Iran's surge in attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz may be an attempt to exploit US restraint ahead of the midterm elections and undermine a recovery in Persian Gulf oil shipments, experts told Iran International.
Despite signs of movement in negotiations with Washington, Tehran is showing little inclination to ease military pressure, pursuing diplomacy while signaling that renewed US attacks could trigger a broader regional response.
Washington could support the Saudi campaign against the Houthis at little direct cost by lifting political objections to its operations, but deeper military involvement risks appearing to widen the Iran war, senior Middle East analyst Ryan Bohl told Iran International.
Washington’s new sanctions are unlikely to stop a China–Iran freight train at the border, but may make the route Tehran has turned to under pressure from the US naval blockade costlier and less reliable.
Footage and images showing men wielding machetes and swords at an IRGC-backed rally in the central Iranian city of Isfahan have renewed scrutiny of the Islamic Republic's history of using unofficial armed groups to suppress anti-government protests.
Three years after Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel, the Islamic Republic faces a weakened network of regional allies, direct military confrontation and mounting economic pressure, upending its long-held strategy of deterring enemies while keeping war away from its territory.
Fears of renewed war with the United States, Israel or both are growing in Iran, as military officials talk openly about pre-emptive action and analysts warn that the distance between diplomacy and another round of fighting is becoming dangerously short.
China’s independent refiners are turning to Iraqi crude to replace dwindling Iranian supplies as a US blockade chokes Tehran’s exports, raising questions about whether Iran is using an old workaround to reach its buyers: disguising its own oil as Iraqi.
Saudi-backed Yemeni forces on Monday reversed weeks of Houthi gains around Bab al-Mandab, the strategic strait linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, exposing vulnerabilities in the Iran-backed group even as fighting elsewhere showed how far Yemen remains from a decisive shift.
Iran’s oil minister Mohsen Paknejad resigned Sunday, leaving acting minister Hamid Bovard with crude exports choked by a US blockade and scrutiny of intermediaries used to sell sanctioned oil, raising questions over what he can change.
Iran’s scientific Olympiad system has become a pipeline of elite talent into universities feeding sensitive nuclear, missile and technology sectors, even as many of the same high achievers leave the country for better opportunities abroad.
An unannounced meeting of President Donald Trump’s senior national security team at Camp David, as another aircraft carrier and thousands more US troops move toward the Middle East, has raised the prospect of another major operation against Iran.
With war disrupting Iran’s southern trade routes, Tehran is looking north to the Caspian for alternatives. But the available evidence suggests they cannot replace its crucial oil exports.
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.
The Basij has long maintained a presence in Iran's high schools and universities. Its growing visibility among much younger children is drawing attention to a new front in the Islamic Republic's effort to shape a generation that has repeatedly challenged its authority.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has portrayed the country as stronger after successive wars and pressures and among the world’s foremost powers, a vision that key economic and military indicators and recent regional events put to the test.
US President Donald Trump’s rejection of Iran’s proposal for a swift reopening of the Strait of Hormuz may say less about Washington’s opposition to a deal than about its changing assessment of Tehran’s most important bargaining chip.
Talks between Iranian and US diplomats have continued in New York despite increasingly harsh rhetoric from both capitals, but the emerging dispute is less over whether to negotiate than over who must move first.
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.
Tehran is signalling that its response to US pressure may be to widen the conflict, turning restrictions on its shipping and aviation into risks for airports and waterways stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea and potentially the Indian Ocean.
Iran’s economy contracted sharply in the spring as war hit its oil and gas sectors, with new data pointing to an energy crunch that could force Tehran to balance gas exports against rising domestic demand as winter approaches.
Any effort to end the Iran war faces a fundamental obstacle even after the resumption of US-Iran diplomacy in New York: apparent divisions within Tehran over who has the authority to negotiate and how far those negotiations can go.