for overflights of Iranian airspace and U.S. origin aircraft to fly into Iran have also been revoked. The effect is to increase the risks for companies outside Iran that provide the basic infrastructure Iranian airlines need to operate internationally.

The timing is particularly significant in Turkey. On September 8, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned two Turkish companies it said had provided services to Mahan Air. S Sistem Lojistik Hizmetler was accused of coordinating shipments including drone components and industrial equipment destined for Iran, while Mes Cargo was identified as a general sales agent that coordinated shipments for Mahan. Treasury also targeted companies and intermediaries in several other countries as part of what it calls “Operation Economic Outcast.”

Mahan itself has been under U.S. sanctions since 2011. Washington accuses the airline of providing transportation and logistical support to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Quds Force, including the movement of personnel, weapons and military equipment. But Mahan is also a major civilian carrier used by ordinary Iranians for domestic and international travel.

That dual role exposes a central problem with Washington’s escalating aviation sanctions: measures justified as a way to disrupt Iranian security logistics are also restricting the civilian infrastructure on which millions of Iranians depend.

The latest measures are significantly more consequential than simply adding another Iranian airline to a sanctions list. By targeting foreign companies that sell tickets, handle cargo, provide aircraft or otherwise enable Iranian carriers to operate abroad, Washington can make international passenger service into and out of Iran significantly more difficult to sustain.

And this pressure is being applied while Iran is already at war and its civilian aviation system is under extraordinary strain. Foreign carriers including Turkish Airlines and flydubai have stopped serving Iran amid the security risks created by the war, while European aviation authorities continue to advise operators against entering Iranian airspace. Iran’s own carriers, meanwhile, struggle with an aging fleet, shortages of spare parts and decades of sanctions restricting access to aircraft and aviation equipment. According to data from aviation analytics company Cirium cited by the Financial Times, roughly one-third of flights scheduled to operate in Iran on a recent day were cancelled or did not operate. Iran Air, the country’s flag carrier, reportedly has only nine operational aircraft.

The loss of connections to Turkey and Oman are particularly important. Istanbul and Gulf hubs are gateways for Iranians traveling onward to Europe and North America. These routes connect families separated across borders and are used by students, business travelers and people seeking medical treatment abroad. When those connections disappear, the consequences are straightforward: fewer seats, more complicated itineraries and greater costs for travelers.

Signs of that pressure are already appearing inside Iran. Following Mahan’s announcement, Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization warned airlines, travel agencies and charter operators against sharply increasing ticket prices for routes to Turkey and Oman. The agency said it had received reports of significant price increases and threatened violators with penalties, including temporary suspension of their flight allocations on those routes.

Price controls, however, cannot replace lost flight capacity. If sanctions make it increasingly risky for airports, service providers and other foreign companies to work with Iranian airlines, Tehran has limited ability to prevent the resulting contraction in international travel.

The Trump administration says the sanctions are aimed at preventing Iran from using civilian aviation networks to support military activities. The Treasury Department says Iranian aviation has been used to transport weapons, personnel and sensitive technology, and its latest measures specifically identified foreign companies it says helped move drone components and other equipment.

But the civilian consequences of the policy are increasingly difficult to separate from its stated military objectives. Ground handling, ticket sales, aircraft maintenance, financial services and access to foreign airports are not primarily military functions. They are also the infrastructure that allows an Iranian student to reach a university abroad, a family to visit relatives in another country, or a patient to travel for medical care. Sanctioning that infrastructure inevitably creates costs far beyond the Iranian government and military.

This has long been one of the most consequential features of sanctions on Iranian aviation. Restrictions on aircraft purchases, financing and access to parts have contributed to the isolation of a civilian aviation system already struggling to maintain an aging fleet. Although U.S. regulations have provided mechanisms for licensing some transactions related to civil aviation safety in the past, the broader sanctions environment has repeatedly made legitimate commercial activity involving Iran difficult and risky.

A disturbing video on Tuesday showed a Sepehran Airlines flight from Mashhad to Kermanshah experiencing a mid-air emergency, with portions of the cabin buckling. Thankfully, the airline was able to make an emergency landing and all passengers were ultimately safe, but it underscored the risk to ordinary civilians of unsafe air travel. As sanctions escalate, more emergencies - potentially fatal ones - could become increasingly difficult to avoid.

The consequences could also extend beyond passenger travel. Medical goods are roughly seven times more dependent on aviation linkages than Iranian imports overall, according to Esfandyar Batmanghelidj of the Bourse & Bazaar Foundation, making medical supply chains particularly vulnerable to further disruption.

That vulnerability is already being felt inside Iran. Patients contacted by Iran Unfiltered say they have been unable to obtain influenza vaccines as flu season approaches. Further restrictions on aviation and air cargo could therefore affect not only Iranians trying to travel for medical treatment, but also access to time-sensitive medicines, vaccines and other medical supplies inside the country.

Mahan Air still operates international routes, including connections to Russia and China, and other Iranian airlines continue flying to some regional destinations. Iran has not been cut off from all international air travel yet. But the developments of the past week illustrate how isolation can deepen incrementally: one service provider, one airport and one route at a time.

That matters particularly in the context of the current war. Washington is simultaneously applying military and economic pressure against Iran, while ordinary Iranians are living with the consequences of both. Air travel provides a particularly visible example of how economic measures aimed at weakening Iran’s capabilities can reach far beyond government institutions.

Less than two weeks after the latest aviation sanctions were announced, the civilian consequences are already becoming visible: Iran has fewer international connections, passengers are facing pressure on ticket prices, and one of the country’s largest civilian carriers is losing access to neighboring destinations that serve as crucial gateways to the rest of the world.

For Iranian travelers, this is not an abstract debate about sanctions architecture. It means fewer ways to leave the country, higher costs for staying connected to family and the outside world, and another aspect of everyday life being squeezed by a confrontation they have no ability to control.

These intermediaries, often described in Iran as “trustees,” have become essential to the country’s oil trade under sanctions. Because Iran cannot freely use conventional banking, shipping and insurance networks, it relies on traders, foreign companies, ships and indirect financial channels to sell oil and return the proceeds.

But the latest parliamentary scrutiny is exposing the other side of that system: who selects these intermediaries, how much oil they receive, what guarantees they provide and whether proximity to political power influences who is intimately involved in the trade of Iran’s most valuable national resources.

Lawmaker Valiollah Bayati has demanded documentation explaining how the four traders were selected, their financial capacity and previous performance, the prices and discounts they received and the guarantees obtained for returning oil revenues. He has also asked whether intermediaries with outstanding debts were nevertheless given additional cargoes and whether other qualified companies had a genuine opportunity to compete for the business.

The quantities involved make those questions difficult to dismiss. Bayati has sought an accounting of roughly 72 million barrels of crude oil associated with the period he is examining. Another lawmaker, Hossein Samsami, has separately alleged that more than 86 million barrels were provided on credit to one individual without sufficient guarantees, with only part of the oil ultimately reaching the final buyer.

These parliamentary claims do not establish that the four people named by Hamshahri committed crimes, nor has the Oil Ministry publicly connected each of the disputed quantities to particular individuals. But they raise a broader question about how officials entrusted potentially billions of dollars in public assets to a relatively small and largely opaque group of private actors.

The most politically sensitive name is Hossein Shamkhani, whose father, Ali Shamkhani, spent decades at the highest levels of Iran’s political and security establishment before he was killed in the opening U.S.-Israeli strikes of the current war on February 28, 2026. Ali Shamkhani served as defense minister and for nearly a decade as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council. After being seriously wounded during the June 2025 war, he later became secretary of Iran’s Defense Council.

Hossein, meanwhile, built an extensive international shipping and commodities business involved in the trade of Iranian and Russian petroleum. The U.S. Treasury sanctioned Hossein Shamkhani and a network of companies and vessels in 2025, alleging that he had benefited from his father’s political influence and that vessels associated with his network received preferential treatment at Iranian ports. Shamkhani has denied that his father was involved in his business activities. Washington imposed further sanctions on companies and vessels it linked to his network in 2026, after Ali Shamkhani’s death.

Those are U.S. government allegations, not findings by an Iranian court. But the fact that an Iranian parliamentarian is now asking how Hossein Shamkhani and the other traders were selected gives the issue greater domestic significance.

The question is no longer simply how Iran circumvents U.S. sanctions – it is also who inside Iran gains access to the lucrative business created by circumventing them. Iran has confronted this problem before.

The most important precedent is Babak Zanjani, who emerged as a crucial oil and financial intermediary when sanctions tightened during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency. Zanjani operated a sprawling international network of companies and financial institutions capable of selling Iranian oil and moving money when conventional banking channels were increasingly unavailable. Iranian authorities later accused him of failing to return billions of dollars in oil revenues. He was arrested in 2013 and eventually sentenced to death for corruption. However,

After authorities said assets connected to Zanjani had been recovered, his death sentence was commuted to 20 years in prison in 2024. He subsequently was released from prison in April 2025 and has returned to highly visible business activity, including major transportation and investment projects.

Zanjani’s return makes the current controversy particularly striking. More than a decade after Iran experienced one of its largest corruption cases involving a sanctions intermediary, the country remains dependent on essentially the same model: private actors trusted with enormous quantities of oil because they possess the networks necessary to operate outside the conventional international financial system.

That does not mean the four individuals named by Hamshahri have followed the practices of Zanjani. No evidence currently establishes comparable wrongdoing under Iran’s legal system. The parallel is instead about the system that produces such powerful intermediaries.

Sanctions push various economic actors into secrecy to mitigate risk. Ownership structures may be obscured, payments routed through third countries and informal financial networks, and oil transported through companies and vessels designed to reduce exposure to U.S. enforcement. These mechanisms have allowed Iran to continue exporting oil despite extensive sanctions. But the same secrecy that protects transactions from foreign enforcement also makes domestic oversight considerably more difficult.

This creates opportunities for corruption and political patronage. Traders capable of providing foreign companies, ships, bank accounts, currency networks and access to buyers become extremely valuable to the government. But the government must decide whom to trust with those assets, and those decisions are largely hidden from public scrutiny.

This is why the current parliamentary inquiry is ultimately about more than four businessmen. If tens of millions of barrels were handed to intermediaries, government officials had to authorize those transactions. Someone determined who qualified as a trustee, approved the prices and discounts, accepted the guarantees and decided whether additional oil could be provided when previous obligations remained unresolved.

That moves the corruption question up the chain of authority. Who recommended the traders? What criteria were used? Were politically connected individuals treated differently from competitors? Who approved transactions involving insufficient guarantees? And if oil revenues were not returned, were the officials who authorized those transactions ever held responsible?

These questions have implications far beyond Tehran’s internal political disputes. Oil remains one of Iran’s most important sources of foreign currency. Excessive discounts, unpaid debts, commissions and corruption ultimately reduce resources available to a country already struggling with inflation, currency depreciation and the economic consequences of sanctions and war.

For ordinary Iranians, the sanctions economy can therefore impose costs from two directions. Sanctions themselves restrict trade, investment and access to financial markets. But they also push increasingly valuable economic activity into opaque networks where oversight is weaker and individuals with privileged access can accumulate extraordinary wealth.

That does not absolve Iranian officials of responsibility. Sanctions did not force officials to favor politically-connected individuals, accept inadequate guarantees or tolerate corruption where it occurred. Those are domestic decisions for which Iranian institutions remain responsible.

But sanctions have helped create an economic environment in which secrecy is not an exception but a requirement — and where the line separating steps to mitigate sanctions risk, political patronage and private enrichment can become extraordinarily difficult for the public to see.

This is what makes the publication of the four names significant. The stakes are not just whether the individualized actors are corrupt, but whether Iran replicated the Zanjani model and incorporated it as an intrinsic part of its vital oil trade. More than a decade after Zanjani’s arrest, the Iranian public still knows remarkably little about who receives the country’s oil, who selects the trustees, how much they earn, what guarantees they provide and who is accountable when billions of dollars in public assets are placed at risk.

The parliamentary inquiry could begin answering those questions. But doing so would require looking beyond the traders themselves to the officials and institutions that gave them access to Iran’s oil in the first place.

There is no evidence that the recent incidents in Sistan and Baluchistan and Iranian Kurdistan were coordinated with each other or directed by the United States, Israel or another outside power. Armed conflict in both regions long predates the current war and has distinct local roots. But their timing raises a consequential question: could a prolonged external war fuel Iran’s existing internal conflicts?

