Iran Insights

Why would anyone celebrate bombs falling on their own country? The question were widely asked after videos emerged showing some Iranians cheering strikes on regime targets.

By elevating Mojtaba Khamenei—a figure most Iranians have never heard speak—the Islamic Republic has completed a long drift away from popular legitimacy.

Israeli military images of an underground tunnel complex attributed to Ali Khamenei appear to confirm long-circulating rumors of a network stretching several kilometers beneath central Tehran, under medical centers, schools, and residential neighborhoods.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards continued launching attacks on neighboring countries despite President Pezeshkian’s apology to regional states and his order for the armed forces to halt such strikes, highlighting tensions over who controls wartime decisions.

President Massoud Pezeshkian is facing growing criticism from political figures and analysts for failing to seize what some viewed as a rare opportunity to de-escalate the regional conflict while repairing the state’s broken relationship with Iranians.

Funeral plans for Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei have been revised multiple times this week, reflecting mounting security fears, uncertainty over foreign attendance and unresolved questions about succession.

For decades, the wife of Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei lived almost entirely outside public view. Even her death was reported reluctantly, as though she had never been there at all.

As anti-war protesters in Western capitals chant “no war with Iran,” some Iranians inside and outside the country are cheering the US-Israeli strikes and publicly thanking President Donald Trump.

With Iran at war and its supreme leader dead, Tehran faces a delicate question: whether to appoint a successor quickly to project continuity, or delay the decision to avoid presenting a new leadership target to its enemies.

The death of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has thrust a rather obscure figure into the center of the country’s uncertain political future.

Celebration and stunned disbelief swept across parts of Iran on Saturday evening after US and Israeli officials announced that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had been killed.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in Saturday’s airstrikes, marking the end of more than three decades at the helm of the Islamic Republic and closing a chapter in Iran’s modern history that many Iranians had long hoped to see concluded.

Videos emerging from Iran despite a near-total internet shutdown reflect a rare mix of jubilation, fear and expectation as US and Israeli strikes leave the country’s future suddenly bound to the outcome of the war.

Recent reports in Western outlets on alleged shifts inside Iran’s ruling establishment—particularly the growing role of Ali Larijani—have triggered a mix of denials, dismissals and cautious commentary in Tehran.

The Islamic Republic’s harsh response to recent protests has spilled beyond politics into sport, where athletes now face a stark choice: compete in silence or risk reprisal.

Tehran appeared noticeably downbeat about the outcome of Thursday’s negotiations with Washington in Geneva, with signs of disappointment emerging first on the website of the government’s news agency.

The anxiety splashed across the front pages of Tehran outlets on Thursday did little to quiet the bluffs, threats and illusions that have defined a week of anticipation over possible Israeli or US strikes on Iran.

The mood in Tehran on the eve of the third round of talks with Washington appears to be a mix of guarded hope and tightening anxiety.