Pezeshkian's Two-Year Report: War Survival, a Reckoning Over January's Dead, and an Economy Still "Sinking"
President Masoud Pezeshkian marked two years in office with a televised interview that has so far run in two installments, covering wartime survival stories, the economy and - in its most consequential passage - the death toll from January’s nationwide protests. State television IRNA aired the first part on August 5 and the second on August 6. Further installments may follow. The tone has shifted sharply based on the subject: solemn and defiant on the war, evasive on economic delivery and openly combative on the crackdown.
On the war, Pezeshkian’s message was simple: no outside power can break Iran as long as the public stays with the government. He listed sanctions, a banking blockade, war and a naval siege as compounding pressures and said that when the government stands with the people, “no power can pin us down.” He credited survival not to displays of loyalty but to Iranians who held grievances and stayed off the streets anyway.
On the Islamabad MoU negotiations with the U.S., Pezeshkian disclosed the internal vote behind the deal: 12 of 13 council members present approved the memorandum framework, and Mojtaba Khamenei had said he would accept any proposal backed by three-quarters of the council. On his relationship with the new Supreme Leader more broadly, Pezeshkian was unusually candid: contact is now “very difficult.” Mojtaba Khamenei has not appeared in public since taking over in March. The admission came in the same broadcast where Pezeshkian denied a competing story that had circulated for days: that he had threatened resignation 28 times and been warned the next attempt would be accepted. Both his office and the Leader’s office called that account false.
The sharpest moment came when Pezeshkian addressed the January 2026 protests, disputing the highest casualty figures while defending his own government’s count. He said he still cannot forget the deaths and injuries and that things should never have reached that point. Then, almost in the same breath, accused Washington of arming protesters and called anyone citing tolls of 30,000 or 40,000 dishonorable and traitorous. The record he was disputing is one of the most contested in the Islamic Republic’s history. Iran’s government has put the toll at 3,117 and published a named list of 2,986 victims, attributing the shortfall to unidentified remains.
By contrast, HRANA, a widely-cited independent monitor, has published reports indicating more than 7,000 deaths, including 236 minors and 207 security-related forces. HRANA has published names and case details for more than 4,000 of the deceased, noting that they “deemed additional information inappropriate for public release at this time due to security and protection concerns.”.
Claims running from 12,000 to 50,000 killed have circulated from Iran International, U.S. officials and Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah, who has cited “activists, political prisoners, and medical authorities” inside the country. Yet, there are no matching casualty records attached to these claims, and they are far from the more substantiated figures. None of the counts have been independently verified end to end, complicated by the severe restrictions on access and repeated internet blackouts during the crackdown.
Pezeshkian’s framing drew a direct rebuttal from Mehdi Mahmoudian, a reformist activist and former political prisoner, who argued the dispute over numbers doesn’t erase the crime. Writing in response, Mahmoudian said that even accepting the government’s own figures, the country is still left with thousands of dead citizens - people with names, families, and a right to life - and that no argument over the count clears anyone of responsibility for the killings. He asked why raising the dead is branded treason while ordering, enabling, justifying, or concealing their deaths is called patriotism, and pressed Pezeshkian to answer who gave the order, who fired, and who concealed the truth, rather than insulting the victims’ families. He closed by asking, “if speaking of the people’s blood is betrayal, what should killing them be called?”
Pezeshkian also revisited talks with the late Ali Khamenei over Iranians stranded abroad, arguing entry bans should be stated up front rather than enforced after the fact. People shouldn’t be let into the country and then detained and blocked from leaving again, he said, calling that practice dishonorable, without naming specific cases.
On the economy, Pezeshkian offered his bluntest language yet about the resistance he says his own government faces from within the system. Forty-seven years into the Islamic Republic, he said, Iran still wants to act properly on water, power, gas, and fuel, but every time, someone says now isn’t the time. He said privatizing Iran Khodro triggered an impeachment attempt against his economy minister, and that the same pattern repeats with every personnel change: critics never credit him with removing someone corrupt, only with pushing out someone deemed loyal. He argued Iran’s Social Security Organization owns enough factories that it shouldn’t struggle to cover members’ medical bills, and said hiring should reward competence over political or religious credentials.
He said gasoline reserves at three sites in Tehran were struck during the war but the country avoided a visible shortage, crediting provincial-level crisis management rather than any centralized fix. Mazandaran absorbed one to three million displaced people during the fighting without running short of bread, fuel, or basic goods, he said, because local administrators coordinated directly rather than waiting on Tehran - the model he’s calling the first step of his reform push. He put the country’s daily winter gas shortfall at 230 million cubic meters and said roughly 7,000 megawatts of power now comes from solar panels installed since his government inherited a system with reserves that wouldn’t last past autumn. He confirmed Saipa will follow Iran Khodro into privatization, and said Ayandeh Bank’s dissolution passed without public backlash because it was coordinated with the judiciary and parliament.
On subsidies, he promised to raise the value of the kalabarg food card but blamed currency shortages for limiting how far that can go, without offering a timeline. He also claimed a foreign-backed plan to seed unrest from Iran’s northwest and southeast borders during the war had failed because neighboring governments refused to let people cross to cause trouble, a claim relayed on state television and not independently confirmed.
Beyond Mahmoudian, the domestic pushback so far has focused on delivery rather than legitimacy. Commentators noted that while Pezeshkian detailed two state automakers going private, he never explained why car-import liberalization - a signature 2024 campaign promise that needs nothing more than a government circular to implement - still hasn’t happened. No hardline voice has directly challenged his account of the January crackdown. Itis a former political prisoner, not a rival faction, who has pressed him hardest on the crackdown and his framing of it.
The throughline across both installments so far is a president asking the public to trust him, even as the public weathers unprecedented challenges in the wake of lingering division triggered by yet another bloody crackdown.