Week of August 10, 2026 | Iran Unfiltered is a digest tracking Iranian politics & society by the National Iranian American Council

• Iran Turns to China and Overland Trade as Maritime Blockade Squeezes Economy
• Despite Negotiations, Iran Plans to Outlast the United States
• Iran Faces Worsening Gasoline Crisis
• Iran Mourns Iraj, the “Champion of Persian Singing,” Dead at 94
• Killing of Tehran Religious Singer Raises Questions Over Motive and Possible Political Links
• Mohsen Rezai’s Return to the Security Council Signals a Hardline Victory, But Not Necessarily a Change of Course

Iran Turns to China and Overland Trade as Maritime Blockade Squeezes Economy

Months into the war and renewed U.S. maritime blockade, Iran’s economy is showing two seemingly contradictory trends. Pressure from restricted maritime trade is becoming increasingly visible in fuel supplies, transportation costs and imports. Yet the economy has not ground to a halt. Tehran is rapidly expanding alternative overland trade routes, particularly with China, while the Tehran Stock Exchange has climbed to record highs.

While the economy has in many ways adapted to ongoing warfare, a fundamental question remains: how long can those adaptations compensate for the loss of normal access to maritime trade?

The most immediate signs of pressure have emerged in the energy sector. As Iran Unfiltered reported earlier, domestic gasoline consumption is running above production, while the government says the maritime blockade and financial constraints have made replacing the shortfall through imports increasingly difficult. Reports of supply limitations have emerged in several parts of the country, while an attempt in Kerman Province to introduce a new pricing system for consumption above existing subsidized quotas was quickly suspended.

But gasoline is only one part of the problem. Iran historically conducts much of its foreign trade through its southern ports, and shifting that volume to roads and railways carries significant logistical and financial costs.

Majidreza Hariri, chairman of the Iran-China Chamber of Commerce, has emerged as one of the most outspoken Iranian business figures warning about the economic consequences of a prolonged maritime blockade. Hariri has argued that if the blockade continues over the long term, its impact on Iran’s economy could exceed that of years of sanctions.

According to Hariri, even redirecting trade through neighboring countries such as Turkey and Pakistan cannot replicate the capacity of Iran’s southern ports. Iran lacks sufficient land-border logistics to move comparable volumes of goods, he said, while transportation costs for some shipments have already risen to four or five times their pre-blockade levels. The result, he warned, would be more expensive goods as well as reductions in the quantity and quality of imports.

Hariri has therefore called ending the maritime blockade an economic priority, arguing that it should be broken through negotiations if possible and, in unusually stark language for a business official, by force if negotiations fail. His warning highlights an important limitation of the strategy the Iranian government is now pursuing. Overland routes can reduce the impact of the blockade, but they cannot fully replace maritime trade.

President Masoud Pezeshkian nevertheless says Iran is rapidly expanding those alternatives, and has already moved from one train from China entering Iran per week to three such trains per day now. Pezeshkian said Iran would not remain passive in the face of pressure and blockade, and the uptick in rail traffic with China is indicative of that proactive 

The increase, if sustained, represents a striking expansion in rail capacity. At one train per week, the route would amount to roughly 52 trains annually. Three trains per day would represent a theoretical pace of more than 1,000 trains a year.

Pezeshkian said the government is also working to activate additional trade routes through Azerbaijan, Russia and other regional corridors. He presented the effort as part of a broader strategy of expanding economic relations with neighboring countries and making greater use of organizations including the Eurasian Economic Union, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Economic Cooperation Organization. “We are finding alternative routes and creating new capacities,” Pezeshkian said, describing the objective as maintaining trade, supplying the country’s needs and increasing economic resilience.

The contrast between Pezeshkian’s comments and Hariri’s warning captures the central economic challenge facing Iran. Tehran appears to be finding ways around the blockade, but circumventing it is substantially more expensive and cannot easily reproduce the enormous carrying capacity of maritime shipping.

Yet another development complicates the picture further: Iran’s stock market has hit a record high, even though this does not translate to a booming economy. The Tehran Stock Exchange’s benchmark index entered the 5.6 million range this week, the highest level in its history. According to official Securities and Exchange Organization figures cited by BBC Persian, more than 135 trillion tomans in retail investor money entered investment funds between the beginning of the 40-day war on February 28 and August 10.

Since the beginning of the war, the benchmark index has risen approximately 52 percent, compared with roughly 41 percent official inflation over the same period. The stock market has also outperformed gold and the dollar, making equities one of Iran’s best-performing major asset classes during the war.

At first glance, a record-setting stock market appears difficult to reconcile with an economy simultaneously dealing with war, a maritime blockade, high inflation and growing logistical problems. Indeed, looks can be deceiving. Several characteristics of the Iranian market help explain the apparent contradiction. A large share of Iran’s biggest publicly traded companies are exporters or commodity producers, including petrochemical, refining, mining and metals companies. A weaker rial can increase the rial value of their foreign-currency revenues even when the actual volume of production or exports does not increase.