The clearest recent warning came from Saravan, near Iran’s border with Pakistan. On September 12, Iranian security forces and members of the People’s Fighters Front fought for roughly nine hours in the Bakhshan area. The Revolutionary Guards said four militants and three Iranian personnel were killed. The armed group said security forces had surrounded one of its units and that it dispatched five reinforcement teams to break the encirclement.

The competing details cannot be independently verified. But even the government’s account indicates that this was more than an isolated shooting: an organized armed group engaged Iranian forces in a prolonged battle with fatalities on both sides.

The organization itself reflects a recent change in the Baloch insurgency. The People’s Fighters Front was established in late 2025 through the merger of Jaish al-Adl and several smaller armed Baloch organizations. In announcing the new coalition, its leaders spoke not only about Baloch grievances but about broader political change in Iran and cooperation with other anti-government movements. Iranian hardline media have largely described the merger as a rebranding of Jaish al-Adl following security-force pressure, and there is not yet enough evidence to determine whether consolidation has significantly increased the militants’ capabilities.

However, the situation escalated further with the assassination of a pro-government figure. Molavi Yousef Gorgij, a Sunni cleric close to the Islamic Republic, attended the funeral of security personnel killed in the fighting and spoke publicly there. Shortly afterward, gunmen assassinated him in Zahedan.

No organization has claimed responsibility, and Iranian authorities have not produced public evidence identifying the perpetrators. The timing is striking but does not establish that Gorgij was killed in retaliation for Saravan. Other recent armed attacks in the province have included the killing of two Revolutionary Guards personnel in the Kurin area of Zahedan earlier in September.

Hundreds of miles to the northwest, a separate series of attacks has occurred in Iran’s Kurdish regions. Mullah Mohammad Nezhati, a Sunni cleric and active Basij member, was shot dead by motorcycle-riding gunmen in Piranshahr on September 8. Iranian authorities blamed Kurdish opposition groups, although no Kurdish organization initially claimed the attack. Days later, Eslam Kak Darvishi, a longtime Revolutionary Guards member who had served in Marivan, Baneh and Piranshahr, died from wounds sustained in another attack. A group calling itself Khori Hiva, or Sun of Hope, claimed responsibility for that killing.

The similarities with Baluchistan should not be overstated. Iran’s Kurdish and Baloch conflicts are not a single insurgency. Their organizations, histories and political demands differ, and there is no evidence connecting the attacks in Piranshahr to the fighting in Saravan. Peaceful Kurdish political activity and the nationwide Woman, Life, Freedom movement must also be distinguished from armed Kurdish organizations.

But Tehran’s behavior since the beginning of the current war shows that Iranian Kurdish armed groups have already become part of its wartime security calculations. Since the regional war began on February 28, Iran has repeatedly struck positions, camps and residential areas associated with Iranian Kurdish opposition organizations across the border in Iraqi Kurdistan. Targets have included factions of Komala, the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, the Kurdistan Freedom Party and the Khabat Organization. Adding to the securitization in Kurdish areas, President Trump has said that the United States sent guns intended for Iranian protesters but that Kurdish groups kept them, a claim that has been denied.

The strikes began early in the war and continued through subsequent months, including during periods when direct Iran-U.S. and Iran-Israel fighting declined. Kurdish organizations have reported multiple fatalities, although their cumulative figures cannot all be independently verified. A July strike on the Zargwezela camp near Sulaymaniyah reportedly killed ten Komala members.

A September 7 drone attack on a Komala-associated camp in Surdash was therefore part of an established wartime pattern rather than an isolated escalation. Komala said the site housed families and that the attack caused damage but no casualties.

This chronology matters. Tehran began repeatedly targeting its Kurdish opponents across the Iraqi border well before the latest killings inside Iranian Kurdistan. Its actions suggest that the government has regarded the possibility of Kurdish armed groups exploiting the wider war as a security concern from early in the conflict.

Whether that concern is now materializing is much less clear. Iran’s Kurdish armed organizations remain predominantly based across the Iraqi border, and there is no evidence that the recent attacks inside Iran represent a major cross-border offensive. Nor is there concrete evidence that Washington or Israel is directing the attacks in Kurdistan or Baluchistan, despite repeated Iranian government claims that foreign enemies are seeking to exploit ethnic and regional divisions.

The local origins of these conflicts are much older. Baluchistan has experienced decades of armed insurgency alongside grievances involving poverty, discrimination, political representation, Sunni religious rights and state violence. Kurdish opposition to the central government has an even longer history and includes a wide spectrum ranging from civil and political activism to armed organizations.

The current war did not create these conflicts. What it may be changing is the environment in which they operate. Iran is now managing multiple military and security pressures simultaneously. Its confrontation with the United States and Israel has spread across the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, while the Houthis and armed groups elsewhere in the region have created additional fronts. At home, economic pressure and heightened fears of infiltration and sabotage have produced an increasingly securitized environment.

For armed organizations already opposed to the Islamic Republic, such circumstances could create opportunities. For the government, they create an incentive to prevent those organizations from expanding their operations while much of the state’s attention is directed toward the external war.

But the evidence does not currently point to a coordinated internal front or an approaching nationwide insurgency. The Iranian state retains a large security apparatus; armed opposition groups control no major population centers; and the recent incidents remain geographically separated and involve different actors.

There is also a significant risk of intensified repression in the border regions. If Tehran increasingly views Kurdish or Baloch political activity through the lens of its external war, the distinction between armed organizations, peaceful opposition and civil society could become even more blurred. The heavy security presence around the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death and recent arrests in Kurdish areas underscore that risk.

The recent violence therefore does not show that Iran’s regional war has become a domestic war. But Saravan, Zahedan and Piranshahr provide signs worth watching: longstanding internal conflicts are becoming more active at the same time that the Iranian state is under extraordinary external military and economic pressure.

The critical question is no longer whether those fault lines exist. They have existed for decades. It is whether a prolonged regional war will give them a larger role in Iran’s conflict — and whether Tehran’s efforts to prevent that outcome could themselves deepen instability in the country’s border regions.

The larger contest is over whether the United States can separate two objectives that Tehran is determined to connect. Washington’s late-August economic campaign and naval blockade seek to stop Iranian trade while protected transit windows keep some oil from U.S. partners moving through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has responded that if its own exports are blocked, other Gulf producers should not expect normal access to global markets.

The September 10 strike on Saudi Arabia’s East–West pipeline exposed the vulnerability of the kingdom’s principal alternative to the Strait of Hormuz. The 1,200-kilometer system had recently moved roughly four to five million barrels per day from Saudi oil fields near the Persian Gulf to Yanbu on the Red Sea. Satellite imagery showed severe damage at a major pumping facility. Regional officials have said repairs could leave most of the pipeline out of service for three to five weeks, although partial operations may resume sooner. Riyadh has not issued its own repair timetable.

Who conducted the attack remains somewhat unclear. Saudi Arabia said the drones were launched from Iraq and blamed Iran-aligned fighters there. Baghdad confirmed that the launch originated in Maysan province, seized launch equipment near the Iranian border and opened an investigation. Iran has denied involvement, while the Islamic Resistance in Iraq denied conducting the strike but described the accusation as “an honor we do not claim.”

The strategic significance does not depend on establishing the precise chain of command. Iran has openly warned that if it cannot export oil, other Gulf producers will not be able to export normally either. An attack that disables Saudi Arabia’s principal Hormuz bypass therefore advances the logic Tehran has publicly articulated, regardless of who issued the operational order.

The Houthis’ advances have created a similar problem at the other end of that bypass. The group has taken Mayun (Perim) Island inside Bab el-Mandeb and the Greater and Lesser Hanish islands farther north, while strengthening its position around the mountainous approaches overlooking the strait. These gains do not give the Houthis uncontested control of Bab el-Mandeb, and commercial traffic continues. But the mountainous terrain is considerably harder to retake than low-lying coastal areas and gives the group a more durable ability to threaten shipping through the waterway.

The Houthis have said navigation remains safe for vessels other than Saudi-linked shipping, while continuing missile and drone attacks against Saudi targets. For Riyadh, that creates vulnerability at both ends of its main Hormuz alternative: the pipeline carrying crude westward to Yanbu is badly damaged, while tankers leaving the Red Sea terminal toward Asia must pass through Bab el-Mandeb, where the military balance has shifted in the Houthis’ favor.

The pressure on Riyadh has increased further in recent days. Saudi Arabia has sought additional regional support as Houthi forces consolidated their gains, while Washington and European governments have so far stopped short of intervening directly to try to reverse the advances. U.S. officials also reportedly met Houthi representatives in Muscat over the weekend, where the Houthis indicated that their 2025 ceasefire with Washington remained in effect and that their current maritime threats were directed primarily at Saudi-linked rather than U.S. or general international shipping. That leaves Saudi Arabia facing a more immediate threat to its Red Sea route without the potential of additional U.S. military protection or intervention.

Developments inside Hormuz reinforce the problem, although they also show that the strait is not completely sealed. Preliminary Kpler data showed only four commodity-vessel transits on Monday - two bulk carriers leaving the Persian Gulf and two empty oil tankers entering - down from ten on Sunday and far below prewar levels. TankerTrackers, however, reported from satellite imagery that VLCC supertankers were moving through Hormuz in both directions during daylight hours, while more crude, LNG and LPG was being transferred ship-to-ship in the Gulf of Oman.

The two observations are not necessarily contradictory because vessels operating without AIS can be missed by conventional tracking. Regardless, the picture is one of severely disrupted but adapting trade: some large tankers are still crossing and traders are finding ways to move cargo, but normal, predictable high-volume navigation has not returned.

The damaged Panama-flagged tanker El Gaia illustrates the continuing risk. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy said the vessel entered the southern route Tehran considers unauthorized, struck Iranian naval mines and caught fire. CENTCOM rejected that account, saying El Gaia had previously been disabled by an Iranian missile and was struck again by an Iranian drone last week while anchored off Oman. The competing accounts cannot be independently verified. Oman’s Maritime Security Center says an Omani naval vessel evacuated 23 crew members, while two remained missing, and the tanker is being towed toward an Omani port.

A separate incident followed Monday night, when the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency reported that another vessel in Hormuz was struck by an unidentified projectile. No significant damage was reported and the attacker has not been identified. The incidents underline the limitation of the U.S.-backed southern route: military protection may allow individual ships to transit, but it has not yet created sufficiently predictable conditions for normal commercial navigation. Iran is simultaneously trying to make its own authorization commercially relevant, warning vessels, insurers and maritime service providers of penalties for using routes Tehran considers unauthorized.

The shifting events and retaliatory pressure on Saudi Arabia’s oil exports may be complicating the diplomatic path ahead, at least temporarily. Oman had planned to bring Iran, Iraq and the six Gulf Cooperation Council states together to discuss navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, but Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi said the meeting was postponed “in the interests of consensus.” Tehran said Saudi Arabia requested the delay, though Riyadh has not publicly confirmed that account.

Saudi caution reflects a genuine dilemma. Joining an arrangement that solidifies an Iranian role in managing traffic through the Strait of Hormuz while Saudi infrastructure is under attack could be perceived as rewarding or bowing to coercion. But rejecting such an arrangement does nothing to address the continued threats to the kingdom’s oil infrastructure, which is likely to remain at significant risk so long as the Iran war continues to spread across the region.

The postponement also does not necessarily end the Iran–Oman track. Tehran and Muscat have discussed a temporary navigation framework involving routes through waters under their jurisdiction, and could potentially move ahead without a broader Gulf agreement.

Iranian officials are increasingly explicit about what they want in return for reducing pressure. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said Monday that there would be no new negotiations until Iran’s existing conditions were fulfilled, adding that the “equations concerning oil and the straits have changed.” President Masoud Pezeshkian has similarly said that if Washington returns to the Islamabad memorandum and implements its commitments, Tehran will implement its own.

Washington’s intensifying economic pressure is continuing, however. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has called on people worldwide to provide information about Iran’s remaining financial and commercial networks, saying actionable information could qualify for financial rewards. The initiative expands the U.S. campaign to sever Iran’s banking, shipping, aviation and other commercial connections. Washington is trying to demonstrate that Iran can be economically isolated without destabilizing the wider regional economy, while Tehran is using the vulnerability of regional energy routes to argue that the two cannot be separated.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing on Wednesday, adding another dimension to the diplomatic picture. China remains the largest buyer of Iranian oil and Tehran’s most important major-power economic partner. Wang called for Iran and the United States to return to the Islamabad understanding and resume substantive dialogue, while also emphasizing the importance of restoring navigation through the Strait of Hormuz to protect global energy supplies and supply chains. Beijing therefore has interests on both sides of the emerging equation: it opposes Washington’s escalating pressure on Iran but also has a major economic stake in restoring predictable energy flows through Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb. Araghchi’s visit also comes as a possible meeting between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump is being discussed, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has indicated he will be meeting his Chinese counterpart, He Lifeng, this coming weekend with Iran sanctions on the agenda.

