Bid to oust Pezeshkian exposes rift among Iran conservatives

Calls for a tougher response have grown louder as fighting expands beyond the Strait of Hormuz and US pressure on Iranian oil exports intensifies.

In parliament, ultraconservative lawmaker Mohammad Taghi Naghdali has called for a stronger response to prevent further weakening of Lebanese Hezbollah, while Hassan Ghashghavi, spokesman for parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, has argued for measures aimed at strengthening Iran’s deterrence.

Other hardline figures have gone further, renewing calls for Iran to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, end remaining international monitoring and adopt a more confrontational nuclear posture.

The Revolutionary Guards said Thursday its navy had targeted two US vessels, eight oil tankers and 10 other ships in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz in response to US attacks on five Iranian tankers.

The escalation is taking place against severe economic pressure at home. Food inflation reached 127.5 percent year-on-year in the month to late August, while the rial has fallen to record lows against the dollar.

For advocates of escalation, the calculation is that greater military pressure can produce strategic leverage before the economic and military costs become harder to sustain.

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors this week reported Iran to the UN Security Council over breaches of its nuclear non-proliferation obligations, the first such referral in 20 years.

Tehran rejected the decision, accusing Western governments of using disruption caused by US and Israeli attacks on its nuclear facilities as a pretext for further pressure.

Calls to leave the NPT or further restrict international monitoring could give Tehran another means of raising the stakes. They could also deepen its isolation and increase the risk of further military action at a time when diplomatic options are already limited.

But what are Iran’s alternatives?

Yet judging the hardliners’ strategy solely against Iran’s vulnerabilities misses the other side of the calculation.

President Donald Trump said this week that negotiations with Iran “could happen,” but added that talks were “not something we’re looking at” for now. US forces, meanwhile, have continued attacks on Iranian oil tankers and enforcement of Washington’s maritime blockade.

Trump also said he wants any eventual agreement to go beyond the nuclear issue, potentially making a negotiated settlement more difficult to reach.

Senior advisers have privately warned Trump that Iran could continue resisting US pressure and that the conflict could last through the remainder of his presidency, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Iran’s latest attack on the US base in Jordan required American forces to fire roughly 30 Patriot interceptors, according to a US official, adding to concerns about the rate at which the war is consuming sophisticated air-defense missiles.

Precise stockpile figures are classified, but independent estimates and recent reporting have pointed to significant pressure on US inventories of Patriot and other high-end interceptors, which can take years to replenish.

The disparity in overall military and economic power remains considerable, while Iran is already contending with high inflation, disruption to its oil trade and the costs of sustained military operations.

But the calculation in Tehran appears to be that Iran can impose sufficient costs on the United States and its regional partners before its own vulnerabilities become overwhelming.

It is a strategy with considerable risks. But with no clear diplomatic off-ramp, the harder question is whether Tehran’s hardliners are ignoring the options available to Iran—or responding to how few remain.

The cabinet has opposed a report by parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee concerning the proposal, state news agency IRNA reported, citing Iran’s national database of laws and regulations.

The published notice did not specify which parts of the committee report the government opposed. The decision was taken at an August 23 cabinet meeting and formally communicated on September 8 by First Vice President Mohammad-Reza Aref.

Alireza Salimi, a member of parliament’s presidium, hit back Thursday, saying the government had exceeded its authority and was approaching the legislation politically rather than on its merits.

“This is a parliamentary proposal, not a government bill, and therefore the government’s action in opposing it is illegal,” Salimi told parliament’s ICANA news agency.

Controversial measure

The confrontation is the latest stage in a dispute over legislation that would significantly broaden the state’s powers to police contacts with foreign governments, media, universities and international organizations in the name of combating espionage and infiltration.

Parliament approved the proposal’s general principles in August by 183 votes to four, but lawmakers have yet to complete consideration of its individual provisions.

A publicly circulated draft would impose new restrictions on sharing information and contacts with foreign institutions and give the Intelligence Ministry and the Revolutionary Guards’ Intelligence Organization roles in identifying prohibited foreign links.

Critics have warned that its broad language could expose journalists, academics, researchers and others engaged in academic, cultural or civil-society cooperation abroad to prosecution.

Pezeshkian’s administration had already raised objections before the cabinet’s formal decision.

Brain drain risk

Vice President for Legal Affairs Majid Ansari said in August that the proposal conflicted with constitutional protections for individual freedoms and could sharply restrict academic contacts with institutions overseas.

He also argued that Iran already had laws and security agencies to combat foreign intelligence activity.

“If every type of contact and communication faces restrictions and is criminalized by law, naturally they will prefer to migrate and carry out their scientific and research activities in a free environment,” Ansari warned.

Salimi said any defects should instead be addressed as parliament considers the proposal.

“If there are flaws in parliament’s proposal, they should be corrected through expert review,” he said.

He also questioned why government representatives had not raised their objections earlier with the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee.