The exchange rate used for many corporate transactions has also risen sharply since the war began. As a result, companies can report significantly higher revenues and profits in rial terms without necessarily producing or exporting more goods.

Inflation itself has a similar effect. Consumer prices in July were nearly 88 percent higher than a year earlier, according to Iran’s Statistical Center. In an economy experiencing that degree of inflation and currency depreciation, rising nominal asset prices are not necessarily evidence that the underlying economy is becoming more productive.

One particularly revealing measure is the dollar value of the stock market. Despite the record-high rial-denominated index, the market’s total dollar value has fallen from roughly $110 billion last August to around $90 billion today. In other words, Iranian equities are worth more rials than ever, but the market remains considerably smaller when measured in dollars.

Government intervention has also played a role. Following the market’s reopening after a nearly three-month wartime closure, authorities introduced extensive measures intended to prevent panic selling, including restrictions on sales by institutional investors and market makers and injections of liquidity through state-supported market stabilization funds.

The stock market rally therefore should not be read simply as evidence that Iran’s economy is thriving despite the war. But neither should the mounting problems caused by the blockade be interpreted as evidence that economic activity has stopped.

Instead, Iran increasingly appears to be developing a wartime economy built around adaptation: substituting land routes for maritime trade where possible, expanding rail connections with China and other neighbors, prioritizing essential imports, and absorbing higher transportation costs while companies and investors adjust to inflation and currency depreciation.

The question is whether that model is sustainable. Railways and highways can keep essential goods moving and prevent a maritime blockade from completely isolating the country. Iran’s large domestic market, energy resources and extensive trade relationships with neighboring states also provide buffers that smaller economies might not possess.

But geography imposes limits. Moving containers thousands of kilometers by rail or truck is considerably more expensive than moving them by sea, and the capacity of Iran’s land borders cannot easily replace its southern ports.

That is why Hariri’s warning is significant. That the head of the Iran-China Chamber of Commerce warned that overland trade is not a permanent solution to the blockade, at precisely the moment when the government is celebrating the expansion of trade with China, suggests that deep challenges remain.

For now, Iran appears to be absorbing the economic pressure rather than being paralyzed by it. Trains are replacing some ships, trade is being redirected, and the Tehran stock market is setting records. But each workaround comes with costs, and the longer the maritime blockade continues, the harder it will become to compensate for what Iran has lost at sea.

Despite Negotiations, Iran Plans to Outlast the United States

A week ago, Iranian officials were signaling meaningful progress toward an arrangement with Oman over shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, potentially removing one of the major obstacles to reviving the June agreement that briefly halted the Iran-U.S. war. Since then, however, there has been no announcement of a final Oman agreement. Iran says it is not engaged in formal negotiations with the United States, and an Iranian official told Reuters this week that there are no talks underway to extend the 60-day period envisioned in the June Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, which expires Sunday.

But the diplomatic channel has not disappeared. Iranian officials acknowledge that messages are still being exchanged with Washington through intermediaries. Pakistan, which brokered the June agreement, has continued its mediation efforts. And Iran’s new national security chief has made clear that Tehran still sees diplomacy as part of its strategy, while drawing a sharper line between an agreement over shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and a broader settlement with the United States.

Tehran appears to be keeping the door to a deal open while trying to demonstrate that it is content to wait for Washington to concede on key terms. Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi traveled to Tehran this week and met President Masoud Pezeshkian, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and newly appointed Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezai. Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry described the trip as part of its continuing effort to de-escalate the conflict and bring Iran and the United States back to negotiations.

On Friday, Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar went further, telling the U.S. chargé d’affaires in Islamabad that the “faithful and complete implementation” of the Islamabad memorandum, in both letter and spirit, remained the “only way forward” toward a durable peace between Iran and the United States. Continued Pakistani mediation cuts against the idea that recent personnel changes in Tehran have shut down the diplomatic track. Rezai’s return to the Supreme National Security Council had raised questions about whether Iran might be moving toward a harder line. A former longtime commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Rezai replaced Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr amid a broader reshuffling of Iran’s military and security leadership.

But Rezai’s first substantive comments on the negotiations suggest something more complicated than a rejection of diplomacy. Meeting China’s ambassador in Tehran this week, he said that even if Iran and Oman reach an agreement over a new route for ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, that arrangement would be separate from the question of reopening the strait itself. Rezai said Hormuz would remain closed until Washington changed its behavior and accepted broader Iranian conditions, including ending the war and releasing frozen Iranian funds. He also linked the issue to an end to the wars in Lebanon and Gaza and said additional Iranian conditions had been conveyed to Washington through intermediaries.

