Signs of reluctance to widen the conflict are emerging in Tehran, with conservative politicians and media urging restraint even as they accuse the United States and Israel of orchestrating Ukraine's attack on an Iranian vessel.
Iran's state broadcaster has ignored a formal order from its own watchdog to stop censoring senior officials, highlighting the gap between the country's formal institutions and where authority is exercised in practice.
Ukraine's attack on an Iranian merchant ship has sparked a debate in Tehran over whether retaliation would restore deterrence or draw Iran into a broader confrontation involving Europe and NATO.
The pause in US airstrikes has opened a new debate in Tehran over whether the military lull should be used to revive diplomacy or intensify pressure on Washington before another round of fighting begins.
The suspension of US and Iranian attacks has revived hopes for diplomacy, but in Tehran the military lull has exposed a widening divide over whether the Islamic Republic should negotiate with Washington or press what hardliners see as a battlefield advantage.
As international attention remains fixed on the Iran-US war and regional escalation, human rights advocates say Tehran is intensifying another campaign largely outside the global spotlight: the execution of protesters and political prisoners.
President Donald Trump’s increasingly explicit threats of a wider Iran war have fueled anxiety and speculation inside the country, as analysts and social media users debate whether the conflict is approaching a more destructive and unpredictable phase.
The surge in oil prices appears to be hardening Tehran's resolve against renewed negotiations with Washington, giving ammunition to those who argue that a prolonged conflict puts more pressure on the United States than on Iran.
President Donald Trump’s threat to strike Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain nuclear-linked facility has intensified hardline calls for Tehran to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and develop a nuclear weapon.
The US may be peeling away layers of Iran's leadership, but without a plan for what comes next, bombing the coast and seizing islands cannot reach the problem in Tehran, and risk delivering an IRGC takeover rather than real change, experts said at an Iran International town hall.
Iran's leading economists warned Monday that renewed conflict with the United States risks pushing the country's long-festering economic problems into a more dangerous phase, arguing that inflation is becoming increasingly difficult to contain.
Qatar and Pakistan have launched a joint effort to revive Iran-US diplomacy as military exchanges entered their ninth day, while Tehran confirmed receiving new mediation proposals even as hardliners continued to oppose negotiations.
Moderate voices in Iran are sharpening their criticism of hardline calls for continued confrontation with the United States, arguing that diplomacy has become a patriotic necessity as renewed war exacts mounting economic and human costs.
Iran's chief negotiator, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, and US Vice President JD Vance both defended diplomacy backed by military strength on Wednesday, making strikingly similar arguments as Iranian hardliners intensified demands to scrap Tehran's agreement with Washington.
A confidential report by Iran's presidency, leaked this week, records the highest public anger ever measured in any country and finds that nine in ten Iranians want change. Its advice to the leadership: manage the anger, not its causes.
Iran's hardliners suffered a setback after losing key posts on parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, highlighting growing conservative divisions over talks with Washington and the leadership of Speaker and lead negotiator Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf.
A week of heavy fighting has left parts of Iran’s southern coast looking unmistakably like a war zone. Yet in Tehran, many still struggle to believe the country is at war.
Iran's national team exited the World Cup in the group stage, yet two Iranians may still command Sunday's final: an exiled violinist on the halftime stage and the referee tipped for the whistle. Neither arrives representing the Islamic Republic.
Donald Trump's short-lived proposal to charge cargo transiting the Strait of Hormuz has handed Tehran an unexpected argument: that Washington itself briefly accepted the principle that securing the strategic waterway could justify collecting fees.
As renewed fighting pushes Iran and the United States away from diplomacy and back toward full-scale confrontation, influential hardline voices in Tehran are openly arguing that political assassination and a more aggressive foreign policy are both justified and necessary.
Iran's attack on facilities supporting US naval operations in Oman has plunged relations with one of Tehran's closest regional partners into their deepest crisis in decades, turning a dispute over shipping through the Strait of Hormuz into a direct military confrontation.
Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s renewed call for revenge over his father’s killing has emboldened hardliners demanding concrete action, while raising questions over how such threats can be reconciled with Tehran’s stated openness to diplomacy.