Iran lawmaker says draft budget has serious flaws

The claims have circulated amid growing public anxiety about escalation—concerns that have begun to ripple through Iran’s currency and gold markets.

“Trump is no longer interested in playing Netanyahu’s game,” Nameh News, a conservative outlet widely seen as close to Iran’s intelligence community, quoted Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, the former head of parliament’s national security committee, as saying.

Falahatpisheh offered little evidence for the assertion, suggesting only that “all of Trump’s attention is currently focused on the Western hemisphere.”

Those assurances stand in contrast to remarks on Wednesday by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said Israel still needed to “settle accounts” with Iran, adding that while Israel did not seek confrontation, it remained alert to “every possible danger.”

Meeting in Mar-a-Lago

Netanyahu is set to meet Donald Trump next week, primarily to discuss the next phase of the Gaza conflict but also Iran’s nuclear standoff.

Nameh News introduced the interview by citing the upcoming meeting, asserting that it would have no impact on Tehran’s determination to pursue its nuclear and missile programs.

Falahatpisheh further argued that the Trump–Netanyahu meeting was intended mainly to shield Israel from broader US national security priorities, claiming Washington was no longer willing to spend resources on military operations outside the Western hemisphere.

As support, he cited US national security documents, noting that Iran was mentioned 17 times in 2024 but only three times in 2025.

‘US not interested’

The same day, the outlet quoted foreign policy analyst Ali Bigdeli, who echoed Falahatpisheh’s assessment almost verbatim.

“I do not assume that the United States is likely to enter an action against Iran to assist Israel,” Bigdeli said, while maintaining that the Trump–Netanyahu meeting would indeed focus on Iran. He warned of the possibility of a “surprise military attack” but concluded that a broader conflict between Israel and Iran remained unlikely.

A similar argument appeared in the reformist daily Arman Melli, which published an interview that day with political commentator Hassan Hanizadeh.

Hanizadeh said the United States was “not interested in taking part in a new war against Iran” and accused Netanyahu and Israeli media of amplifying regional instability for domestic political reasons.

Taken together, the remarks suggest a coordinated effort to reassure domestic audiences that war is unlikely, even as official rhetoric remains confrontational. Whether such messaging can ease public anxiety—and calm markets in Iran—remains an open question.

“If this system, with all its shortcomings and flaws, collapses, Iran’s fate would be far more bitter than it is now,” Khatami said at a meeting with journalists, artists and university professors, according to semi-official ISNA news agency.

"Separatism, foreign intervention, infiltrations, and the like would destroy Iran, and the only path to fundamental reform is one that is less costly and more beneficial than any other solution," the former reformist president added.

Khatami said public anger should not be confused with support for radical action.

“If we look beyond fleeting emotions and the anger stemming from the current situation, I believe the majority would choose reform,” he said.

Khatami’s remarks come as many Iranians appear to have moved on from the long-standing reformist–hardliner divide, with public discourse increasingly sceptical of gradual reform from within the system.

A survey conducted in 2024 and published in August 2025 by the Netherlands-based institute GAMAAN found that the majority of Iranians would vote for either a regime change or a structural transition away from the Islamic Republic, highlighting growing demands for political change across Iran.

Opposition rose to about 81% during the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom protests, the survey said.

During the widespread protests which began in September 2022, sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody, demonstrators repeatedly called for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.

The protests were quashed with deadly force, with at least 550 people killed by state security forces and thousands arrested according to rights groups.

The vessel was stopped in a “highly coordinated operation,” according to the IRGC-linked Tasnim citing senior navy commander Mohammad Gholamshahi.

“The tanker was carrying 4 million litres of smuggled fuel and was intercepted as it attempted to leave Iran’s territorial waters,” Gholamshahi said, adding that the ship had a crew of 16 non-Iranian nationals and was stopped before leaving Iranian waters.

Iranian officials did not disclose the vessel’s flag, ownership or destination.

The Guards said the crew had been detained and that the case had been referred to judicial authorities for further investigation, with additional inquiries under way to identify networks linked to the smuggling operation.

Iran periodically announces the seizure of vessels accused of fuel smuggling, a trade driven by heavily subsidised domestic fuel prices and compounded by sanctions that restrict formal energy exports.

The latest seizure comes amid heightened regional tensions, with Tehran repeatedly warning that it could restrict or close the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow maritime chokepoint linking the Persian Gulf to global markets, in response to military action.

About a fifth of the world’s oil supply passes through the strait, making any disruption a major concern for global energy markets.

Gholamshahi asserted that the cargo of the seized tanker had been transferred from smaller boats and was intended to be offloaded to larger ships outside the Persian Gulf.