That clarification may help explain what happened to the apparent breakthrough with Oman. The negotiations with Muscat were never necessarily negotiations to restore the Strait of Hormuz to its prewar status. Iranian and Omani officials had been discussing a more limited arrangement: establishing a navigable corridor and rules for commercial shipping while addressing what Tehran describes as its security and sovereign concerns.

Tehran appears to be treating these as connected but separate tracks: negotiations with Oman over shipping, indirect exchanges with Washington through intermediaries, implementation of the Islamabad memorandum and, ultimately, formal negotiations over ending the war. Araghchi has made a similar distinction. He says there are currently no formal negotiations between Iran and the United States, but has acknowledged that messages continue to move between the two sides through mediators. He has also said that restoring security in the Strait of Hormuz requires an end to U.S. military attacks and Washington’s naval blockade.

At the same time, statements from Iran’s military establishment increasingly suggest that Tehran wants Washington to believe it has another option: enduring continued warfare. The clearest example came in an unusually candid interview this week with Mohammad Reza Naqdi, a senior adviser to the commander of the Revolutionary Guard. Speaking to PBS NewsHour in Tehran, Naqdi argued that Washington had failed to achieve what he characterized as its original objectives in the war and suggested that Iran could deliberately prolong the conflict to impose sustained costs on the United States. Asked about continuing the war through the remainder of Donald Trump’s presidency, Naqdi described attrition as one possible strategy.

Naqdi also claimed that Iran is producing more missiles than it is firing and therefore has the capacity to sustain military operations for years. That claim cannot be independently verified. But the course of the war has provided indications that Iran’s strike capabilities have continued to evolve rather than simply erode under sustained military pressure. Iranian attacks have appeared increasingly accurate and destructive over time, most notably in strikes on U.S. positions in Jordan that killed several American service members and surprised some military observers. The apparent improvement prompted speculation that Iran may have received specialized technology or equipment from China or Russia, though there is no conclusive public evidence establishing such assistance.

That perception is developing alongside a different problem for Washington: the strain that months of fighting have placed on both military personnel and stocks of expensive precision weapons, including air-defense interceptors and long-range stand-off munitions. Recent reports have indicated exceptionally low morale on board the USS Abraham Lincoln, which is a key part of the naval force implementing the blockade against Iranian vessels entering and exiting the Persian Gulf. Moreover, Iran’s ability to replenish and adapt its comparatively cheaper missile and drone arsenal, set against the cost and availability of the precision weapons required to intercept or strike them, has therefore become an increasingly important part of the war’s longer-term calculus. None of this proves Naqdi’s claim that Iran can sustain operations for years, but it complicates the assumption that time and attrition necessarily favor the United States. 

In separate remarks to Iranian media, Naqdi said Iran had decided to move from a defensive military doctrine toward a more “offensive” one based on “hybrid warfare,” in which military power operates alongside diplomacy, economic policy, information operations and other instruments of national power.

Other figures have made similar remarks. Alireza Sheikh, the executive deputy of Iran’s regular army, similarly said this week that the country is prepared for a “long battle” and has built the capacity to sustain prolonged military operations, pointing specifically to domestic missile and drone production. Other senior military officials have warned that Iran would respond more aggressively in another round of fighting.

Taken together, these statements do not prove that Iran actually possesses the economic or military capacity to fight indefinitely. But they do reveal a relatively consistent message coming from Iran’s security establishment: Tehran wants Washington to believe that time is not necessarily on America’s side.

That calculation increasingly extends beyond the direct Iran-U.S. confrontation. In Yemen, the Houthis have resumed attacks amid the breakdown of their ceasefire with the Saudi-backed government, including claiming a drone strike this week on an Aramco facility in Jizan. Attacks around Bab al-Mandab have again threatened commercial shipping, while tensions between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia have risen sharply. In Lebanon, Israeli military operations in the south have continued as efforts to reach a broader settlement remain unresolved.

Iranian officials are increasingly connecting these fronts politically. Rezai’s demand for an end to the wars in Lebanon and Gaza as part of Iran’s conditions for fully reopening the Strait of Hormuz is one example. Pezeshkian has also faced calls from Japan to use Iran’s influence to reduce tensions around Bab al-Mandab while negotiations over Hormuz continue.

This does not mean Tehran controls the decisions of the Houthis or other armed groups across the region, or that every regional escalation is directed by Iran. But from Tehran’s perspective, the war is being treated as a regional strategic contest rather than a series of isolated conflicts. Pressure in the Strait of Hormuz, instability around Bab al-Mandab, continued fighting in Lebanon and the U.S. blockade of Iran all affect the broader calculation over how the war might end.