The dispute leaves the government and parliament at odds not only over the scope of the proposed restrictions, but over the administration’s authority to challenge a security initiative originating in parliament.

The published notice did not explain what the committee report contained or specify which parts of it the government opposed.

The cabinet took the decision at an August 23 meeting and it was formally communicated on September 8 by Iran's first vice president, IRNA said, citing the country's national database of laws and regulations.

The cabinet named the president's legal affairs office and the presidential office for science, technology and the knowledge-based economy as government representatives in the matter, IRNA said.

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  Iran’s ‘infiltration’ bill sparks backlash over sweeping reach

Bill has drawn criticism over broad reach

Parliament approved the general principles of legislation on combating foreign infiltration in August by 183 votes to four, but lawmakers have yet to complete consideration of its individual provisions.

A publicly circulated draft would impose new restrictions on contacts with foreign media, universities, embassies and international organizations and give the Intelligence Ministry and the Revolutionary Guards' Intelligence Organization roles in identifying prohibited foreign links.

Some provisions would restrict sharing information with foreign institutions and certain forms of academic, cultural and civil-society cooperation.

Critics in Iran have warned that the broad wording could expose journalists, academics, researchers and other citizens to prosecution.

The notice did not say whether the cabinet opposed the legislation as a whole or only aspects of the parliamentary committee's report.

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  Pezeshkian admin says infiltration bill violates rights, could drive brain drain

Pezeshkian government had raised rights concerns

The decision follows earlier public opposition from President Masoud Pezeshkian's administration. Vice President for Legal Affairs Majid Ansari said in August that the proposal conflicted with constitutional protections for citizens' rights and individual freedoms and would sharply restrict academic contacts with institutions abroad.

"If every type of contact and communication faces restrictions and is criminalized by law, naturally they will prefer to migrate and carry out their scientific and research activities in a free environment," Ansari said, warning that the measure could drive more Iranian researchers, doctors and academics to leave the country.

Iran’s leadership recently approved pardons or reduced sentences for 2,577 prisoners. The announcement came with the usual ceremonial packaging: a religious occasion, a request from the head of the judiciary and a generous act of compassion from above.

It is an impressive number. Large enough to make headlines and perhaps create the impression that something in Iran is becoming softer.

At almost the same time, the Revolutionary Court in Isfahan sentenced ten people arrested following the January protests to death. So much for the softer side.

These ten sentences are shocking, but they are not an isolated story. They were handed down in the middle of an execution campaign that has already taken hundreds of lives this year.

Iran Human Rights recorded at least 532 executions in the first eight months of 2026, including 82 in August alone. Only 77 of those 532 executions were announced by official sources. The rest were documented through the organization’s network and verified using independent sources.

In other words, while the Islamic Republic publishes its pardons, most of its executions happen with considerably less enthusiasm for publicity.

Iran Human Rights recorded at least 1,639 executions in 2025, a 68 percent increase from the previous year and the highest annual figure the organization has documented since 1989.

Many were sentenced to death for murder or drug-related offenses, often after proceedings criticized for serious violations of due process. But that distinction does not make the wider execution spree irrelevant to political repression.

The gallows create their own atmosphere. When a state executes people on such a scale, often without public acknowledgment, every new death sentence against a protester carries a very clear message.

At least 31 protesters had been executed by the end of August, according to Iran Human Rights. Twenty-nine of them had been arrested in connection with the January protests.

Amnesty International has also warned that dozens of protesters and dissidents remain under death sentences or at risk of execution.

The ten defendants in Isfahan are therefore not the entire story. They are the latest names added to a much larger campaign.

The case is known as the “Isfahan Shohada Square case.” According to matching reports by HRANA and Hengaw, those sentenced to death are Taraneh Rahimi, Navid Elyasi, Abolfazl Dadgostar, Mehdi Mansouri, Ahmadreza Saeidi, Mehrdad Boveyri, Mohammad Mehdi Asadi, Armin Gholami, Parsa Jafari and Mehdi Jafari, also known as Mehdi Jafari Khosravi.

All ten were also sentenced to 11 years in prison. Six other defendants received terms ranging from 16 to 36 years. Together, the prison sentences imposed on the 16 defendants amount to 256 years.

The charges include moharebeh, usually translated as “waging war against God,” allegedly through carrying bladed weapons, as well as destruction of public property, assembly and collusion, and propaganda against the state.

Two people died during the events around Shohada Square: a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and a homeless man. Yet the indictment reportedly did not charge the defendants directly with killing either of them.

According to HRANA and Hengaw, no documented evidence was presented establishing their responsibility for those deaths.

One detail is especially difficult to forget. A video found on the phones of some defendants reportedly shows Taraneh Rahimi, the only woman among the ten sentenced to death, trying to stop people from beating the homeless man.

She was reportedly attempting to prevent violence. The court sentenced her to death.