The civilian costs are also spreading. Fighting in Yemen has displaced tens of thousands of people. Inside Iran, disruption to maritime imports and financial restrictions has sharply increased transportation costs for medicines and contributed to shortages of some imported drugs. Higher oil, insurance and shipping costs distribute the consequences well beyond the governments making the strategic decisions.

The central conclusion remains that Washington has not succeeded in separating Iran’s economic isolation from the security of its partners’ exports. Iranian crude exports through Hormuz remain effectively halted, but Saudi Arabia’s principal overland bypass has been badly damaged and the strategic balance around its Red Sea outlet has shifted in favor of the Houthis.

Hormuz itself is neither normally open nor completely closed. Tankers are adapting through limited crossings, reduced electronic visibility and ship-to-ship transfers. But Iran does not need to stop every tanker to preserve its leverage. It needs to make excluding Iran from regional energy trade sufficiently costly and risky for everyone else.

An Iran–Oman navigation arrangement therefore remains the most plausible near-term mechanism for reducing that pressure. Broader Gulf participation would make it more durable, but Tehran may not require unanimous regional approval to begin implementing a bilateral framework with Muscat. The developments of the past week suggest that Iran’s central strategic wager - that it cannot be economically isolated without imposing substantial costs on the wider region - has not yet been disproved.

Speaking Tuesday, Mohajerani said the latest increase had actually been scheduled for last winter but was postponed because of the war. “According to the government resolution, this adjustment was supposed to take place quarterly,” she said. She also addressed the question most important to Iranian motorists. “We hope there will be no need for any reduction in the first and second gasoline quotas,” Mohajerani said.

For now, those allocations remain unchanged: private motorists receive 60 liters per month at 1,500 tomans per liter and another 50 liters at 3,000 tomans. Gasoline purchased beyond those allocations now costs 10,000 tomans. Mohajerani also said all additional revenue generated by the higher price would be spent on household livelihoods and promised that if the government decides to take further action, it will speak with the public beforehand.

Taken together, the comments suggest that the recent doubling of the third-tier price should be understood not as a one-time adjustment, but as the first visible stage of a broader effort to gradually restructure one of Iran’s largest and most politically-sensitive subsidies. The government created the framework before the current war. A resolution adopted in November 2025 and amended the following month preserved the two heavily subsidized allocations while establishing a mechanism for reviewing the higher price charged through emergency fuel cards at filling stations.

Under the amended resolution, that higher rate is subject to quarterly review by a government working group, with changes requiring presidential approval. There is an important limitation. The resolution does not mandate quarterly increases in the 1,500 or 3,000 toman gasoline price tiers. The quarterly mechanism specifically applies to the least-subsidized tier. Mohajerani likewise did not say Tuesday that the government has decided to increase either of the two cheaper rates.

But rather than guaranteeing that the existing quotas will remain unchanged, Mohajerani said the government “hopes” there will be no need to reduce them. Even 10,000-toman gasoline remains heavily subsidized compared with what the government says it costs to obtain additional supplies. First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref has said imported gasoline costs the government more than 70,000 tomans per liter.

The government therefore appears to be keeping the politically sensitive core of the subsidy system intact while gradually increasing the price paid outside it. The difference is already substantial. A motorist using the first quota pays 1,500 tomans per liter; someone purchasing gasoline at the third-tier rate pays more than six times as much.

The problem facing the government is therefore straightforward but politically difficult: the gap between what consumers pay and what additional gasoline costs the state is enormous, but rapidly closing that gap would impose a major new burden on households already struggling with inflation and declining purchasing power.

Some newly registered vehicles valued above one billion tomans are being excluded from the standard cheap gasoline allocations and shifted toward the higher rate. The logic is that owners of more expensive vehicles should receive less government support for fuel. But inflation has complicated that distinction. A one-billion-toman vehicle in today’s Iran is not necessarily a luxury car. Years of inflation and currency depreciation have pushed some ordinary domestically-produced vehicles, including versions of the Peugeot 207, Tara and Dena Plus, toward or above that threshold.

Fuel-distribution officials have acknowledged that the threshold may need to be revised as vehicle prices rise. This points to the broader direction of the government’s strategy. Instead of eliminating cheap gasoline for everyone simultaneously, authorities can gradually determine who continues to receive it, how much they receive and what consumers pay after their allocation is exhausted.

There are strong economic pressures pushing the government in that direction. Iranian gasoline consumption has for years strained domestic production, leaving a country with some of the world’s largest hydrocarbon reserves dependent on gasoline imports. Extremely low prices encourage consumption, while inefficient vehicles and inadequate public transportation in many areas make reducing demand difficult.

War has made that imbalance more consequential. Damage and disruption affecting energy infrastructure, combined with greater difficulty obtaining imported fuel, have made the cost of maintaining extraordinarily=cheap gasoline harder for the government to absorb.

Gasoline prices carry a turbulent political history in Iran. In November 2019, authorities abruptly increased gasoline prices and introduced new rationing rules. Protests spread rapidly across the country and developed into a much broader confrontation with the political system. Security forces responded with lethal force, killing large numbers of protesters.

The government’s current strategy appears designed in part to avoid repeating that experience. Rather than imposing one dramatic nationwide increase, it is changing the system incrementally. Mohajerani’s promise that authorities will speak with the public before making further changes is notable in this context. She made a similar commitment when the current pricing framework was introduced last year.

The government’s effort to protect most motorists also explains why the first two quotas remain so important. Officials argue that the combined 110 liters available at 1,500 and 3,000 tomans are sufficient for most ordinary private motorists.

But the burden is not distributed evenly. Motorcycle couriers, delivery workers, taxi drivers and others who rely on vehicles for their livelihoods can exhaust subsidized allocations much more quickly. Representatives of Tehran’s light urban transport sector have said the monthly motorcycle allocation can last only a few days for full-time couriers. For these workers, the higher gasoline price comes alongside rising costs for tires, repairs and vehicle maintenance. Higher fuel consumption does not necessarily indicate greater wealth; in many cases it reflects the requirements of someone’s job.

That complicates the government’s attempt to distinguish between consumption that should remain heavily subsidized and consumption that should be priced closer to its actual cost. Aref has argued that people who frequently make discretionary long-distance journeys, including repeated trips to northern Iran, should pay more for the gasoline they consume. Critics inside Iran counter that consumer behavior is only one part of the country’s gasoline problem. Iran’s inefficient vehicle fleet, limited public transportation, urban development patterns and decades of government energy policy have also contributed to high consumption.

Mohajerani’s claim that all revenue generated by the latest gasoline increase will be spent on household livelihoods is another indication the government is seeking to manage public perceptions regarding gasoline pricing. The government is simultaneously discussing greater assistance through Iran’s kalabarg, or electronic coupon system, as rising food, medicine, housing and other costs put increasing pressure on household budgets. The implied strategy is redistribution rather than simply cutting subsidies: consumers using more gasoline and falling outside the categories receiving the cheapest fuel pay more, while some of the resulting resources are redirected toward household assistance.

Whether that works as promised will be crucial. Iranian households have repeatedly experienced price increases whose effects were immediate while compensation was delayed, inadequate or rapidly eroded by inflation.

Mohajerani’s comments now make the larger policy clearer. Iran is not preparing to eliminate gasoline subsidies overnight. It is building a system in which the government can periodically raise the least-subsidized price, narrow eligibility for cheap gasoline and potentially adjust quotas while attempting to shield most motorists from an immediate shock. The recent move from 5,000 to 10,000 tomans was therefore important not only because gasoline became more expensive. It demonstrated how the government intends to approach a problem Iranian governments have struggled with for decades.

The question is no longer simply whether gasoline prices will rise. It is how far Tehran can gradually move consumers away from extraordinarily cheap fuel - quarter by quarter and category by category - without turning an economic necessity into another major social and political crisis.

Tehran says it has reached an understanding with Oman on a map of shipping routes and is negotiating a joint statement. It blames U.S. military intervention and the naval blockade for delaying that announcement. Agreement between Iran and Oman would be a diplomatic step, but would still require wider cooperation to make passage dependable.

Pakistani mediation is also continuing. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi spoke with Pakistan’s military chief Asim Munir on September 10. Iran’s account emphasized regional insecurity; a Pakistani security official told Reuters that reducing tensions across all fronts and restarting negotiations were central to the call. Fighting between the Houthis and Yemen’s Saudi-backed government was also discussed.

These contacts follow a substantial escalation late on September 8, when U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said it struck and incapacitated five Iranian tankers after Iranian ballistic missiles were intercepted before they could strike an American warship. It identified four vessels in the Gulf of Oman and another near Kharg Island, and said crews had been warned to evacuate. CENTCOM said the targeted American warship had evaded the attacks without injury to its personnel.

Iran retaliated against Muwaffaq Salti Air Base near Azraq, Jordan, claiming hits on aircraft facilities and hangars. Jordanian authorities said they intercepted 18 of 20 missiles and initially reported no casualties.

Subsequent reporting indicates that the absence of reported deaths did not mean the base escaped damage. CBS News, citing people with direct knowledge, reported that roughly eight F-15 aircraft sustained light damage and returned to service after repairs, while an A-10 attack aircraft lost a wing. It reported no American deaths and said U.S. forces fired more than 30 Patriot interceptors during the attack.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) separately claimed attacks on two American vessels, eight tankers and ten additional ships it described as violating its navigation restrictions. CENTCOM denied that American ships had been hit. The reported aircraft damage in Jordan does not substantiate the separate Iranian claims about warships or every commercial vessel listed in its statements.

Civilian shipping losses are clearer. A September 9 attack on the tanker Hercules Star reportedly killed one crew member, injured another and left another missing. A United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) warning that day also recorded a tanker struck by an unidentified projectile 28 nautical miles southeast of Al-Faw, Iraq; its crew was reported safe, with no environmental impact reported at the time.

On September 10, UKMTO recorded another incident near Khasab, Oman: a ship’s master saw four projectiles strike two vessels, setting one ablaze. The warning did not identify the attacker. Attacks on merchant shipping therefore continued into September 10, although responsibility for these particular strikes was not established by the warning.

Iran also announced a strike on an American Saildrone unmanned surface vessel, hull number 5838. This was separate from the underwater vehicle it had captured and displayed earlier in the week. CENTCOM subsequently acknowledged that a U.S. underwater drone had malfunctioned more than a day before its recovery, describing it as an older model without classified sensors or sensitive intelligence. That account disputed Tehran’s presentation of the capture as an operational and technological success.

As of September 11, no further U.S. strikes on Iranian tankers had been publicly announced after the September 8 operation. Iran continued to assert control over Hormuz, and merchant shipping remained under attack. Whether Washington will continue its tanker-for-ship retaliation policy - and whether attacks on commercial shipping will trigger it alongside attacks on U.S. naval vessels - remains an immediate test of the confrontation.

Traffic figures show continuing constraints on navigation. Preliminary Kpler data reported by Reuters recorded seven Hormuz transits on September 10, down from eleven the previous day and a ten-day average of fifteen. The tally excluded vessels potentially traveling with their automatic identification system transponders switched off.

The continued gains from Houthi forces along Yemen’s western coast near the Bab El-Mandeb Strait intensified economic blowback and rattled perceptions of increasing American leverage. Likewise, reports indicate that drones struck on Saudi Arabia’s vital East-West pipeline, with reports Friday indicating that extensive fires were caused by an explosion at a pumping station along the corridor. The damage is at least temporarily disrupting the kingdom’s bypass to the Strait of Hormuz. It remains unclear where the attack originated from, with both militias in Iraq and Houthi forces capable of executing the strike.

Inside Iran, the debate increasingly concerns what an agreement should achieve and whether pursuing it weakens the country’s bargaining position. On September 10, Former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif proposed a framework in the German publication Zenith: a multinational enrichment consortium involving Iran, interested Gulf states and international partners that would link nuclear cooperation to regional security. However, conservative critics have argued that concessions would surrender leverage without ending foreign hostility.

Zarif argued that demands for zero enrichment would prolong the impasse and proposed shared facilities, potentially in Iran and elsewhere in the region, with joint participation and oversight. Zarif linked that arrangement to institutionalized regional dialogue, nonaggression commitments and maritime security that permits Iran to benefit from trade. His proposal is not an announced government negotiating position. Nevertheless, the planned Oman meeting gives practical relevance to his argument that nuclear and maritime disputes cannot be resolved independently of the region’s broader security relationships.