The moment came during a live appearance by Vice President Jafar Ghaempanah on IRINN, Iran’s state television news channel.

Pressed repeatedly on the economy, Ghaempanah acknowledged that a roughly 30 percent decline in oil revenues, compounded by chronic energy shortages and the continued impact of sanctions, had sharply reduced government resources and damaged livelihoods.

Since the start of President Masoud Pezeshkian’s administration, he said, falling oil income had cut into production, deepened the budget deficit and left the state with far less room to maneuver.

The interview quickly drew attention online—not only for its substance, but for what appeared to be visible strain. Ghaempanah stumbled over basic facts, briefly referring to the June conflict with Israel as the “11-day war” and seeming uncertain about its timing, while at several points losing his temper as the interviewer pressed for specifics he struggled to provide.

Budget behind closed doors

The significance of the appearance became clearer the next day, when the government presented its annual budget bill to parliament in a closed-door session from which leaks soon emerged.

According to multiple reports—some echoed by state television itself—Hamid Pourmohammadi, head of the Planning and Budget Organization, told lawmakers that the government currently has no foreign-currency resources to support the proposed budget, sparking heated exchanges with MPs.

Leaked details indicate that next year’s budget will be around five percent smaller than the current one, an unusual move for a system long accustomed to expanding nominal spending even in difficult times.

That picture sits uneasily alongside public assurances from Economy Minister Ali Madanizadeh, who has claimed the draft was prepared with a near-zero deficit.

Crisis in plain sight

For years, large portions of Iran’s budget have been directed toward ideological and propaganda bodies, as well as institutions linked to powerful security organizations, even as basic services and productive investment have suffered.

Mehdi Pazouki told the reformist Rouydad24 website that budget deficits lie at the heart of Iran’s chronic economic instability. Inflation, he argued, is not a temporary shock but the outcome of sustained mismanagement.

Pazouki urged the government to privatize state- and military-owned companies and to halt the practice of allocating oil to military bodies to sell on the state’s behalf—steps that would challenge entrenched interests.

With oil revenues shrinking, energy shortages worsening and sanctions continuing to restrict access to hard currency, the state faces mounting limits on its ability to cushion economic pain.

Ghaempanah’s faltering television appearance was less an isolated embarrassment than a revealing symptom—one that briefly aligned official rhetoric with the economic reality the system usually works to conceal.

Speaking on Sunday, Ghalibaf warned that if the executive fails to address rising prices of basic goods, parliament would have a “duty” to take action.

But moderate voices in Tehran argue the episode is less about procedure than positioning.

“These remarks indicate a fundamental shift in relations between the presidency and parliament,” wrote the news website Rouydad24, arguing that Ghalibaf is recalibrating his role from co-manager of the system’s crises to its chief overseer.

By adopting an openly critical stance, the outlet said, Ghalibaf is seeking to distance himself from shared responsibility for deteriorating economic conditions while presenting parliament as an independent check on executive failure.

“If reshuffling occurs, parliament will claim victory; if not, impeachment becomes the ‘last unavoidable option,’” it wrote—placing political costs squarely on the government.

Moderate politician Hossein Nourani-Nejad said impeachment threats are being used to reshape the executive politically.

“The government is centrist, not reformist,” he said. “But the right is trying to gradually turn it into a conservative government.”

Parliament has already impeached and removed Economy Minister Abdolnaser Hemmati, with pressure building on ministers overseeing agriculture, roads and urban development, industry and trade, sports and welfare.

Parliamentary attacks have focused disproportionately on reformist or centrist ministers aligned with the government’s discourse.

Some lawmakers have gone further, openly calling for Pezeshkian’s resignation and even floating his impeachment on grounds of what they describe as “political incompetence.”

Most of those voices belong to the ultra-hardline Paydari Party and are closely aligned with Saeed Jalili, Pezeshkian’s rival in last year’s presidential election.

“That the head of another branch of power would threaten the president and government by invoking impeachment demands from a specific parliamentary minority is novel,” Esmail Gerami-Moghaddam of the Etemad-e Melli Party told Etemad.

By sharpening confrontation now, critics argue, Ghalibaf is seeking to shed collective responsibility for economic distress while signalling readiness for a future political contest—one in which blame, distance and “oversight” may matter as much as policy.

The backdrop is Ghalibaf’s own defeat to Pezeshkian in the last year’s presidential race—and widespread belief in Tehran that the coming years could bring major political shifts, creating incentives for senior figures to reposition early.

Deputy Speaker Ali Nikzad acknowledged the stakes, noting that if more than half the cabinet were removed or resigned, the government would lose its quorum.

He added, however, that “the position of the system”—a reference to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei—is that the cabinet should complete its term.