Iran Insights

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.

War has erased Iran’s already weak growth prospects. The economy shrinks as prices rise at one of the region’s fastest rates, forcing households to bear war, sanctions and years of economic mismanagement through fewer jobs, weaker incomes and collapsing purchasing power.

Years of high inflation have pushed millions of Iranian households into a struggle over basic expenses, with new estimates showing wages barely cover food costs before rent, healthcare and other necessities are even considered.

Iranian officials are calling for national unity after Ali Khamenei’s death, but the message is increasingly being shaped by demands for revenge, attacks on officials accused of compromise and warnings that internal division serves the enemy.

Iran’s media landscape is sharply split over the latest escalation, with moderate outlets warning that ordinary Iranians will pay the price and hardline voices calling for forceful retaliation against US interests and regional energy routes.

The fragile memorandum between Tehran and Washington is facing its biggest test yet after two days of US strikes on targets along Iran’s southern coast and Iranian attacks on commercial shipping near the Strait of Hormuz raised fears of a return to full-scale war.

The Islamic Republic sought to turn Ali Khamenei’s funeral ceremonies in Iraq into a regional show of loyalty, using processions in Najaf and Karbala to suggest that his authority reached beyond Iran even as Tehran’s allied network faces growing pressure.

Hassan Nemazee inherited one of Iran’s best-known charitable legacies, lost his family’s fortune to the 1979 revolution and later found a new cause inside a US prison: justice reform.

Ali Khamenei's funeral was intended to project national unity, but hardline attacks on the president and Iran's negotiators, the absence of former presidents, and renewed calls for revenge exposed deep divisions within Iran's political establishment.

The weeklong funeral ceremonies for Iran’s slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei have been mired in chaotic planning, last-minute changes and political controversy.

As Iran holds week-long funeral ceremonies for Ali Khamenei, the political dynamics unfolding behind the scenes point to a striking reality: the succession question that dominated elite politics for more than a decade did not end with his death.

Quran verses recited for foreign delegations attending the funeral of Iran's slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei have sparked debate after Iranian media and social media users argued the passages were carefully chosen to send political and diplomatic messages to visiting officials.

The Iran-US truce has exposed a deeper battle inside Tehran, where public rifts over censorship, negotiations and the system’s future point to a survival debate that could reshape or further destabilize the regime, experts told the Eye for Iran podcast.

As Ali Khamenei’s coffin is carried through days of state-orchestrated mourning, the Islamic Republic is trying to recast a humiliating wartime death as martyrdom, continuity and power, and repair a system wounded by war and public distrust.

Iranian hardliners have accused the country's negotiators of compromising Tehran’s authority over the Strait of Hormuz, claiming a recent understanding with the United States has pushed international shipping toward what they call a US-backed Omani route.

A senior aide to President Masoud Pezeshkian has turned Iran’s dispute over the US memorandum into a fight over authority, arguing that Supreme Leader’s views are subject to expert review within the state’s decision-making bodies rather than implemented automatically.

A state-TV commentator’s claim that factions want to dissolve the IRGC has revived debate over Iran’s dual military structure, the Guards’ expanding political and economic role, and whether the army-IRGC system remains an asset after a war that exposed its reach and costs.