The Strait of Hormuz remains the most important piece of that calculation for Iran. Iranian military officials continue to insist that the strait remains under Iranian control, directly contradicting President Trump’s repeated claims that the U.S. Navy now exercises “complete control” over the waterway. Iran says commercial vessels must coordinate with Iranian forces to transit safely, while the United States maintains a naval blockade of Iranian ports and says its forces have diverted dozens of vessels attempting to trade with Iran.

The reality on the water appears more complicated than either side’s sweeping claims. Commercial traffic remains far below normal levels, but some ships are still passing through the strait, with maritime tracking data indicating that many of the vessels that do transit are using routes through Iranian waters. Iraq, meanwhile, has been forced to develop alternative export routes after disruption in Hormuz sharply reduced its ability to move crude through its traditional Gulf terminals.

The result is an unusual standoff in which Washington and Tehran both claim control over the same strategic waterway while neither side has been able to restore normal commercial traffic. For Tehran, that may strengthen the argument against moving first. Iranian officials argue that the United States violated the June Islamabad agreement shortly after it was reached and subsequently restored military and economic pressure. From Tehran’s perspective, reopening the Strait of Hormuz without receiving reciprocal concessions would mean giving away one of the few tools that has imposed significant costs beyond Iran’s borders.

Washington is making the opposite calculation. U.S. officials argue that the naval blockade and mounting economic pressure will eventually force Tehran to compromise. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said this week that the U.S. Navy can maintain the blockade indefinitely, while Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has promised additional measures aimed at further isolating Iran economically.

The two sides are therefore not simply divided over the terms of a possible agreement. They are increasingly testing which side has the greater capacity — and political willingness — to endure the current situation.

Whether Iran can actually afford such patience is a different question. The country is facing severe economic pressure, infrastructure damage, growing strains on fuel supplies and mounting costs from the U.S. blockade. A prolonged conflict would place an enormous additional burden on ordinary Iranians. But negotiations are shaped not only by a country’s actual ability to withstand pressure. They are also shaped by what each side believes about the other’s ability and willingness to endure it. For now, Tehran appears intent on sending Washington a message: Iran is willing to outwait the United States.

Iran Faces Worsening Gasoline Crisis

Iran’s long-running gasoline imbalance is beginning to look less like a manageable economic problem and more like a serious vulnerability. Domestic gasoline consumption is again running well above production, the government says it cannot afford the imports it relied on last year, wartime damage has weakened parts of the refining system and the renewed U.S. naval blockade has made replacing the shortfall substantially more difficult.

The impact is already becoming visible at the consumer level. Reports from Kurdistan describe drivers exhausting their subsidized allocations and then lining up early in the morning for station cards that provide only limited quantities of 5,000-toman gasoline. In some locations, according to IranWire’s reporting, the station allocation is exhausted by mid-morning. Similar, though scattered, reports of supply limitations have emerged from Tehran and other provinces. These reports do not yet demonstrate a nationwide physical shortage, but they show what the national “imbalance” looks like once the burden reaches individual filling stations.

Vice President Esmail Saqabe Esfahani, head of Iran’s Energy Optimization and Strategic Management Organization, acknowledged on state television that some provinces are already seeing stations exhaust their available gasoline supplies at certain locations. He said this was occurring “naturally” in some areas because, as he put it, “there really is no gasoline.”

Confusing announcements on gasoline pricing in Kerman Province have only added to the focus on the nation’s gasoline. Standard subsidized gasoline has been sold based on tiered pricing, with the first 60 liters sold in a month priced at 1,500 tomans, the next 50 liters at 3,000 tomans and another 40 liters sold at 5,000 tomans. Provincial officials announced that, beginning early Thursday, gasoline consumption above the existing subsidized tiers would be sold at what they described as the refinery cost: 87,200 tomans per liter (50 cents per liter). The Pezeshkian administration has empowered provincial governors to act with greater autonomy, and Kerman has been experiencing more severe shortages than other provinces.

But the experiment barely got started. Within hours, officials announced that the refinery-rate plan had been suspended following intervention by Kerman’s governor and consultations with national authorities. The governor subsequently insisted that there had been no change in gasoline prices and that the plan would not go forward for now.

Saqabe Esfahani now provided important context for what happened in Kerman. He said no national decision had been made to change gasoline prices and stressed that figures circulating in the media, including 87,200 and 23,000 tomans per liter, were not government-approved prices. But he also confirmed that the basic structure proposed in Kerman – preserving subsidized allocations while allowing additional consumption to be sold at an unsubsidized price – is one of three gasoline policies now under serious consideration by the government.

