Araghchi interview draws fire from Iran hardliners

The remark marked a subtle but significant shift. Iranian officials have long acknowledged espionage and intelligence breaches, particularly after the precision with which senior commanders, nuclear scientists and political leaders have been located and targeted exposed profound vulnerabilities within Iran's security establishment.

Speaking in the first part of a nearly 90-minute podcast interview, Araghchi suggested foreign intelligence activity inside Iran may be something more ambitious than gathering intelligence: shaping the decisions of the state itself.

He made the remarks when asked by establishment podcaster Javad Mogoei about the opening hours of the war, when coordinated strikes killed Iran's supreme leader along with several senior military, security and political figures.

"I believe this security breach is not limited merely to infiltration and obtaining information," Araghchi said.

"Sometimes it also exists in influencing the decision-making process itself. And even more importantly, it extends to shaping our psychological environment and public perception."

Araghchi did not identify any foreign intelligence service or explain how such influence might operate, although Israel appeared to be the implied actor in the discussion.

To Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, that distinction was the most revealing part of the interview.

"The job of these assets isn't just to leak the location of leaders in a certain place to be killed," Vatanka told Iran International. "It is to influence decision-making. It's to influence the policy process."

Vatanka believes Araghchi's remarks were directed as much at Iran's internal political debate as at foreign intelligence operations.

"He's hinting that elements inside the regime are openly arguing for policies that the enemy—the United States and Israel—prefer," he said. "Is he talking about the pro-war hawks? Is this part of scoring points against one another? Could well be."

"These things are obviously not accidental," he added. "This is very much messaging at a moment of war."

Mogoei nevertheless raised another possibility, invoking Masoud Kashmiri, the alleged infiltrator who rose through the ranks of the Islamic Republic before the 1981 bombing that killed President Mohammad Ali Rajai and Prime Minister Mohammad-Javad Bahonar.

"Perhaps we have another Kashmiri," he suggested.

Araghchi did not endorse the comparison, saying Iran's adversaries had become familiar with the supreme leader's routine and that the Intelligence Ministry meeting may simply have coincided by chance.

Whether Araghchi was describing a sophisticated foreign influence operation or speaking more broadly about the effect of outside pressure on Iran's internal politics is where analysts begin to diverge.

Omid Memarian, an Iran analyst at DAWN, said one possible manifestation of the kind of influence Araghchi described would be officials advocating policies that prolong the war despite the damage continued conflict causes to the Islamic Republic's own interests.

"Some of the decisions they are making are exactly the things that Israelis might wish for," Memarian told Iran International.

"When it comes to Iran's national security and national interests, they don't make sense,” he added. "We see the smoke. We don't see the fire."

Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of the Iran Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said Araghchi's comments should also be viewed through the lens of Iran's internal political rivalries.

"That doesn't mean these guys are doves by any measure," Taleblu told Iran International. "But it does mean that they have different views about how best to preserve, protect and defend the Islamic Republic."

Taleblu said public acknowledgments of security failures are often aimed less at the Iranian public than at rival political factions or security institutions, with officials defending their own approach while criticizing competing strategies.

He said Araghchi's comments also highlighted a less discussed aspect of intelligence operations: their ability to shape leaders' perceptions rather than merely gather information.

"Influence is to shape their decision-making, perhaps by lulling the Supreme Leader's office into a false sense of security and back into the routines that existed before," he said.

The renewed offensive, which entered its ninth consecutive night, came as Iranian media reported explosions across the country's southern coastline and, for the first time in the latest campaign, in the northwestern city of Tabriz, suggesting the geographic scope of the strikes may be expanding.

US president Donald Trump said the latest attacks honoured "probably three great patriots" killed in the conflict, describing them as soldiers who had fought to ensure "Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon."

"We hit them very hard again tonight," he told reporters after returning to Washington following the World Cup final.

US Central Command later said it had completed its ninth consecutive night of strikes, targeting Iranian military command centres, air defence and coastal surveillance sites, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and communications networks to further degrade Tehran's ability to threaten shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

Despite the escalation, Rubio reiterated that the United States remained open to a diplomatic solution, maintaining the administration's position that military pressure and negotiations can proceed in parallel.

The widening conflict also rippled through global energy markets. Brent crude rose more than 3% on Monday, climbing above $90 a barrel for the first time since June 11 as attacks on shipping and uncertainty over the Strait of Hormuz intensified.

Iran broadens its threats

Iran, meanwhile, adopted an increasingly confrontational tone in a series of statements issued by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

State media reported fresh missile launches from Lorestan province toward what were described as "enemy targets", while the IRGC claimed it had carried out a surprise strike on the US base at al-Tanf in Syria in retaliation for American attacks that killed Iranian conscript soldiers near Iranshahr.

US Central Command previously denied an earlier Iranian claim that the base had been attacked.

In another statement, the IRGC claimed two oil tankers attempting to transit the Strait of Hormuz had exploded after trying to use what it described as an unsafe route under US pressure.

It warned that the waterway would remain unsafe "for even a single drop of oil and gas" as long as US military operations continued and threatened further "punitive" action against American forces.