Former President Hassan Rouhani has made a more direct case for an honorable end to the war. In remarks published earlier in September and debated in Iranian media this week, he emphasized reconstruction, investment and restoring young people’s confidence in their future. He challenged the idea that a vocal minority with powerful media platforms represented the population as a whole.

Rouhani also argued that the Strait of Hormuz should support commercial prosperity as well as Iranian and Omani security, questioning the value of a strait without shipping. While he suggested that Iran should maintain the option for closure amid an impasse, conservative commentary accused him of offering to relinquish Iran’s strongest bargaining asset.

Mehdi Mohammadi, an adviser to Ghalibaf, questioned the motives behind renewed calls for compromise. Referring to former presidents Mohammad Khatami and Rouhani, alongside unnamed clerics, he characterized their message as an argument that people were exhausted by war and Iran should make the concessions necessary to end it. He disputed the assumptions that concessions would secure peace and that the population would no longer sustain an uncompromising course.

Mohammadi suggested that these interventions could serve an enemy effort to sow domestic division, even without the speakers’ awareness. He offered no evidence of coordination in the remarks. His criticism brings the argument over compromise into Ghalibaf’s own circle and shows how advocacy of a settlement can become a question of political loyalty.

Negotiation also has defenders within the conservative establishment. A September 8 Roozno article defended Rouhani’s right to speak and criticized efforts to restrict debate to one political tendency. In an August 26 response to Kayhan editor Hossein Shariatmadari, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf rejected treating diplomacy as taboo. He described negotiations as a way to advance national interests and consolidate resistance, criticizing those who avoided responsibility for talks while preparing to brand their results a betrayal. Ghalibaf nevertheless continues to describe negotiation as a method of struggle, leaving room for a settlement within the political language of resistance.

A more uncompromising argument came from Mashhad Friday prayer leader Ahmad Alamolhoda on September 11. He blamed the current war on concessions under the 2015 nuclear agreement, claiming that accommodating Western demands had failed to end hostility. He said Iran must defend itself even if its enemy fought for “200,000 years,” and advocated offensive defense intended to maintain superior firepower.

His remarks framed continued fighting as a response to aggression. They nonetheless challenged the expectation that compromise could deliver security. Where Zarif presents reciprocal diplomacy as an approach undermined by renewed coercion, Alamolhoda treats past accommodation as evidence against negotiations moving forward.

The immediate diplomatic obstacle is not exclusively inside Iran. On September 9, President Donald Trump predicted the war would end after the U.S. midterm elections and said Washington was not actively seeking negotiations. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has also threatened severe strikes on Iran’s energy infrastructure if Iran attacked Israel.

The new regional meeting and Pakistani contacts create an opening, not an announced settlement. These exchanges establish neither a consensus within the government nor the balance of public opinion. They show that competing routes out of the war remain openly contested. The test for the Oman initiative will be whether discussions can produce reciprocal steps on shipping and economic restrictions that also disincentivize additional military strikes.

Iranian officials have responded to American sanctions on the nation’s aviation sector with confidence, while industry figures have reflected concern. Civil Aviation Organization chief Abouzar Shiroudi described aviation sanctions as a failed policy and said they would not stop the sector’s operations, while acknowledging that restrictions could complicate procurement.

However, the country’s airline association has warned of consequences for passenger access and aircraft maintenance. The Association of Iranian Airlines focused on the infrastructure needed to sustain its operations. Its statement warned that intensified restrictions on parts, equipment and technical services could undermine flight safety and continuity. It urged international aviation bodies, including International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and International Air Transport Association (IATA), to address the consequences for passengers and aviation workers, arguing that access to civilian transportation should be protected from political disputes.

For passengers, the consequences depend partly on how foreign airports, service providers and airlines implement the measures. As of September 9, Imam Khomeini Airport’s director said no flights there had been canceled because of the new sanctions. However, the broader operational impact remains unclear. The announced restrictions are likely to reduce direct connections and increase reliance on journeys through third countries. Additional connections can mean separate tickets, overnight accommodation, transit requirements and more opportunities for missed departures.

These burdens matter particularly for trips with little flexibility: visiting an ill parent, attending a university enrollment appointment or reaching a hospital for scheduled treatment are likely to grow more difficult. An affordable ticket can become unusable if the connection requires a visa the passenger cannot obtain.

War and sanctions create different obstacles to the same journey. Fighting can close airspace or lead airlines to suspend routes because of immediate security risks. Sanctions can obstruct payments, aircraft servicing and commercial relationships even when a route is physically open. Restoring security therefore does not automatically restore the services needed to operate.

The airline association’s safety warning also has a practical technical basis. Aircraft maintenance requires traceable components, records showing how long parts have been used, and compliance with inspection and replacement schedules. Engine repairs may require specialized tools, approved technical instructions and access to qualified repair facilities. Having a replacement part available is only one element of returning an aircraft to service.

When required maintenance cannot be completed, an aircraft may have to remain grounded. That reduces the number of available seats and leaves airlines with fewer replacement aircraft when another plane needs repairs. The effects can appear as thinner schedules and cancellations before passengers see any broader interruption of service. Restrictions on maintenance increase the difficulty of sustaining a usable fleet; they do not, by themselves, establish that every operating aircraft is unsafe.

Separately, the suspension of general licensing impacting academic institutions are already excluding Iranians in and outside the country from significant educational services. Following the suspension of the U.S. authorization known as General License G, ETS announced that it had paused TOEFL and GRE testing within Iran and canceled future appointments there. It also set September 8 as the deadline for people located in Iran to request additional reports of existing scores. ETS said Iranian nationals remain eligible to take its tests outside Iran, subject to registration requirements and appointment availability. Its restriction is therefore based on location. However, this will now necessitate an applicant to arrange an international trip simply to complete an admissions requirement.

That is where restrictions on education and aviation intersect. A student who previously could take a test locally may now need foreign currency for transportation and accommodation, permission to enter another country and a suitable appointment before an application deadline. A refund of the original examination fee does not cover those additional expenses or recover a missed admissions cycle.

Other providers’ responses have extended beyond testing centers inside Iran. On September 4, NIAC reported that Pearson had canceled scheduled PTE English examinations and invalidated prepaid vouchers for Iranian test takers outside the country, citing U.S. sanctions. Likewise, NIAC reported on September 10 that LSAC, the administrator of the LSAT legal admissions exam had barred individuals of Iranian heritage in light of the sanctions, including in the United States. This places an obstacle at an early stage of a legal career, potentially disrupting applications before a student begins professional training. It also brings the effects of Iran sanctions into institutions serving people already living in North America.

The differing approaches create another difficulty for applicants: traveling abroad does not necessarily resolve the problem across providers. Eligibility may depend on residence, identification documents and the company’s interpretation of sanctions. Students must establish whether they can actually sit an examination before committing money to travel and accommodation.

Together, these restrictions illustrate how a broader sanctions campaign can have impacts far removed from decisionmakers in Tehran. Some advocates of tougher sanctions explicitly favor extending the campaign’s operational reach - including by advocating aggressive enforcement actions targeting Iran’s civilian air sector. Pro-war pundits with influence in the Trump administration have framed sustained economic crisis as a potentially greater threat to Iran’s government than additional military attacks. This argument treats the government’s inability to stabilize economic life as a source of political vulnerability.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich expressed a more explicit version of that logic in an interview with Israeli television. He described overthrowing Iran’s government as the overarching objective and argued that economic pressure could help bring it down by forcing Iranian civilians into an impossible situation. “In the end, the Iranian citizens will have nothing to lose, you have your back against the wall and nothing to eat and you have nothing to drink and you have no job and no electricity.” Smotrich has a history of issuing genocidal commentary in support of Israel’s military operations in Gaza, and his formula for Iran is similar - massive collective punishment of a civilian population as part of a convoluted path toward regime change in Iran.

These arguments differ in their proposed instruments and severity, but they expose the central political assumption behind escalating pressure: that worsening economic conditions are supposed to translate into a challenge capable of bringing down the Iranian government. That outcome is a prediction. Yet, with economic pressure mounting for years, the impacts have been felt primarily by ordinary civilians in Iran. Now, the removal of longstanding exemptions amid a saturated sanctions environment is impacting individuals even further removed from decisionmakers in Iran - including aspiring students in the United States.

For Iranian aviation professionals, the immediate demand is continued access to the supplies and cooperation required for safe transportation. For affected students and aspiring lawyers, it is restoration of examination access before deadlines pass. Both concerns focus on the capacity of ordinary people to maintain relationships and build a future, even as confrontation deepens.

The Associated Press reported the capture of Mokha on September 10, while Reuters cited two Presidential Leadership Council sources saying Houthi forces had reached the Hanish islands, which are positioned just to the north of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the center of the Red Sea. Tareq Saleh, a commander aligned with the Presidential Leadership Council, acknowledged withdrawing south of Mokha to regroup. Together, these developments point to a significant reversal along the western coast, although the extent and durability of Houthi control over offshore positions remain unclear.

The advance follows escalating attacks between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia following the Saudi kingdom’s bombing of Sanaa International Airport on July 13, which was intended to disrupt an incoming flight from Iran. Saudi authorities reported that Houthi strikes on September 8 wounded 73 people and set oil installations ablaze. The Saudi-led coalition reported further missile and drone attacks the following day against Abha, Khamis Mushait and Jazan. The fighting has increasingly connected Yemen’s territorial conflict with the security of Saudi energy infrastructure and regional shipping.

Mokha matters because it anchors a strategically important stretch of Yemen’s Red Sea coast north of Bab el-Mandeb. Its capture removes a major Presidential Leadership Council-held position and gives the Houthis a stronger base from which to press south. The Hanish islands lie offshore, farther north than the narrowest section of the strait. An enduring Houthi presence there could broaden the movement’s maritime reach, but reports of forces reaching the islands do not establish that the entire archipelago has been secured.

Farther south, Dhubab and Mayun - also known as Perim Island - are particularly consequential because of their proximity to the passage itself. Control over these locations would have more direct implications for the immediate approaches to Bab el-Mandeb. Available reporting does not establish that both have fallen to the Houthis, making their status important to assessing the offensive’s next stage.

The inland terrain could be equally important to whether the coastal gains endure. The mountainous areas of southwestern Taiz - subject to a longstanding Houthi siege - could make Houthi positions considerably harder to recapture than territory across the coastal lowlands. If secured and fortified, these heights could provide a substantial defensive advantage, complicating counterattacks and helping protect routes supplying coastal forces. Positions overlooking the approaches to Bab el-Mandeb could also improve the ability to monitor and threaten movement toward the strait. The capture of the entire southern Taiz highlands, including al-Turbah, has not been established, but their strategic importance lies in the possibility of turning a rapid advance into a durable foothold.

The distinction between threatening a waterway and fully controlling it remains essential. Possession of Yemen’s shoreline would not automatically give the Houthis uncontested command of an international passage. Yet they would not need complete control to impose substantial costs. Shipping companies and insurers can reduce traffic, reroute vessels or raise charges in response to a credible and persistent risk of attack.

For Saudi Arabia, the kingdom’s primary alternative to the disrupted Strait of Hormuz has become increasingly vulnerable in its own right. The kingdom’s East-West pipeline carries crude across Saudi territory to Yanbu on the Red Sea, allowing exports to bypass the Persian Gulf chokepoint. Southbound shipments from Yanbu toward Asian markets, however, still pass through Bab el-Mandeb. Northbound exports toward Suez follow a different route, so disruption at the strait would not eliminate every Saudi export option. It would nevertheless constrain an important outlet at a time when alternatives are already under pressure.

The economic effects are visible. The Financial Times reported that Saudi oil production fell to approximately 6.2 million barrels a day in August, down 23 percent from July, while crude exports declined to around 3.1 million barrels a day. The report linked the deterioration to Houthi threats against Saudi ports and disruption to shipping on the kingdom’s western coast. These pressures preceded Mokha’s fall; the latest territorial gains could make them more difficult to contain.

Oil prices rose sharply on September 10. Reuters reported Brent reaching $107.08 a barrel and U.S. crude $101.62 during trading, with increases of roughly six percent amid renewed tanker attacks and concerns about further supply losses.

For Iran, the potential strategic gain comes from simultaneous pressure on the Gulf and Red Sea export corridors. Iran’s disruption of the Strait of Hormuz has increased the value of alternative routes. Houthi pressure around Yemen can reduce the reliability of one of the most important alternatives, making it harder for Washington and its partners to sustain the confrontation while containing its economic consequences.