The extraordinary gap between 5,000 tomans – the third tier subsidized rate – and 87,200 tomans helps explain the government’s dilemma. Iran has spent years selling gasoline at a tiny fraction of its replacement cost, while consumption has continued to climb faster than domestic production. According to a new analysis published by the state news agency IRNA, Iran produced roughly 99 million liters of gasoline per day while consuming 87 million in 2019. By 2024, consumption reached around 130 million liters per day against production of about 112 million, leaving a daily deficit of approximately 18 million liters. According to Saqabe Esfahani, Iran is consuming roughly 135 million liters of gasoline per day while domestic production is approximately 121 million liters per day. That leaves a gap of roughly 14 million liters per day that must be covered through imports or strategic reserves.

The government, he said, is now in the final stages of choosing among three approaches to bring consumption closer to that available supply. The first would leave prices unchanged but limit distribution to roughly 121 million liters per day, meaning filling stations could stop dispensing fuel once their daily supplies were exhausted. The second is essentially the model proposed in Kerman: maintain subsidized allocations but sell consumption above them at an unsubsidized price. Under the third, roughly 30 million liters would be reserved for public transportation and the remaining 91 million liters would be allocated to people rather than vehicles. Soqabe Esfahani stressed that none of the three has yet been approved and said any final policy would be explained publicly before implementation.

Saqabe Esfahani framed the same problem as an increasingly difficult budgetary choice. He said direct gasoline imports cost approximately $2.7 billion last year and estimated that continuing imports could require roughly $4.5 billion this year. The question, he said, is whether scarce foreign currency should be spent on gasoline when the country also needs to finance higher-priority imports such as medicine and essential goods.

The present crisis cannot be explained by the war alone. Iran’s gasoline problem was already structural before the first bombs fell. Aging and inefficient vehicles, weak public transportation, rapid growth in private-car use, highly subsidized fuel and large price differences with neighboring countries have all contributed to demand growth and smuggling. IRNA itself concludes that repeated rounds of rationing and price increases over the past two decades have slowed consumption only temporarily rather than changing the underlying trend. Some projections indicate gasoline demand could rise to roughly 162 million liters per day by 2029 while production reaches only about 129 million, which would leave a deficit above 30 million liters per day.

Critically, the war has removed many of the mechanisms the government previously used to manage the gasoline production imbalance. Iran’s refining system suffered substantial wartime disruption. The Isfahan and Abadan refineries were among facilities struck during the initial U.S.-Israeli campaign, while the Persian Gulf Star refinery – the country’s largest gasoline producer – was impacted by disruption to condensate supplies from South Pars after strikes around Asaluyeh. Fuel-storage facilities in Tehran and Alborz were also struck. Iran’s National Oil Refining and Distribution Company maintained that nationwide distribution continued, but the broader damage reduced the flexibility of a system that was already struggling to match demand.

The second escape valve was imports. President Masoud Pezeshkian has now publicly acknowledged that importing gasoline has become much more difficult, and suggests that the government no longer has the money to continue importing gasoline at the same level. He also explicitly tied the problem to the renewed U.S. naval blockade, saying Iran is “under blockade” and cannot import gasoline through its normal routes.

This makes the blockade relevant to the gasoline crisis even though Iran is itself a major oil producer. Crude oil underground is not the same thing as usable gasoline at a filling station. Iran has to refine sufficient volumes domestically or import the difference. While wartime strikes impaired refining and energy infrastructure, the maritime blockade has restricted oil-export revenue and normal import routes. That combination leaves Tehran with fewer dollars to pay for fuel imports, fewer options to import and at precisely the moment when the domestic supply system is under greater pressure.

Smuggling complicates the picture further, particularly along Iran’s eastern and western borders. The huge difference between subsidized Iranian fuel prices and prices across the border creates powerful incentives for illicit trade. Officials cited smuggling concerns as part of the rationale for tighter access in border provinces and for the announced pricing change in Kerman. But these measures also place the cost of enforcement on ordinary residents, who can find themselves rationed because the government has been unable to control larger trafficking networks.

Diesel presents a somewhat different picture. The government maintains that diesel supply has remained stable and says imports have now fallen to zero, portraying this as evidence that the distribution system survived both rounds of war without a national shortage. But that national claim coexists with increasingly frequent complaints at the sectoral level. Farmers have warned that diesel allocations are insufficient for combines and agricultural machinery, while truck drivers have long complained that fuel allocations calculated from recorded mileage do not always correspond to their actual consumption.

Iran appears closer to an acute crisis in gasoline than in diesel, but tighter diesel rationing would potentially have broader economic consequences. Trucks move food and industrial goods across a vast country; diesel powers agricultural machinery, mines, construction equipment and backup generators. A serious disruption in diesel supply therefore would not simply create lines at filling stations. It could quickly increase transportation costs, disrupt agricultural production and feed directly into prices throughout the economy.