The force also claimed Jordanians had provided intelligence that enabled attacks on US military facilities at al-Azraq and Aqaba. Those claims could not be independently verified.

Escalationm vs diplomacy

The widening military campaign has fuelled speculation in Washington that the strikes are intended to pave the way for a broader phase of the conflict if diplomacy ultimately fails.

Yet the political messaging from both capitals points to a more complicated picture.

Rubio's remarks echoed comments earlier this week by Vice President JD Vance, who argued that military pressure and diplomacy should proceed together. Iran's chief negotiator and parliament speaker, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, similarly described war and negotiations as complementary tools for defending national interests.

The parallel rhetoric suggests both governments may be seeking to strengthen their bargaining positions ahead of another round of talks rather than abandoning diplomacy altogether—even as the battlefield widens.

Whether that strategy succeeds may depend not only on developments on the ground but also on mounting economic pressure.

On the ground in Hormozgan province, the damage has fallen heavily on the civilian road network, and the tally has grown by the day.

On Friday the provincial governor's office said six bridges had been struck in Khamir county alone, cutting the Bandar Abbas to Lar highway; its list ran from the Gariveh bridge to spans near the villages of Latidan and Maru, with residents told to keep off the routes and leave them clear for rescue teams.

Within a day, officials were adding to it. The Shahid Mirzaei road tunnel was reported damaged in both directions, the Roudkhaneh Shour bridge was hit on the Bandar Abbas to Sirjan route, and two more bridges were damaged on the road from the Minab junction toward Roudan. With attacks continuing nightly, no official list has stayed final for long.

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  Why US strikes are moving deeper into southern Iran

The attacks have also reached utilities. Iranian media reported missile strikes on power facilities and desalination pumps in the coastal city of Jask, leaving some 10,000 people in 20 villages without water, according to the Tasnim news agency. The maritime control tower at Chabahar, which the Tehran daily Etemad described as civilian infrastructure that guides shipping and coordinates sea rescues, was hit for the third time in a week.

A port city going quiet

The cumulative effect is visible in Bandar Abbas, the provincial capital and Iran's main commercial gateway on the strait. Iran International has learned that the city has gone semi-dormant under the naval blockade and the severing of its road links, with activity at Shahid Rajaee, the country's largest container port, reduced to a minimum.

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  Iran hardliners blamed as cost of US strikes mounts

Half of the port's workforce has been laid off in recent weeks, according to the information received, and those still employed are working for minimum pay. More than 4,000 containers are stranded in the port's yards. The blockade closed the sea route weeks ago; the strikes on bridges are now closing the roads.

The Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries a fifth of the world's oil, has been shut to Iranian exports and contested for a week, with US Marines boarding a tanker, the Revolutionary Guards saying they stopped four vessels with missile and drone fire, and Washington enforcing what it calls a naval blockade. The Guards say that until US attacks end, not a drop of oil or gas will leave the region.

Talk of a ground campaign

Trump has made no secret of the targeting. He told Fox News this week that the United States would knock out Iran's power plants and bridges unless Tehran returned to negotiations, and said the strikes would continue "until I say it's enough."

Asked in the same interview about sending ground troops, the president declined to rule it out. "Sometimes you need a ground campaign," he said, adding, "we have other people who will do the ground campaign for us." He said American forces had already struck Kharg Island, the hub of Iran's oil exports, two or three times, with instructions to spare the oil terminals themselves.

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  Vance, Ghalibaf back diplomacy as US, Iran strikes continue

Vice President JD Vance has said the United States does not intend to send ground troops to Iran, leaving the administration's position less than settled. US officials, for their part, have said the attacks on southern Iran are designed in part to give Trump options.

In Tehran, some of the loudest voices in the Islamic Republic's establishment are reading the map the same way. Amir-Hossein Sabeti, a hardline lawmaker from Tehran, wrote on social media that the destruction of the south's transport links was most likely the prelude to a ground attack, arguing that damaged roads and bridges would hamper the movement of Iranian forces ahead of any attempt to seize islands or key points on the coast.

Sabeti reserved part of his message for his own government, demanding that President Masoud Pezeshkian and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf either deliver on their promise that the agreement with Washington would end the war or admit their judgment had failed.

The swipe pointed to a widening argument inside the establishment over who bears responsibility for the ceasefire's collapse.

Mohsen Rezaei, an adviser to Iran's supreme leader and a former Revolutionary Guards commander, warned that if US strikes continue for several more days, Iran will move into what he called full-scale offensive operations.

Analysts note that a week of air strikes has not reopened the strait, and that controlling it durably may ultimately require forces on the coast or islands that command it, a step no amount of bombing substitutes for.

The targeting of bridges, power stations and water plants, on both sides, has drawn warnings beyond the region.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was concerned by attacks on civilian infrastructure in Iran and across the Persian Gulf, where Kuwait's desalination plants have been hit twice in two days by Iranian strikes.

The 1949 Geneva Conventions prohibit attacks on sites essential to civilian survival, and American legal scholars warned earlier this year, after Trump first threatened Iran's infrastructure, that such strikes could amount to war crimes.