Increasing vulnerability for Saudi exports can tighten global supply and raise fuel prices. Protecting additional shipping routes can increase military demands on the United States and its partners. Continued insecurity can also give regional governments stronger incentives to seek an agreement that restores navigation. If Tehran can help deliver that outcome, its influence could become more valuable at the negotiating table.

A September 10 Reuters investigation, citing Iranian, Yemeni and regional sources, reported that Iranian weapons and Revolutionary Guard guidance assisted the Houthi offensive. Iran denies directing the movement’s operations, and there is both evidence of tight coordination between Tehran and the Houthis and indications that the Houthis remain an independent actor. For example, Iran is believed to have warned the Houthis against occupying Yemen’s capital Sanaa when the country’s ongoing civil war first ignited in 2014. The extent of Tehran’s influence matters: benefiting from an ally’s military pressure is different from being able to guarantee that the pressure will end. Any diplomatic bargain connecting the two conflicts would need to account for the Houthis’ own interests and demands.

Divisions among their opponents could further complicate efforts to reverse the advances. The anti-Houthi camp includes factions with different political objectives and relationships with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Saleh’s forces, originally established with Emirati support, favor a unified Yemen and have maintained Saudi ties. Southern separatists have pursued a different political project. The Associated Press also reported that separatist supporters obstructed the defense minister’s convoy in al-Dhalea, illustrating tensions within the broader government-aligned camp.

The offensive could therefore change the regional conditions under which the Iran–U.S. war is contested and the leverage each side will have should negotiations resume to end it. Holding Mokha, consolidating inland defenses and extending influence toward Bab el-Mandeb could give the Houthis a more enduring ability to threaten Saudi export routes, and give Iran additional bargaining power. That advantage remains conditional. Washington and Riyadh could respond with further escalation that alters the dynamics on the ground, while higher energy prices and prolonged insecurity are likely to deepen civilian hardship. For ordinary Iranians and other regional populations, any gains or losses of leverage will be most consequential if they can be traded in for an agreement that reduces the fighting, eases economic pressure and restores trade.

The decision does not automatically impose new sanctions or authorize military action. It provides a fresh basis for UN Security Council consideration of unresolved safeguards issues, alongside a separate dispute over the restoration of earlier sanctions. For Iran, the immediate consequences are increased diplomatic pressure and the possibility of a deeper breakdown with the international nuclear monitoring agency.

Tehran’s response centers on how inspections should operate after safeguarded nuclear facilities have been attacked. In comments published September 9, Iran’s representative in Vienna, Reza Najafi, said continuing wartime conditions prevented Iran from properly preparing and providing information about affected facilities for safety and security reasons. He also rejected the legal basis for restoring earlier Security Council resolutions nearly one year ago. Iran has separately requested that the IAEA’s September 14–18 General Conference consider prohibiting attacks and threats against peaceful nuclear facilities under safeguards. Its submission argues that such attacks undermine nuclear safety, confidence in inspections and the agency’s responsibility to support peaceful nuclear activities. The request has entered the conference’s supplementary agenda process; the proposal itself has not been adopted.

The IAEA says it lacks the information and access necessary to verify the status of Iran’s declared nuclear facilities and material. Director General Rafael Grossi told the board that, during the latest reporting period, inspectors had neither received the required information nor obtained access for on-site verification. He also warned that attacks on nuclear facilities anywhere create unacceptable risks for people and the environment.

This verification gap represents a serious proliferation concern. While the agency had serious questions over past nuclear activities before the June 2025 war, the agency has now been barred from inspections for 15 months. The immediate questions concern the location, condition and accounting of nuclear material, alongside unresolved investigations into past undeclared activities. Damage to facilities and subsequent restrictions on inspections have added another layer of uncertainty.

Iran’s first UN Security Council referral followed a similar sequence of an IAEA noncompliance finding and a separate decision to report the matter. In September 2005, the board determined that Iran’s failures to declare nuclear material and activities constituted noncompliance with its safeguards agreement. In February 2006, it requested that the director general report the issue and relevant agency documents to the UN Security Council.

Council action developed over several years. Resolution 1696, adopted in July 2006, demanded that Iran suspend enrichment-related and reprocessing activities. Resolution 1737 imposed sanctions that December, including restrictions on sensitive nuclear transfers and asset freezes. Further resolutions in 2007, 2008 and 2010 expanded restrictions involving designated entities, weapons transfers and proliferation-related financial activities.

The economic isolation that followed was broader than the UN sanctions themselves. Washington adopted additional restrictions under its own authorities, enforcing tough extraterritorial sanctions that severed Iran’s trade relationships with many countries around the world. Together, these overlapping measures restricted Iran’s trade, access to foreign exchange and connections to international banking, triggering a significant economic downturn.

The 2015 nuclear agreement demonstrated that the dispute could be managed through negotiated limits, extensive verification and reciprocal sanctions relief. Security Council Resolution 2231 endorsed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and waived prior Security Council resolutions. The IAEA subsequently verified Iran’s implementation of its nuclear commitments throughout the implementation of the accord, providing a framework for addressing proliferation concerns through diplomacy.

However, the United States withdrew from the agreement in May 2018 while the IAEA was continuing to verify Iran’s implementation, ending that bargain. Washington restored sanctions despite the agreement’s nuclear restrictions remaining in place. Iran began progressively exceeding those limits a year later and subsequently curtailed monitoring, including implementation of the Additional Protocol in February 2021. Iran’s decisions weakened verification and did not remove its underlying safeguards obligations. But the sequence matters: the agreement’s unraveling followed Washington’s abandonment of a functioning diplomatic framework.

The withdrawal also created a lasting credibility problem for negotiations. From Tehran’s perspective, accepting restrictions and inspections had not secured durable economic relief. A subsequent agreement would therefore have to address whether reciprocal commitments could survive changes in American policy, as well as the scope of Iran’s nuclear activities.

The diminished inspections and advancing nuclear program led directly to U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025. After the war was launched immediately following the passage of a separate IAEA resolution declaring Iran in breach of its safeguard obligations, Iranian cooperation with the agency has deteriorated considerably. Since that time, inspectors have been barred from accessing the damaged sites and negotiations on the nuclear program have not yet borne fruit. Damage to infrastructure complicated verification, while the targeting of safeguarded sites deepened Tehran’s doubts about the security benefits of nuclear cooperation. The attacks did not resolve outstanding questions about nuclear material: determining its location and condition still requires information, access and cooperation.

Iran now invokes wartime safety and security concerns to explain restrictions on access to affected facilities. Those concerns require practical arrangements for inspections rather than indefinite suspension of verification. Equally, demands for renewed access must account for conditions at damaged sites and the possibility of further attacks. Restoring cooperation requires addressing both the agency’s information needs and the security environment in which inspections would occur.

Iran continues to dispute the sanctions “snapback” pursued in September 2025. Following that process, UN resolutions that had been waived under the 2015 nuclear deal came back into force. The EU separately reinstated nuclear-related economic restrictions. Iran, Russia and China reject the legal validity of that restoration. This distinction has generated competing interpretations inside Iran. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei questioned why Western governments needed another referral if they considered earlier resolutions restored. He portrayed the initiative as an effort to increase political pressure and warned of an Iranian response.

Russia and China’s opposition constrains what happens next, but does not shield Iran from all additional pressure. New substantive Security Council measures generally require at least nine affirmative votes and no veto from a permanent member. Their positions make agreement on further punitive measures more difficult. Neither country, however, can prevent Washington or European governments from imposing restrictions independently.

For ordinary Iranians, the economic effects will depend largely on subsequent decisions. Additional restrictions or heightened uncertainty could discourage transactions, increase costs and complicate investment and reconstruction. These are plausible risks, rather than demonstrated effects of the September 9 vote.

The historical record illustrates the stakes. The World Bank found that Iran’s non-oil growth was close to zero on average during 2012–15, before recovering following sanctions relief. Sanctions were not the only source of economic weakness, but prolonged restrictions on trade and finance narrowed opportunities for businesses and households.

Humanitarian exemptions have also proved insufficient when payment channels fail. Human Rights Watch documented how financial restrictions and companies’ fear of sanctions obstructed medicine imports following the restoration of U.S. sanctions, despite exemptions for humanitarian goods. Further banking restrictions or avoidance of otherwise lawful trade could reproduce those problems. Any resulting harm should be traced to the specific measures and commercial decisions involved, rather than automatically attributed to the IAEA vote.

The referral provides no authorization for military action. Nevertheless, unresolved nuclear questions in a wartime setting can intensify threat perceptions and narrow diplomatic options. The challenge now extends beyond securing another Iranian commitment on inspections: it also involves rebuilding confidence that negotiated commitments will be reciprocated and that safeguarded facilities will not remain exposed to attack.

A durable settlement would need to restore credible verification while addressing the reliability of sanctions relief and the security of nuclear facilities. Additional resolutions can increase pressure, but they cannot by themselves repair the obstacles created by the U.S. withdrawal from the earlier agreement, subsequent Iranian nuclear escalation and military attacks. The practical measure of success will be renewed access, reliable material accounting and an agreement that gives all parties a reason to sustain cooperation.

Drug prices were already climbing before the latest currency movement. In an August 28 interview, Hadi Ahmadi, spokesperson for the Iranian Pharmacists Association, estimated that prices had increased by an average of about 80 percent since the Iranian year began in March, with some products registering increases of 300 percent. These figures represent the association’s assessment rather than a published national price index. They do not establish an equivalent increase in every patient’s payment, which depends on insurance coverage, but indicate the burden confronting institutions expected to protect patients.

The connection between the dollar and the pharmacy bill is significant but uneven. Iran maintains multiple exchange rates, including subsidized currency for eligible pharmaceutical imports. An April announcement retained a rate of 28,500 tomans per dollar for qualifying pharmaceutical and medical imports, with the central bank supplying currency from government revenues associated with oil and gas exports. The free-market rate therefore cannot simply be used to calculate the cost of every imported medicine.

The crucial question is whether companies receive their allocations and can transfer payment to suppliers. A September 1 report by Mehr emphasized the distinction between approved foreign currency and usable funds. Domestic manufacturers also need imported ingredients, equipment and other inputs. Producing a medicine inside Iran does not eliminate exposure to currency shortages or international supply disruptions.

The widening gap between subsidized and other exchange rates makes access to preferential allocations increasingly consequential. A manufacturer forced to purchase inputs through a more expensive channel needs additional financing before producing its next batch. September’s dollar jump adds pressure to a system already struggling to absorb earlier increases, even where regulated prices do not change immediately.

The blockade creates a separate logistical constraint. Pharmaceutical ingredients and equipment must reach Iran through functioning transport routes, and replacing disrupted routes can require more time and money. Ahmadi warned that prolonged maritime restrictions would make alternative arrangements costlier and could eventually produce shortages. His warning concerned the sustainability of supply rather than demonstrating that all medicines were already scarce.

Health officials say alternative routes and emergency shipments have helped sustain supplies. Health Ministry spokesperson Hossein Kermanpour recently described measures combining strategic reserves, alternative suppliers, domestic manufacturing and the prioritization of essential products. Some reserves had been released to meet immediate needs, while emergency air shipments had entered when regular arrangements proved inadequate. These measures show that supplies are still reaching Iran, although they do not establish that substitute routes can deliver the same volumes at the same cost indefinitely.

Kermanpour also acknowledged that vulnerabilities predated the war. Delays in foreign-currency transfers, funding allocations and price adjustments had already strained pharmaceutical companies. Wartime transport restrictions, damage to factories and disruptions to raw-material supplies then added further difficulties. Companies waiting for funding have less flexibility to finance expensive alternative shipments, while longer delivery schedules complicate production planning.

Health Minister Mohammad-Reza Zafarghandi has similarly attributed rising costs to transportation, pharmaceutical inputs and packaging materials. In remarks reported earlier this month, he argued that restrictions on shipping and flights affect medicine supplies even when medicines themselves are described as exempt from sanctions. He maintained that shortages had not worsened relative to the period before the war, yet availability is also distinct from cost.

Patient advocates have described the consequences more directly. In an interview published by Iran Unfiltered on August 24, Amin Afshar, chairman of the Iranian Hemophilia Society’s board, told interviewer Maryam Shirinsokhan that severe shortages affected around 4,000 patients, including people with Factor XIII deficiency and severe von Willebrand disease. He described obstacles involving banking, shipment insurance, transportation, export approvals and companies’ fears of secondary sanctions.

Afshar cited an attempted donation by the World Federation of Hemophilia that, he said, never reached Iran because the necessary approvals were not granted—even though no commercial payment was involved. He also acknowledged domestic problems, including delayed currency allocations, insurance difficulties and bureaucracy. His account underscores how external restrictions and domestic failures can reinforce each other, with patients bearing the consequences.