All three potential approaches under discussion to manage the problem impose a cost somewhere: keeping prices unchanged while limiting physical supply risks shortages and lines at filling stations; charging an unsubsidized price above existing allocations transfers more of the cost to heavier consumers; and allocating gasoline to individuals rather than vehicles would fundamentally restructure a subsidy system that has existed for years. The alternative – continuing to fill the gap through imports – requires billions of dollars in scarce foreign currency at a time when the government says both its finances and access to external supplies are constrained. 

The last option carries its own political history. Iran’s last major gasoline price shock, in November 2019, triggered nationwide protests that were met with lethal repression. That memory helps explain the government’s caution. Saqabe Esfahani said Pezeshkian has specifically instructed officials that any change involving gasoline must first be discussed with the public, including the available alternatives and the reasons for the government’s eventual choice. He said any approved policy would be explained several weeks before implementation.

For now, Iran is still supplying gasoline nationwide. That is an important distinction from a nationwide fuel shortage. But the system is increasingly being held together through quotas, restrictions, existing refinery output and efforts to suppress demand at precisely the moment when the government has less money, less refining flexibility and fewer avenues for imports.

The gasoline “imbalance” that Iranian officials have warned about for years is therefore entering a new phase. The structural problem was created at home, through years of distorted pricing, inefficient vehicles, inadequate public transportation and failure to restrain demand. But the war and blockade have sharply reduced the government’s ability to manage that problem. The aborted Kerman plan is now particularly revealing: the 87,200-toman price was not national government policy, according to Soqabe Esfahani, but the underlying model is one of three options Tehran is seriously considering. Another would avoid a price increase altogether but accept the possibility that filling stations simply run out once the country’s available supply has been distributed. The government is no longer debating whether Iran has a gasoline imbalance; it is deciding who will bear the cost of closing it.”

Iran Mourns Iraj, the “Champion of Persian Singing,” Dead at 94

Published August 12, 2026

Hossein Khajeh Amiri, the celebrated Iranian singer known by his stage name Iraj, died on Wednesday, August 12, at the age of 94. One of the most distinctive and powerful voices in modern Iranian music, Iraj’s career stretched from the golden age of Iranian radio and cinema before the 1979 revolution to a much quieter life after the establishment of the Islamic Republic.

Born in 1933 in Khaledabad, near Natanz in Isfahan Province, Iraj came from a family with deep roots in the Isfahan school of Persian classical singing. His grandfather and father were steeped in the traditional vocal repertoire, and Iraj began singing as a child, including in religious passion plays. After moving to Tehran as a teenager, he continued his musical training and studied with Abolhasan Saba, one of the most influential figures in 20th-century Iranian classical music.

His unusual stage name was itself a product of the restrictions surrounding his early career. Khajeh Amiri was an army officer when he began performing on radio, at a time when military personnel were not permitted to sing publicly. To conceal his identity, he adopted the first name of his younger brother, Iraj, and the name remained with him for the rest of his career. He eventually retired from government service with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Iraj’s breakthrough came through Iranian radio and, in particular, the legendary Golha programs created by Davoud Pirnia. Beginning in the 1950s, Golha brought together many of Iran’s most important singers, composers, poets and instrumentalists and became one of the central institutions of modern Persian music. Iraj became one of its best-known voices, performing a classical Persian repertoire alongside some of the country’s leading musicians.

His voice was remarkable for its range, volume and control. Mohammad Reza Shajarian, one of the most influential Iranian classical vocalists of the generation that followed him, described Iraj’s voice as a “measure and standard” in the history of Iranian singing. Other leading musicians, including Ali Tajvidi and Homayoun Khorram, similarly praised his ability to execute difficult vocal passages and traditional tahrir with unusual power and ease.

But Iraj’s cultural significance extended well beyond classical music. Unlike many traditional vocalists, he moved easily between the formal world of Persian dastgah music and popular songs written for mass audiences. His voice became inseparable from the popular cinema of the 1960s and 1970s, particularly through songs lip-synced on screen by superstar Mohammad Ali Fardin.

The 1965 blockbuster Ganj-e Qarun was particularly important in bringing Iraj’s voice to a mass audience. Fardin appeared on screen while Iraj supplied the singing voice, a combination repeated in other films and remembered by generations of Iranian moviegoers. Iraj later described his years singing for cinema as among the happiest and most successful of his life.

That versatility also made him controversial among some purists, who questioned why a singer trained in the classical tradition would perform popular, koocheh-bazari and film songs. Iraj defended the choice, arguing that his repertoire represented many different colors of Iranian music. His friend and contemporary Akbar Golpayegani similarly argued that Iraj understood something essential about performance: a singer also had to understand what ordinary people wanted to hear.

The 1979 revolution abruptly ended that world. As the Islamic Republic imposed sweeping restrictions on music, Iraj largely disappeared from public cultural life. He later said that he had not formally been declared banned, but that no one would give him work. For years, his singing was largely confined to private gatherings.