Oil prices climbed more than 4 percent on Friday to their highest level in over a month, a third straight weekly gain that adds pressure on Trump ahead of November's congressional elections.

American forces have been striking targets along Iran’s Persian Gulf coast for almost a week.

Iranian media reported that eight people were killed as bridges, communications infrastructure and a maritime surveillance tower were hit across Hormozgan and Sistan-Baluchistan provinces.

Rebeccah Heinrichs, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, says the concentration of attacks along Iran’s southern coastline—and increasingly farther inland—suggests the United States is moving beyond retaliation against individual strikes and targeting the infrastructure that allows Tehran to sustain and eventually rebuild the military capabilities underpinning its operations around the Strait of Hormuz.

“Up until very recently, the United States was primarily focused on doing retaliatory strikes exclusively along the coastline of Iran,” Heinrichs told Eye for Iran. . “

‘Protecting maritime traffic’

The attacks came after President Donald Trump warned that bridges and power infrastructure could become targets if Tehran refused to return to negotiations.

Iranian military officials, meanwhile, said the conflict would “spread to new areas” if US operations continued.

“I suspect that the United States has had these targets on their list,” she said. “President Trump has gone back to Admiral Cooper and said, ‘What else do we need to hit?’”

The likely focus, she added, was Iran’s ability to replenish the military capabilities it uses around the Strait of Hormuz.

Among the sites struck was a maritime surveillance tower in Chabahar. Iran described it as a facility monitoring commercial shipping, while US Central Command said it formed part of an IRGC network used to track vessels transiting the strait and coordinate attacks against them.

CENTCOM said destroying the tower would directly reduce the Revolutionary Guards’ ability to threaten maritime traffic.

The targeting of bridges in Hormozgan province also points to an expanding set of military objectives.

Heinrichs said Washington had sought to limit civilian harm, but argued that some dual-use infrastructure could become a legitimate military target if it substantially enabled IRGC operations.

“There are some targets that the United States could legitimately hit,” she said. “They may create some harm, of course, to the civilian population, but they also primarily enable and facilitate the IRGC to repress their people and to continue their war effort.”

A limited ground role?

The widening campaign has also fuelled speculation about whether Washington could eventually deploy ground forces inside Iran.

Heinrichs dismissed the prospect of a large-scale invasion, saying any deployment would more likely involve special operations forces tasked with securing or removing nuclear material rather than occupying territory.

“If President Trump were to go with any contingency that would entail some element of US ground forces, it would almost certainly be because the United States wants to remove any nuclear material that is still inside Iran,” she said.

For now, however, Heinrichs believes the campaign remains centred on the Strait of Hormuz.

The initial phase significantly weakened Iran’s military leadership and its capacity to project power beyond its borders, she said. Washington has now moved into what she described as “the battle over the Strait of Hormuz.”

Taken together, the latest strikes point to a campaign that is evolving beyond retaliation. Rather than simply responding to Iranian attacks, Washington appears increasingly focused on preventing Tehran from regenerating the military infrastructure underpinning its operations around the Strait of Hormuz.

The directive came a week after the collapse of a ceasefire with the United States and the resumption of fighting in southern Iran and the Strait of Hormuz.

It told media outlets covering attacks on civilian facilities and infrastructure to “refrain from publishing vital information,” avoid creating “fear and alarm among the public,” and withhold details about the extent of destruction or its impact on the delivery of public services.

The council said such information could be used “by the enemy to assess the effectiveness of its attacks.” It instructed media outlets to obtain information through the most senior provincial official responsible for any institution or facility that had been hit.

The directive also ordered media outlets to describe disruptions to public services using phrases such as “the issue is under review and being resolved,” rather than report the extent of the damage or provide specific details about its effect on services.

It said the Health Ministry and emergency services remained the only official and authoritative sources for civilian casualty figures.

The order followed a sixth consecutive night of US strikes on Iran. US Central Command said fighter jets, drones and warships had used precision weapons against dozens of military targets, including coastal surveillance and air-defense sites, military logistics infrastructure and maritime capabilities on Qeshm Island and near Bandar Abbas.

The strikes could expand further. Axios reported on Friday that the Trump administration plans to send dozens more aerial refueling planes to Israel as the US president considers a broader offensive against Iran, potentially targeting power plants, other infrastructure and additional nuclear facilities.

Iranian media reported that five bridges in Hormozgan province were hit, along with the railway station in the coastal city of Bandar Khamir and Iranshahr airport in southeastern Iran.

Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency said seven people were killed in strikes on bridges in Bandar Khamir.

The attacks also damaged power lines in Bandar Abbas and surrounding areas, causing outages, while a tower at the port of Chabahar was brought down. Iran said the tower monitored commercial traffic, while the United States described it as part of an IRGC surveillance network used to target vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.

With major international news organizations lacking permanent bureaus inside Iran, the directive further concentrates wartime reporting in the hands of state-controlled institutions and makes independent verification of attacks, casualties and infrastructure damage more difficult.