The defendants’ lawyers were denied access to significant parts of the case files and were not given sufficient time to review the evidence, according to the two organizations. The hearing was held inside Dastgerd Prison rather than an ordinary public courtroom.

During the proceedings, Ahmadreza Saeidi told the judges that an investigator had tortured him with electric shocks to his neck and genitals. There is no public indication that the allegation led to an independent investigation or caused the court to reconsider evidence obtained during his interrogation.

The full judgment has not been published, leaving no way for independent observers to examine the evidence or understand how the court justified ten death sentences without directly charging the defendants over the two deaths at the center of the case.

The verdicts are preliminary and can still be appealed. For the families, it offers limited comfort. They now have to wait while the same judicial system accused of denying the defense proper access to the case decides whether their loved ones should live.

This is what makes the pardon announcement so revealing.

Clemency is real for those who receive it. A prisoner returning home is not a public relations statistic to the family waiting at the door. A reduced sentence can restore years of someone’s life, and none of that should be dismissed.

But selective clemency should not be mistaken for a change in direction, especially while executions continue at this scale.

The 2,577 pardons offer the public one image of the state. The hundreds of executions offer another, one that receives considerably less official attention. Political defendants are being placed inside a system of capital punishment already operating at extraordinary speed.

The Isfahan case shows how that machinery can be directed against protest. A broad charge such as “waging war against God,” limited access to evidence, an allegation of torture and a closed hearing inside a prison can lead all the way to the gallows.

The pardons are meant to be seen. Most of the executions are not. Behind the official display of mercy, the machinery has not slowed down. Ten more people have now been placed in its path.

Nour News, a website close to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said Wednesday that the latest escalation showed signs of reversing the logic of the blockade.

“The US naval blockade was supposed to target Iran’s economic resilience by cutting or restricting its export routes,” it said.

But with both sides now attacking tankers and military vessels and traffic through Hormuz again sharply reduced, “the cost of the blockade is no longer distributed solely on the Iranian side.”

The Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said Wednesday that Iranian forces had responded to US attacks on five Iranian tankers by targeting two US warships and eight oil tankers, as well as 10 “violating vessels” attempting to pass through Iran’s restricted zone in Hormuz.

The US denied that its warships had been hit.

‘An eye for an eye’

Iran is now threatening to widen that confrontation geographically.

IRGC spokesman Hossein Mohebbi said a new restricted area would extend from the direction of Chabahar through parts of the Gulf of Oman and Arabian Sea along routes leading towards Hormuz. Its precise coordinates have yet to be announced.

The IRGC has also warned tankers and other vessels at ports and anchorages in Kuwait and Bahrain to leave, threatening those that remain.

Ships entering without Iranian permission would be placed on a sanctions list and denied maritime, insurance and other services, Mohebbi said, including during future passages through Hormuz.

Conservative political activist Amir Chizari, who is close to parliament speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, advocated going further, calling for Iran to prevent ships from using ports in Persian Gulf countries hosting US military bases.

“Head for head, eye for eye—that means all these ports will be blockaded by Iran,” he wrote on X.

Nour News said the significance lay not simply in creating another restricted zone but “in changing the logic of confrontation with the blockade.”

“Tehran does not necessarily need to seize a ship to change the behaviour of an actor; it is enough for the cost of interacting with a vessel or network to rise so that the other side retreats in advance,” it said.

Diplomacy narrows

The increasingly expansive strategy comes as prospects for reviving diplomacy appear to be shrinking.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tuesday that a US return to its commitments and the Islamabad understanding would “pave the way for a return to normality.”

But Middle East Eye reported Wednesday, citing two sources close to the Iranian government, that President Donald Trump had conveyed through Pakistani and Qatari officials that Washington would not return to the previous understanding.

The absence of a diplomatic route raises the stakes of Iran’s strategy: Tehran is betting that making the blockade more expensive for Washington, commercial shipping and regional states will eventually create pressure to ease it.

A costly gamble

Inside Iran, critics warn that the same strategy could inflict enormous damage on the country itself.

Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, a conservative former chairman of parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, accused hardliners of risking Iran’s tanker fleet.

“The National Iranian Tanker Company is the largest tanker company in the world. They are setting the country’s unparalleled wealth on fire. This Iran-burning must end,” he wrote on X.

Hardliners counter that such economic calculations make little sense when they believe Iran faces an existential threat.

One user responding to Falahatpisheh asked what guarantee Iran had that peace would last if it compromised now, or that the United States would not attack again months later.

The costs of escalation are already becoming apparent. Brent crude rose above $100 a barrel Wednesday, while flows through Hormuz fell as low as two million barrels a day after reaching eight to nine million before fighting resumed.

In Iran, the dollar rose above 2.33 million rials on the foreign exchange market, another record low for the national currency.

Iran’s strategy amounts to a gamble that widening the geographic and economic costs of the blockade will eventually make it harder to sustain. But the deeper Tehran extends the confrontation beyond Hormuz, the greater the risk that those costs return to Iran itself.