Rhetoric is hardening on both sides of the Iran-US standoff, with even Iranian analysts traditionally optimistic about diplomacy warning that relations are slipping back to “square one” as military and economic pressure intensifies.
Iran’s oil minister left office as exports fell sharply and questions mounted over billions of dollars in sanctioned crude sales, bringing disputes over oil intermediaries, corporate management and political pressure into focus.
Iran’s worsening economic crisis has opened an increasingly bitter argument over who is responsible, as the government points to outside pressure and market psychology while hardliners accuse Tehran’s own economic officials of making the situation worse.
Iran’s stock market is breaking records even as the dollar and gold hit new highs, an apparent contradiction that may point to the same dynamic: households and investors scrambling to protect their wealth as the rial weakens and the economic toll of the Iran-US war grows.
Iranian officials and media have sharply condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the UAE, warning Abu Dhabi over its deepening ties with Israel amid renewed tensions over three disputed Persian Gulf islands.
Tehran media see diplomacy with Washington as increasingly precarious but not yet dead, with the two sides far apart over the sequencing of any deal and the window for compromise appearing to narrow.
Four small bridges, struck in one night in April, cut Tehran off from Iran's entire railway. All were fixed within days. The bridges that would take years to rebuild are still standing, on lines that carry Iran's missiles, its troops and its trade.
Continued contacts between Tehran and Washington, mediated by Qatar and Pakistan, have intensified debate inside Iran over whether diplomacy can still produce a deal despite President Donald Trump’s rejection of Tehran’s latest proposal and what should happen if it fails.
Iran’s receipt of Washington’s response to its seven-point proposal for ending the Strait of Hormuz crisis has sharpened divisions in Tehran over whether to pursue further compromise or intensify pressure on the United States.
Attacks by hardliners on Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf and Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei following hardline lawmaker Hamid Rasaei’s imprisonment have intensified the rift among Iran’s conservatives.
Iran’s rapidly narrowing international air connections are forcing travelers onto longer and costlier routes while adding friction with neighboring states, as Tehran pressures regional governments over flight restrictions.
Iranian hardliners have intensified attacks on President Masoud Pezeshkian after he signalled nuclear flexibility and backed negotiations with Washington in a Fox News interview.
Mothers without headscarves walked daughters in regulation hoods to school in Iran this week. Women who remember 1980 describe the same scene from the year the state began imposing hijab. The picture is identical. What has changed is the society around it.
President Masoud Pezeshkian’s UN speech won unusual praise across Iran’s political establishment Thursday, but emerging details of negotiations with the United States could soon test the president’s careful balancing act.
Iran warned Wednesday that any renewed US attack would draw a stronger military response, even as officials from the two countries pursued a new diplomatic opening in New York that has triggered a backlash among hardliners in Tehran.
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian is facing competing pressure at home over whether to use his UN visit for direct diplomacy with US President Donald Trump or strike a more defiant tone as the two countries remain at war.
Iranian officials and media are increasingly looking to China as a possible diplomatic bridge to Washington, as Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s second wartime visit to Beijing coincides with preparations for President Xi Jinping’s talks with Donald Trump next week.
Iran’s nightly pro-government rallies have become an increasingly visible show of political force, occupying streets and squares for 200 consecutive nights and, more recently, turning their fire on rivals within the Islamic Republic itself.
Renewed talk among Iranian hardliners of removing President Masoud Pezeshkian has revived comparisons with Iran’s only presidential impeachment, but there is little evidence so far of a coordinated effort capable of unseating him.
Some cancer patients in Iran are selling essential household goods or abandoning medication as soaring drug prices and gaps in insurance coverage put treatment beyond the reach of low-income families, a charity director said on Thursday.
Calls for Iran to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty are gaining ground among hardliners after the IAEA referred the country to the UN Security Council and its nuclear chief was barred from attending the agency’s annual conference in Vienna.
Iranian lawmakers, hardline media and analysts have blamed Washington for postponing Oman-hosted talks on Strait of Hormuz shipping arrangements, despite officials attributing the delay to regional objections and Saudi concerns over Yemen.