Other patient representatives had raised similar concerns earlier this year. At an April 27 gathering, Ahmad Ghavidel, a former director of the Iranian Hemophilia Society, criticized the contradiction between declaring medicines exempt and restricting the shipping and payment channels needed to obtain them. Masoumeh Sadeghzadeh Boroujeni, the society’s managing director, likewise said banking and freight-insurance restrictions obstructed imports and access to newer treatments.

That discussion also demonstrated differences between patient groups. Younes Arab, head of the Iranian Thalassemia Association, criticized barriers to newer medicines and wartime transport disruptions, but said expanded insurance coverage had prevented increases in copayments for foreign thalassemia medicines at that time. Effective coverage can therefore protect patients even when underlying prices rise.

For people requiring repeat prescriptions, affordability remains a continuing concern. An increase can become a recurring household expense. Maintaining supplies through costlier routes may prevent shortages while leaving the financial burden unresolved. The response depends on how additional costs are distributed among suppliers, insurers, public subsidies and families.

The September 9 insurance announcement addresses part of that chain. Maryam Azadi, the Health Insurance Organization’s director for specialized and subspecialized services, confirmed that several rounds of medicine price increases had occurred since March. The latest revisions had been incorporated following notification from the Supreme Health Insurance Council. Her statement did not provide a breakdown of patients’ payments or explain whether those who had already paid higher charges would receive reimbursement.

Hossein-Ali Haji-Deligani, deputy chair of parliament’s Article 90 oversight commission, said revised prices for medicines including mercaptopurine and amphotericin B were reaching pharmacies before corresponding insurance coverage became operational. Patients were being required to pay the difference, potentially facing elevated expenses for as much as a month. He proposed updating insurance systems before pharmacies applied new prices. Patients needing continuing treatment cannot necessarily wait for those adjustments.

The issue becomes more consequential as officials debate pharmaceutical subsidies. Economy Minister Ali Madanizadeh has called for a support arrangement that would permit the removal of preferential exchange rates, with assistance reaching consumers through insurance under the Daruyar framework. Food and Drug Administration officials have cautioned against interpreting changes affecting certain production inputs as an immediate withdrawal of subsidized currency throughout the sector. The practical question is whether insurers can reliably deliver the protection reform requires.

Pensioners’ representatives are already questioning that reliability. Ali-Akbar Eivazi, secretary of Tehran province’s Social Security pensioners’ association, has described medicine prices and access as major difficulties for insured families. His criticism concerns Social Security, a separate insurer from the Health Insurance Organization. An adjustment in one system does not establish equivalent protection in another.

Pharmacies face another difficulty even after coverage is approved: collecting payment. In a September 5 statement, the Iranian Pharmacists Association said Health Insurance’s debts to private pharmacies stretched back ten months and urged the government to prioritize pharmaceutical funding. Pharmacies awaiting reimbursement must continue financing replacement stock. Rising prices make that gap harder to sustain.

The evidence points to a cumulative squeeze: currency instability raises financing pressures, the blockade complicates supply, and domestic payment delays undermine patient protection. Alternative routes need dependable funding, while expanded coverage requires timely reimbursement. Iranian authorities remain responsible for coordinating price changes and paying obligations. For families, the measure of success as external restrictions continue is whether the next prescription is both available and affordable.

Mojabi’s death has prompted remembrances of him as an unusually versatile cultural figure. Readers knew him through poetry, fiction and satire; artists encountered him as a critic and chronicler of modern Iranian art. His working life also extended through newspaper offices and literary magazines. His published work includes more than 70 books, spanning poetry collections, novels, short stories, plays, children’s literature and critical studies.

Born in Qazvin in 1939, Mojabi grew up in a family whose traditions included storytelling, religious oratory and journalism. In his autobiographical recollections, he described encountering newspapers from across Iran at his uncle’s home. He traced part of his enduring appetite for reading and writing to those early experiences, and connected his humor to a family culture of joking and verbal invention.

He later studied at the University of Tehran and worked in government before becoming a prominent cultural journalist. From 1968 to 1979, he served as cultural editor of Ettela’at, one of Iran’s major newspapers. He also contributed to literary publications including Ferdowsi, Jahan-e Now, Khusheh, Adineh and Donyaye Sokhan, where he also served as editor. His career crossed the 1979 revolution and continued through decades of change in Iran’s literary life.

For Mojabi, satire was a way of questioning power, including the authority exercised by society itself. In a 2011 interview, he explained that satire was dangerous because it challenged power, but stressed that power extended beyond government to public opinion, rituals and customs. Social habits and accepted beliefs, in his view, were also subjects for critical scrutiny.

His intellectual development was similarly grounded in the freedom to reconsider inherited ideas. In a 2017 interview, Mojabi described moving to Tehran for university as a period of personal transformation. Exposure to existentialist thought encouraged him to consider how he could choose his own life and values. He identified freedom, justice and the rejection of racial and gender discrimination as principles central to his outlook. He said he had initially studied law hoping to advance justice as a judge, though he ultimately did not pursue that profession.

Alongside his writing, Mojabi helped preserve the history of modern Iranian visual art. His two-volume Ninety Years of Innovation in Iranian Visual Art drew on years of research into the development of modern painting and sculpture. The work documented artistic experimentation across generations, providing a lasting resource for understanding the people and ideas that shaped Iran’s modern art.

Mojabi continued creating during his final illness. Drawings and paintings made during his hospitalization at Iranmehr Hospital were presented under the title The White Nights of the Hospital and Me. Those works add a personal dimension to the extensive record he leaves behind: even during treatment, he continued finding material for art in his immediate surroundings.

The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) extends its deepest condolences to Javad Mojabi’s family, friends and all those mourning his passing. We honor his more than six decades of contributions to Iranian literature and the arts, his dedication to preserving Iran’s cultural heritage, and the generosity with which he encouraged younger writers and artists. His poetry, stories, humor and scholarship leave an enduring legacy for readers and creative communities in Iran and around the world.

The latest exchange expanded the American campaign against Iran’s tanker fleet. U.S. Central Command said Saturday that it struck three Iranian oil tankers after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired ballistic missiles at two American naval vessels. Admiral Brad Cooper, CENTCOM’s commander, explicitly linked the response to economic damage, signaling that firing at American warships would bring greater losses to Iran’s commercial fleet. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reinforced the threat, saying further Iranian attacks on U.S. vessels would be answered by destroying Iranian tankers.

That formulation broadens the retaliatory policy Washington had already begun implementing. Earlier attacks were described as a response to Iranian strikes on commercial shipping. The latest announcement also makes Iran’s oil carriers potential targets following attacks on American military vessels.

Iranian reporting placed one attack near Kharg Island, a major center of the country’s oil exports. Reports from the area described a tanker struck near the island’s anchorage, while Iranian state broadcasting said crews from two attacked tankers reached shore in lifeboats. One was reportedly empty and the other was carrying oil. The accounts provide a reminder that attacks intended to impose economic losses also expose civilian crews to the fighting.

Iran responded with additional attacks and warnings, although the results of its operations remain unverified. The IRGC said it targeted three tankers traveling through unauthorized routes in the Strait of Hormuz along with three other U.S.-linked vessels. It separately announced an attack on an American unmanned surface vessel attempting to enter what it described as a protected area. Iranian officials also claimed that attacks involving new anti-ship weapons forced American warships to withdraw. CENTCOM said a U.S. aircraft carrier and guided-missile destroyer successfully evaded multiple Iranian attacks and that no American personnel were harmed.

The capture of an advanced underwater drone Tuesday, announced by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Navy, is a notable win for Iran that could allow the country to learn from the American technology and better counter certain U.S. military operations. The drone has been identified as an Anduril Industries Dive-LD, capable of performing operations over ten days and to a depth of 6,000 meters, with advertised capabilities including intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and mine warfare. The U.S. had not yet confirmed the loss of the AUV at the time of publication.

The U.S. lost an advanced RQ-170 Sentinel spy drone over Iran in 2011, with Iran claiming to have hacked the drone’s navigation system and guiding it down for a smooth landing. Iran went on to reproduce versions of the drone years later, and drones now form a critical component of Iran’s force projection. Like that capture, the Anduril AUV appears to be undamaged and intact, potentially allowing for significant intelligence and engineering advances.

Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei has now outlined the maritime component of the revised strategy he previously promised. In a televised interview Sunday, he announced plans for an exclusion zone extending from the area of the American blockade toward the Persian Gulf. Ships moving without Iranian authorization, he said, could be placed on a blacklist and face restrictions on subsequent passage. He also threatened insurance consequences, although how Tehran would enforce those consequences remains unclear.

The IRGC navy added a more specific geographical warning Monday. Its political deputy, Ali Mohammadi, identified the vicinity of Oman’s Khasab port as the point beyond which ships disregarding Iranian arrangements could face attack. For vessels loading at Persian Gulf ports and then approaching Hormuz, Khasab is being presented as a threshold for onward passage through the strait. Mohammadi also challenged the safety of the southern route promoted by Washington, particularly at night, and instructed vessels to use Iran’s designated corridor.

Iranian lawmakers are pursuing restrictions through a parallel legislative process. Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission approved a provision Sunday that would prohibit passage by vessels or cargoes linked to countries, companies and individuals imposing unilateral sanctions or taking hostile action against Iran. Commission spokesperson Hassan Ghashghavi said the armed forces’ General Staff would identify hostile actions, while the Supreme National Security Council would identify sanctioning parties. The provision remains a committee decision, not an enacted law.

Shipping data continues to show severe disruption through the Strait of Hormuz. Kpler figures reported Monday put the ten-day average at ten commodity vessels daily, the lowest since May, down from more than fifteen on Friday. Initial counts recorded two crossings Saturday and six Sunday; a subsequent update revised Sunday to eight and recorded seven Monday. Tracking can miss ships operating without transponders, but the available figures still indicate exceptionally limited traffic. They also demonstrate why announcements of either complete closure from Tehran or secure passage from Washington require scrutiny.

Tehran is simultaneously presenting maritime arrangements as a possible foundation for diplomacy. Rezaei said a proposed international shipping corridor with Oman was approaching signature and linked it to reciprocal commitments concerning safe passage and security for Iran. He argued that earlier reliance on intermediaries’ assurances had proved inadequate. His remarks suggest Tehran wants practical guarantees against renewed attacks, with control over shipping serving as a means of securing them.

Qatar’s renewed involvement provides a concrete diplomatic development. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei confirmed that a Qatari delegation met Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Tehran to discuss reducing tensions. Araghchi also spoke separately with his Saudi and Turkish counterparts about regional developments and diplomatic efforts. On Tuesday, Qatar said it was working with partners, including China, to resume U.S.-Iran negotiations. The contacts show that mediation efforts are ongoing, although no breakthrough or new negotiating session has been announced.

Washington’s economic campaign is meanwhile reaching institutions outside Iran that handle its overseas revenue. On Friday, the Treasury Department sanctioned Turkey’s Golden Global Investment Bank and two subsidiaries, alleging that the bank helped move Iranian oil earnings from China through Turkey and offered banking services involving networks associated with the IRGC’s Qods Force. These are the American government’s stated grounds for the designations, rather than independently-established findings.

The banking sanctions seek to target a vulnerability distinct from the movement of oil itself. Exporting a cargo does not necessarily give Iran access to the proceeds. Restrictions on intermediaries can complicate payments and encourage other financial institutions to avoid transactions involving Iran, increasing costs even where trade continues. Rezaei insisted that Iran was both selling oil and receiving payment. That assurance addresses an important domestic concern, but does not establish how much revenue is available or how reliably it can be transferred.

Economic Minister Ali Madanizadeh’s visit to Moscow offered a more practical picture of the obstacles facing Iranian trade. Meeting Iranian businesspeople Monday night, he described obtaining essential goods from Eurasia, particularly Russia, as a priority. Traders raised problems involving foreign exchange, letters of credit for agricultural imports and long queues at Astara customs. Madanizadeh promised follow-up, including efforts to accelerate installation of inspection equipment. These complaints show that alternatives to maritime trade depend on functioning financial arrangements and border infrastructure as well as supportive relations with neighboring countries.

The pressure is also reaching Iranian households through fuel prices. Government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani announced Sunday that gasoline purchased with station cards would rise to 10,000 tomans per liter beginning Tuesday, doubling that rate. She said the monthly allocations of sixty liters at 1,500 tomans and fifty liters at 3,000 tomans would remain unchanged. The government promised to use additional revenue to support livelihoods. The increase therefore falls on the higher-priced purchasing channel, rather than applying equally to every liter motorists buy.

Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf acknowledged the domestic strain alongside his threats of stronger military retaliation. He identified currency volatility, inflation, unemployment and market management as urgent problems affecting livelihoods. People could endure hardship, he argued, but should not have to tolerate poor management. His remarks recognized that maintaining domestic support requires more than assurances about military capabilities: officials must also address the everyday consequences of the confrontation.

The energy costs are increasingly visible in the United States as well. Average gasoline prices reached $4.15 per gallon on Labor Day, a record for the holiday, while diesel reached an all-time high of $5.90. Disrupted shipping through Hormuz is one contributor, alongside other pressures including attacks on Russian refineries. Diesel costs have implications beyond motorists because trucking and freight networks pass higher fuel expenses through the wider economy. The figures demonstrate that the effects of constrained energy flows extend well beyond the immediate combat zone.

Attacks on Saudi energy facilities have added another complication to efforts to keep supplies moving. Saudi authorities said Tuesday that Houthi missile and drone attacks disrupted operations at some facilities and caused fires, with 73 people reported injured across the attacks. The Houthis described the operation as retaliation for Saudi airstrikes in Yemen.

For energy markets, the significance lies in the accumulation of risks across different parts of the regional system. The Saudi attacks do not establish that the kingdom’s main export routes or its East-West Pipeline have been disabled. They do, however, add uncertainty around energy infrastructure while shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains sharply constrained. Iran’s efforts to preserve imports, Qatar’s mediation and mounting fuel costs all underline the same practical urgency: restoring dependable trade requires arrangements that protect vessels and infrastructure, alongside a reduction in the attacks that keep undermining them.

The letter explicitly supports an August 20 open letter from left-leaning activists outside of Iran, which described Iran’s political prisoners as caught between “two blades of a scissors” - repression by the Islamic Republic on one side and foreign military and economic pressure on the other. The original letter highlighted opposition to U.S. and Israeli military intervention and economic coercion, and opposition to executions, imprisonment and restrictions on political and civil society activity by the Islamic Republic.

That framing quickly generated controversy. Some critics argued that the “two blades” metaphor risked creating a false equivalence between the Iranian government’s domestic repression and a foreign military attack against Iran. The two, they argued, have different origins and objectives, and placing them side by side could blur responsibility for the war. Adding to the debate, some of that letter’s signatories asked to be removed as signers, suggesting they had not meant to sign.

Others worried about a different danger: that Iran’s position as a country under attack could push executions, political prisoners and restrictions on civil society into the background, particularly as wartime conditions strengthen the role of security institutions inside the country.

The new “Solidarity Beyond Ideological Camps” statement directly addresses that criticism. Its signatories argue that recognizing two forms of violence does not mean treating them as morally or politically equivalent. A government, they say, can simultaneously be the target of foreign aggression and the perpetrator of repression against its own citizens.

Most of the signatories of the new letter are based outside Iran, but the list also includes a notable group living inside the country. Among them are sociologist and former political prisoner Saeed Madani, teachers’ union spokesperson Mohammad Habibi, writer Reza Khandan, journalist Nasim Soltanbeigi and poet Hafez Mousavi. Other signatories inside Iran include former political prisoners, labor activists, writers and student activists.

Their participation gives the statement particular weight. Some of those signing have themselves experienced imprisonment or political pressure and are now publicly criticizing both state repression and a foreign war against their country.

That distinction is at the heart of their argument. The signatories of the new letter reject the use of human rights violations inside Iran as a justification for military intervention. But they also reject the idea that resisting the United States and Israel requires suspending demands for political rights inside Iran.

In their view, the war does not make executions, imprisonment or censorship less consequential, just as repression inside Iran does not make foreign military attacks more legitimate. The statement places this argument within a longer Iranian history. Its authors point to foreign interventions including Russian involvement in the bombardment of Iran’s first parliament after the Constitutional Revolution and the U.S.- and British-backed 1953 coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. They place sanctions and the current war within that broader historical experience of external intervention and pressure.

At the same time, they point to Iran’s history of state repression, particularly after the 1979 revolution, including executions, censorship and restrictions on political and civil society activity. The statement gives particular attention to Iran’s political left. Its authors argue that Iranian support for Palestinian rights and opposition to Western intervention long predate the Islamic Republic. Iranian leftist movements developed ties with Palestinian movements and participated in anti-colonial politics before the 1979 revolution.

Yet those same political currents became among the Islamic Republic’s earliest targets after the revolution, with many leftists imprisoned or executed. The statement specifically recalls the mass executions of political prisoners in 1988. The historical argument has a clear contemporary purpose: opposition to U.S. power and foreign intervention does not belong exclusively to the Islamic Republic, just as opposition to the Islamic Republic does not necessarily translate into support for U.S. pressure or military action. That question has become more difficult as the war has continued.

War tends to narrow political space and turn complicated political positions into questions of loyalty. Inside Iran, criticism of the government can become more politically risky when the country is facing foreign attack. Outside Iran, meanwhile, opposition to the Islamic Republic or its actions can be interpreted as support for militaristic approaches toward the country, including the ongoing war. The signatories are trying to resist that polarization.

That does not mean their position represents a new consensus among Iranians or even among opponents of the Islamic Republic. The controversy surrounding the original letter shows how divided Iranian political and civil society remains over the war, sanctions, foreign intervention and the future of the country.

Iran continues to be a dynamic country with a diversity of political views, both inside and outside the country. The authors of the new statement reject both the notion that opposition to the Islamic Republic requires support for the war and that resisting the war requires overlooking the abuses of the Iranian government. For them, the rights of political prisoners cannot be postponed until the war ends, while opposition to repression cannot become an argument for military intervention. The significance of the statement is therefore not that it resolves these divisions, but that it exposes a political debate inside Iranian civil society that is largely missing from international coverage of the war.

Iranian society is not neatly divided between supporters of the Islamic Republic and supporters of its foreign adversaries. There a broad political spectrum, including a current that opposes the government’s treatment of its critics while rejecting the idea that U.S. or Israeli military power can deliver political freedom to Iran.

That distinction matters for the United States as well. Human rights concerns in Iran have repeatedly become intertwined with debates in Washington over sanctions, military pressure and regime change. Iranian officials, meanwhile, have often used the threat of foreign intervention to portray domestic criticism as part of a broader campaign against the country.

For Iranian civil society, those competing pressures can make maintaining an independent political position particularly difficult. The new statement is an attempt to preserve that space. Its signatories reject using the suffering of Iranians either to justify foreign intervention or to excuse repression at home.

There is no reason to assume this position will become dominant. The war has exposed substantial divisions across Iran’s opposition, diaspora, civil society and intellectual communities, and the new statement is itself part of that disagreement rather than its resolution. But the presence of activists and former political prisoners still living inside Iran makes the intervention harder to dismiss simply as another diaspora debate.

Their message is ultimately straightforward: ending the war and defending political rights do not have to wait for one another. Iranians should not have to choose between protection from foreign attack and protection from repression at home.

“We kept Greater Tehran’s electricity stable during the war and the summer,” Mokhtar Vaezi - a labor activist representing contract workers at the company - told Iran’s ILNA news agency this week. He argued that officials who expect workers to maintain the stability of the power network should pay similar attention to the stability of their livelihoods.

The complaint comes at a particularly difficult time for Iran’s electricity system. The country entered the summer already struggling with a longstanding gap between electricity supply and demand, which has resulted in scheduled outages in Tehran and other cities. The war added another layer of pressure to a system that had little room to spare.

For the workers, however, the immediate complaint is about something that predates the fighting. Vaezi says contract workers carry much of the operational burden of the electricity system while receiving lower compensation and fewer benefits than direct employees. He also argues that intermediary contracting companies benefit from an arrangement that leaves workers with little influence over their employment conditions.

He challenged electricity companies’ argument that government regulations leave them little room to improve compensation. Iran’s electricity distribution companies have their own boards, he said, and those boards have some discretion over the allocation of resources. In his view, management has chosen not to use enough of that flexibility to improve workers’ livelihoods.

The dispute in Tehran is part of a much larger and longstanding argument over the use of contract labor across Iran’s public sector. The Iranian government says roughly 700,000 contract workers have been registered across government institutions. These workers can spend years working inside ministries, state companies and other public institutions while technically remaining employees of private contractors rather than the institutions where they actually work. The arrangement has generated years of complaints over job security, wages and benefits. Workers and their supporters in parliament have pushed for the removal of intermediary companies and direct employment relationships between workers and government institutions.

The issue has been before parliament since 2020. A plan intended to reorganize the employment status of contract workers was eventually approved by lawmakers, but its implementation stalled after objections from the Guardian Council and the Expediency Council’s High Supervisory Board. Government officials say some of those objections have been resolved, while others remain.

The Pezeshkian government has now chosen a more limited approach. Rather than converting hundreds of thousands of contract workers into direct government employees, the government has approved a new system under which their salaries and benefits will be paid more directly and subjected to greater government oversight. Executive agencies are required to register contract workers in a centralized administrative system, and payments to workers who have not been registered are prohibited.

Under the new arrangement, payments will be made through accounts jointly controlled by the government agency and the contractor, while competition among contracting companies is supposed to be limited largely to a management fee of around two to three percent. The stated goal is to reduce delays, increase transparency and prevent portions of workers’ compensation from being lost in the contracting process.

The government has begun moving the plan toward implementation. Aladdin Rafizadeh, Iran’s vice president and head of the Administrative and Recruitment Organization, said last week that contract workers would begin receiving their salaries directly in a manner similar to permanent and contractual government employees. The measure has also passed an important procedural hurdle. Parliament’s body responsible for reviewing government regulations approved the cabinet resolution in August, clearing the way for implementation of the new payment system.

But there is an important distinction between what the government has approved and what many workers have demanded: direct payment does not mean direct employment. Government officials say converting all 700,000 registered contract workers into direct employees is not currently possible. Zabihollah Salmani, deputy head of the Administrative and Recruitment Organization, has cited legal restrictions, including limits on government hiring and requirements to reduce the size of the public workforce. Formal government employment will also continue to generally require participation in competitive hiring examinations.

The financial implications are also substantial. Iranian reporting citing government estimates has put the potential cost of fully changing the employment status of contract workers at approximately 185 trillion tomans, adding another obstacle to a wholesale conversion of their contracts. That leaves the government trying to address some of the most immediate complaints without dismantling the contracting system itself.

The new rules could make a meaningful difference for workers if they prevent delayed payments, improve oversight and reduce the amount retained by intermediaries. But they do not resolve the broader questions of employment status, job security and disparities between workers performing similar jobs under different types of contracts.

For the electricity workers in Tehran, those longstanding grievances are now colliding with the demands of wartime. Electricity is one of the civilian systems whose importance becomes even more pronounced during a conflict. Hospitals, water systems, telecommunications, businesses and households all depend on a functioning grid. Electricity workers must also maintain and repair a network that was already operating under considerable strain before the latest fighting began.

That is what gives Vaezi’s complaint particular weight. He is not arguing that the war created the problems facing contract workers. He is arguing that workers who were already unhappy with their pay and employment conditions were nevertheless expected to keep one of the country’s most important civilian systems operating through the war.

The dispute also offers a different window into how Iran is absorbing the pressures of a prolonged conflict. Much of the discussion outside Iran about the country’s ability to withstand the war has focused on military capabilities: how many missiles Iran can launch, how much infrastructure has been damaged, whether its forces can continue retaliating and how long the government can sustain the confrontation.

But the ability of a country to function during a war also depends on much less visible systems, and on the people who operate them. For Tehran’s electricity workers, that means maintaining a strained power network while dealing with economic pressures and employment grievances that existed long before the first missiles were fired. The government has now begun addressing one part of those grievances by changing how contract workers are paid. Whether that will be enough is another question.

For Vaezi and the workers he represents, keeping Tehran’s electricity running through the war has strengthened the case they were already making: if their work is essential enough to rely on during a national emergency, they believe their livelihoods and employment conditions should be treated as essential as well.

U.S. Central Command said American forces struck Iranian air-defense systems, radar sites, maritime assets, mine-laying capabilities and communications facilities linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iranian officials said more than 40 locations across southern, western and central Iran were hit, with attacks reported in Hormozgan, Khuzestan, Kermanshah, Kerman and along the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman coasts. Iranian state television also reported a strike near the runway at Jiroft airport, although local officials said there were no casualties and the runway and airport buildings were not damaged.