Unlike many prominent pre-revolutionary singers who left Iran, Iraj remained in the country. In later years, as restrictions eased somewhat, he resumed limited public activity and devoted part of his time to teaching younger singers, but he never returned to anything resembling the prominence he had enjoyed before the revolution.

His legacy nevertheless survived through recordings of the Golha programs, classical performances and the films whose stars once appeared to sing with his voice. His repertoire ranged from demanding traditional vocal performances to popular songs including “Pirahan-e Soorati,” “Parandeh,” “Az Hend Oumadam,” and compositions by some of Iran’s leading songwriters and composers.

Iraj’s stature among other musicians perhaps best explains why his death is significant beyond nostalgia for a famous singer. Hassan Kassai, the legendary master of the ney, famously called him the “Pahlavan-e Avaz” — the “Champion of Persian Singing.” Mohammad Reza Shajarian regarded Iraj as a predecessor and described his voice as a benchmark against which exceptional Iranian voices could be measured.

His death marks the loss of one of the last major voices connecting several worlds of Iranian culture: the classical tradition of the radif, the sophistication of the Golha radio era, and the immensely popular cinema and music culture of pre-revolutionary Iran. His music crossed generations, social classes and political divides, becoming part of the shared cultural memory of Iranians inside the country and across the diaspora.

NIAC extends its deepest condolences to Iraj’s family, loved ones, fellow artists, and the generations of Iranians who grew up with his voice. His extraordinary contribution to Persian music and Iranian culture will endure far beyond his passing. At a time when Iranians have endured war, repression, displacement and deep political divisions, figures like Iraj are also a reminder of the cultural heritage that continues to connect Iranians across borders and generations. His voice was part of that shared heritage, and its place in Iran’s cultural history will not be forgotten.

Killing of Tehran Religious Singer Raises Questions Over Motive and Possible Political Links

Published August 10, 2026

Iranian police and judicial authorities are investigating the abduction and killing of Hamidreza Rajabzadeh, a 30-year-old religious singer in Tehran, after his burned body was discovered outside the capital following roughly two weeks of uncertainty over his disappearance. The case has drawn particular attention because of the brutality of the killing, the circulation of a video showing the victim after he was attacked, and conflicting accounts over whether the murder was driven by a personal dispute or had a broader political motive.

Rajabzadeh, who performed religious mourning songs and was active primarily in southeastern Tehran, disappeared in late July. Iranian media initially treated the case as a missing-person investigation, but the situation changed after a video showing a badly injured man resembling Rajabzadeh appeared online and reports emerged that images of his killing had also been sent to his family. Authorities subsequently confirmed that he had been abducted and killed.

Police moved quickly after the killing became public. Saeed Montazer al-Mahdi, spokesperson for Iran’s Law Enforcement Command, said that four men and one woman had been arrested and that the principal suspect in the killing was among those detained. Police said specialized detectives from Tehran’s criminal investigation unit were continuing to examine the circumstances of the crime.

The investigation reached another stage on August 9 when Tehran criminal prosecutor Mohammad Shahriari announced that Rajabzadeh’s body had been located outside Tehran. A homicide investigator and forensic identification team confirmed the identity before sending the remains to the Legal Medicine Organization for further examination. Shahriari also confirmed that the perpetrators had burned the body after the killing.

The most detailed account of how the killing allegedly occurred has so far come from the Iranian crime news outlet Rokna, based on what it describes as information obtained during the police investigation. According to that account, a woman arrested in the case had been acquainted with Rajabzadeh and told investigators that he had repeatedly confronted her over issues including her clothing and behavior as part of what he regarded as “enjoining good and forbidding wrong.” Rokna reported that this interaction had continued for approximately six months.

According to the same account, the woman eventually arranged to meet Rajabzadeh at a secluded location. Investigators reportedly believe that he was given contaminated food or another substance that incapacitated him before he was attacked with knives. The suspects then allegedly transported his body to an area outside Tehran and attempted to destroy evidence by burning it. Several men are accused of participating in different stages of the crime.

However, the central unresolved question is why Rajabzadeh was killed. The first possibility emerging from the investigation is a personal or retaliatory motive connected to the dispute between Rajabzadeh and the detained woman. Her alleged account of repeated confrontations over hijab and behavior could place the murder within a personal conflict that escalated into a premeditated killing.

But another allegation has also surfaced. Domestic media citing interrogation accounts reported that individuals involved in the case discussed receiving money for killing members of the Basij and sending footage of attacks to an opposition organization outside Iran. Rokna has further alleged that the perpetrators filmed the killing and subsequent treatment of Rajabzadeh’s body and attempted to provide the footage for payment to the Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MEK. These claims have not yet been independently established by Iran’s judiciary or confirmed as the final conclusion of the police investigation.