The pattern of targets suggests that a major American objective was degrading Iran’s ability to threaten shipping through the Strait of Hormuz while locating and destroying the missile, drone and maritime systems Tehran can use to retaliate. CENTCOM specifically identified Iranian maritime assets, mine-laying capabilities, radar and communications systems among its targets, while U.S. reporting has indicated that anti-ship cruise-missile and drone launchers were also attacked.

Four members of the IRGC Aerospace Force were also reported killed in Kermanshah. Iranian authorities have not said what they were doing when they were killed or identified the specific target of the U.S. strike. But the timing raises an important possibility. Iran’s Aerospace Force was conducting missile operations against U.S. bases across the region that night, while Iranian authorities separately reported shooting down an American drone near Khomein. Taken together, those developments suggest U.S. drones or other surveillance and strike assets may have been operating over Iran as Iranian forces were launching their retaliation. It is therefore plausible that the Aerospace Force personnel killed in Kermanshah were operating or preparing a missile launcher when they were located and struck. There is not yet enough evidence to establish that, however, and it remains an analytical inference rather than a confirmed account of the strike.

The apparent strategy is significant. Rather than attempting a single decisive attack on Iran’s military, Washington appears to be trying to suppress the capabilities Tehran uses to impose costs on commercial shipping and American forces around Hormuz

The human cost inside Iran was also substantial. Iranian authorities reported military casualties in several provinces. In addition to the four IRGC Aerospace Force personnel killed in Kermanshah, local officials reported three Basij members killed on Lavan Island. In Khuzestan, provincial authorities said seven people were killed and eight wounded in strikes around Ahvaz and Aghajari.

The most serious reported civilian incident occurred in Kohestak, a coastal village in Sirik County in Hormozgan, where a U.S. strike hit a residential location hosting a wedding. The head of Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences said four people were killed - including two children, the youngest only four years old - and 65 wounded. Earlier Iranian reports put the toll at five dead and as many as 68 injured. Several of the wounded remained in intensive care, and images published by Iranian media showed civilian casualties, including children.

New evidence has raised additional questions about what happened. Open-source researchers geolocated the house where the wedding was taking place roughly 130 meters — about 430 feet — from a communications tower that was also struck. Imagery from the scene indicates that the residential building itself was hit, while weapons analysts examining debris reportedly recovered there have identified components consistent with a U.S.-made SLAM-ER precision-guided cruise missile, although that identification has not been officially confirmed.

Iranian officials have called the Kohestak strike a war crime. CENTCOM, responding to reports of civilian casualties, said it was aware of the incident and maintained that U.S. forces do not target civilians, but that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps does. The United States has not yet publicly explained whether the residential building was itself a target, what it believed was located there, or how a precision-guided weapon came to strike a wedding gathering more than 100 meters from the communications tower that was also attacked.

Iran began retaliating within hours, and the geographical breadth of its response was notable. The IRGC and regular army announced missile and drone attacks against U.S. military positions in Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. Regional governments confirmed incoming Iranian missiles or drones in several of those countries, although Tehran’s claims about the damage inflicted remain largely unverified.

One of the most consequential Iranian claims involved Camp Titin, a U.S. Marine Corps facility roughly 15 kilometers south of Aqaba on the northern Red Sea, close to Jordan’s borders with Saudi Arabia and Israel. U.S. military records show that Titin has long been used for American-Jordanian training, including exercises involving Marines, rapid-response forces and maritime infrastructure protection. The IRGC said it subjected the camp to a ballistic-missile attack and claimed American personnel were killed and helicopters and other facilities damaged. Jordan confirmed that 13 Iranian ballistic missiles entered its airspace, saying ten were intercepted and three landed in remote areas. U.S. officials, however, said there were no American casualties or significant damage at Camp Titin.

The missile attack on Jordan is therefore confirmed, but whether Iranian missiles penetrated the defenses and struck Camp Titin — and whether anyone was killed there — remains contested. There is not yet satellite imagery, casualty information or other independent evidence supporting Tehran’s claims of American deaths.

The choice of Titin nevertheless matters. Unlike the larger air bases usually associated with the American military presence in Jordan, Titin sits near Aqaba and has been used by U.S. Marines for training and maritime-security missions. Iran separately said it targeted facilities associated with American RQ-4 and MQ-9 drones at Prince Hassan Air Base. Taken together, the claims suggest Tehran was selecting different components of the U.S. military network in Jordan to do damage rather than simply firing missiles toward a single symbolic target.

Iran also expanded its response across the Gulf. The regular army said dozens of attack drones targeted radar systems and American positions at Al Dhafra and Al Minhad in the UAE and struck Sheikh Isa Air Base in Bahrain with Arash drones. Kuwait reported hostile drone activity, including a drone that caused a fire at a residential complex in Kuwait City. The extent of damage to U.S. facilities remains unclear, but the attacks demonstrated that Iran retains the ability to launch missiles and drones toward several countries simultaneously despite months of sustained military pressure.

Tehran is simultaneously making clear that the Strait of Hormuz remains central to its strategy. The IRGC said two tankers were damaged Wednesday after entering a mined route in the strait, although the circumstances have not been independently verified. That came after two supertankers carrying Saudi crude were struck while transiting Hormuz on Monday.

Iranian officials have increasingly made the connection explicit. Parliament Speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said this week that if Iran is prevented from exporting oil through the Persian Gulf, “no one will be able to export oil.” He warned that further tightening of what Tehran describes as the American maritime blockade would receive a military response.

The United States is now expanding that confrontation to Iran’s own tanker fleet. Axios reported, citing U.S. officials, that American drones struck the engine rooms of two Iranian government-owned oil tankers anchored off Iran’s coast during the latest operation. One U.S. official described the approach as a new “tanker for tanker” policy approved by Trump: Iranian attacks on tankers transiting Hormuz could be answered with attacks on Iranian tankers.

The apparent policy exposes a tension in Washington’s strategy: the United States says its operations around Hormuz are intended to make commercial passage safer and restore energy flows, but the logic of “tanker for tanker” might not deter Tehran from attacking other ships when its own tankers are effectively blocked from exporting. The U.S. blockade has already reduced Iran’s ability to export its own oil to a fraction of prewar levels. Destroying or disabling additional Iranian tankers therefore imposes another cost on Tehran without necessarily giving it a stronger economic incentive to protect the exports of neighboring oil producers.

Indeed, if Iranian leaders conclude that their own ability to benefit from an open Strait has largely been removed, attacking Iranian tankers could reinforce rather than weaken Tehran’s argument that other countries should not be allowed to export normally while Iran cannot. Whether the new approach deters Iranian attacks on shipping or gives Tehran another incentive to escalate around Hormuz will be an important test of the American strategy.

The threat has implications far beyond Iran. Saudi Arabia possesses one of the region’s most extensive systems for bypassing Hormuz through its East-West Pipeline to Yanbu on the Red Sea. But Saudi crude exports from its Persian Gulf and Red Sea terminals averaged only about 3.23 million barrels per day during the first 23 days of August, according to shipping data analyzed by Bloomberg - on track to be the lowest monthly level since the Iran war began. The previous wartime low was about 3.65 million barrels per day in May, compared with more than 6 million barrels per day of Saudi crude that historically moved through Hormuz before the war.

Saudi Arabia initially responded to the disruption by pushing much larger volumes through its roughly 746-mile East-West Pipeline to Yanbu, with flows reportedly rising to around 4.4 million barrels per day and at times approaching 5 million. But threats to Red Sea shipping have complicated Riyadh’s ability to rely on that route as a secure alternative, forcing exporters to balance the risks at both ends of the peninsula.

The broader lesson after six months of war is that bypassing Hormuz is much easier on paper than in practice. Even Saudi Arabia, with the largest alternative pipeline system, has not been able to fully insulate its oil exports from the conflict. When insecurity in Hormuz is combined with threats along the Red Sea route, disruption can follow Saudi oil regardless of which coast it uses.

That gives Iran leverage, but it also creates significant risks for Tehran. Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters warned regional governments Wednesday that cooperation with the U.S. military could bring “dangerous consequences,” while the Foreign Ministry called on neighboring states to prevent American forces from using their territory to attack Iran. Attacks involving the territory of Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain and the UAE - and threats to Saudi shipping - can deepen tensions with governments that warned against the Iran-U.S. conflict and have supported a peace deal to end it.

Washington, meanwhile, is trying to match military pressure with its broader campaign of economic isolation to degrade Iran’s ability to enforce its position in Hormuz while restricting the commercial and financial networks that allow Tehran to sustain a prolonged confrontation. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday that airlines, shipping companies and digital assets could become the next targets of U.S. measures against Iran. His message to governments and businesses, he said, was to “distance yourselves” from Tehran. Bessent also warned that companies doing business with the IRGC could face sanctions and said Washington was tracking IRGC-linked assets and financial structures around the world.

Iranian officials appear to be thinking in similarly integrated terms. Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei said after the latest attacks that Washington would soon see a “new Iranian strategy” on the battlefield, in diplomacy and in confronting the economic siege. He did not explain what that strategy would entail. But the emerging pattern suggests Tehran may be attempting to connect military retaliation, pressure on regional shipping and efforts to keep trade and financial channels open through Russia, China and neighboring states.

That effort was particularly visible during President Masoud Pezeshkian’s trip to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Bishkek. In his meeting with Pezeshkian, Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly acknowledged that Moscow was helping Iran through what he described as a “difficult period,” including by providing essential goods, and indicated that Russia would continue that assistance. Russian officials also said Putin and Pezeshkian discussed the Bushehr nuclear power plant in detail, with Russian specialists preparing to participate in scheduled maintenance there.

For Iran, this kind of assistance could be more important to its ability to endure a prolonged war than direct military support. Tehran’s challenge is not simply preserving missiles and launchers, but keeping essential imports moving and preventing the combined effects of war, blockade and sanctions from producing an economic breakdown. Russian supplies - alongside continued trade with China and Iran’s neighbors - could therefore become an important part of Tehran’s effort to withstand Washington’s strategy of military and economic attrition.

China has meanwhile sharpened its diplomatic criticism of military intervention. After Bishkek, Xi Jinping traveled to Egypt, where he and President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi called for an end to foreign interference in the Middle East. For Tehran, the important question is not whether China or Russia would join the war militarily - neither Iran nor its partners appear to be seeking that - but whether they can help Iran withstand U.S. pressure through trade, essential supplies, financial channels and resistance to broader sanctions enforcement. That kind of economic and diplomatic backing could make Bessent’s effort to isolate Iran considerably more difficult.

The United States faces an increasingly concrete constraint of its own: the depletion of key munitions needed to sustain the current war. Every large Iranian missile and drone barrage requires the United States and its partners to expend valuable interceptors, while repeated American attacks consume additional precision weapons. Washington’s strategy requires repeatedly locating and destroying Iranian launchers, protecting bases spread across several countries and defending commercial shipping over an extended period. The rate at which both sides can replace what they are losing and consuming is a critical part of the military balance.

That does not mean American air defenses have stopped functioning. Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait all reported intercepting Iranian weapons during the latest exchange. But the depletion problem is real, acknowledged in Washington and directly relevant to the fighting taking place now. For Tehran, prolonging the conflict may therefore serve a military purpose even without defeating U.S. forces outright: forcing the United States and its regional partners to keep consuming scarce and expensive interceptors while maintaining a large defensive posture across several countries.

At the same time, Iran is paying a far greater direct price inside the country. American strikes are killing Iranian military personnel, damaging infrastructure and producing civilian casualties, while sanctions, disrupted trade and the continuing war compound pressure on an economy already under severe strain. Tehran’s ability to endure therefore depends not only on its missile arsenal but on whether it can prevent military and economic pressure from producing a broader breakdown.

Diplomatic hopes have dimmed considerably. Pakistan said Wednesday that it remains hopeful Iran and the United States will return to negotiations and said Army Chief Asim Munir’s visit to Tehran last week had produced “significant momentum” on the Hormuz issue. Iranian officials have repeatedly said Tehran would return to the previous understanding if Washington resumes compliance.

Trump, however, struck a very different tone after the latest attacks. He said he was not attempting to bring Iran back to the negotiating table and claimed he preferred the current situation, in which he claimed the United States had near-total control over the Strait of Hormuz and suggested Iran’s economy is collapsing. He asked when Iranians will rise up in revolt against their government.

The latest exchange looks less like the beginning of a decisive final phase than a continuing contest over endurance. Washington is betting that sustained military and economic pressure will eventually force Tehran to retreat. Iran appears to be betting that it can survive long enough to force Washington to do the same. For ordinary Iranians, American service members and civilians across the region, the danger is that testing those two assumptions will require a much longer and more destructive war.