Political narratives surrounding the killing appeared even before investigators announced arrests. Accounts hostile to the Islamic Republic circulated the video and described Rajabzadeh as a Basij member or government-affiliated figure. At the same time, Iranian state-linked reporting questioned the credibility of the newly established opposition channel that first circulated some of the material, saying an open-source review found that several of its previous claims and images were false or misrepresented. Police therefore initially cautioned against drawing conclusions about whether the murder constituted a terrorist operation.

Authorities themselves have kept that question formally open. Police said investigators would determine whether Rajabzadeh was killed as part of a politically motivated or terrorist act or because of personal circumstances, while Deputy Interior Minister for Security and Law Enforcement Ali-Akbar Pourjamshidian said the government was examining the different dimensions of the killing and would release its conclusions after the investigation was completed.

The case therefore sits at the intersection of two highly sensitive issues in Iran. One is the social conflict surrounding enforcement of religious rules, particularly mandatory hijab and “enjoining good and forbidding wrong.” The other is the growing security concern inside Iran over politically-motivated violence and the possibility that domestic actors may be encouraged or financially rewarded by organizations abroad.

For now, the murder itself, the discovery of Rajabzadeh’s burned body, and multiple arrests are confirmed. The claim that his killing was commissioned, financed, or connected to the MEK remains an allegation emerging from the investigation rather than an established judicial finding. Determining whether the case ultimately remains a brutal personal revenge killing or becomes a terrorism case will depend on evidence authorities have not yet made public.

Mohsen Rezai’s Return to the Security Council Signals a Hardline Victory, But Not Necessarily a Change of Course

Published August 10, 2026

Iran has replaced the secretary of its Supreme National Security Council, installing former Revolutionary Guard commander Mohsen Rezai in one of the country’s most important national security positions. President Masoud Pezeshkian appointed Rezai following the resignation of Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, while Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei separately named Rezai as one of his representatives on the council and appointed Zolghadr as his political adviser. Zolghadr had held the secretary position since March 2026, when he replaced Ali Larijani, who was killed in an Israeli strike. 

The reshuffle represents a political victory for hardline factions that had increasingly attacked Zolghadr and criticized the direction of Iran’s postwar diplomacy. But Rezai’s appointment is also taking place alongside a broader reorganization of Iran’s military and security leadership following the war, making the change potentially more significant than an isolated personnel move at the security council. Whether that broader reshuffle will translate into a fundamental change in Iran’s negotiating strategy, however, remains unclear. 

The timing of the change has inevitably raised questions about whether Zolghadr’s departure was connected to disagreements over negotiations with the United States and the arrangements developed after the war. In recent weeks, political figures and media associated with the more uncompromising conservative camp had increasingly criticized Zolghadr and the direction of the Supreme National Security Council. Some of these attacks were also part of a broader struggle over the diplomatic course associated with President Pezeshkian and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has played a central role in Iran’s negotiations over the war.

Those factions were quick to claim Rezai’s appointment as a victory. Amirhossein Sabeti, a parliamentarian close to the Paydari Front, alleged that Pezeshkian had resisted replacing Zolghadr with Rezai and celebrated the eventual appointment as “Ali al-osul 2,” referring to Mojtaba Khamenei’s earlier statement that he had “in principle” disagreed with the path taken by the Supreme National Security Council on the Memorandum of Understanding. Sabeti interpreted the appointment as confirmation that the previous course had been wrong and called on Pezeshkian to change the government’s direction. Raja News and other hardline outlets similarly connected Zolghadr’s departure to their criticism of the diplomatic process and the Islamabad understanding.

These claims do not establish why Zolghadr resigned, but they show clearly how Rezai’s appointment is being understood and promoted by the faction that had been pushing most aggressively against the existing negotiating course. For this camp, Rezai has become a symbol of correcting a security policy they believe moved too far toward accommodation with Washington.

Rezai himself contributed to this interpretation even before his appointment. After Mojtaba Khamenei said that he had “in principle” held a different view regarding the memorandum and the course pursued by the Supreme National Security Council, Rezai offered a much more explicit interpretation: “When the Leader says that ‘in principle’ I had another view, it means that the path he had in mind was better than the path the Supreme National Security Council took.” The statement was subsequently recirculated by opponents of the agreement after Rezai’s appointment.

There were also indications before the official announcement that the change was already being discussed inside the political establishment. Mohammad Bagher Kharrazi, secretary-general of Hezbollah Iran and brother-in-law of Masoud Khamenei, publicly predicted several days before the appointment that Zolghadr would leave the Supreme National Security Council and Rezai would replace him. Kharrazi also claimed that Mojtaba Khamenei’s political instincts were considerably more hardline than those of his father. The accuracy of his specific prediction suggests that he had at least some knowledge of the personnel discussions underway inside the establishment, although his broader characterization of the new supreme leader remains his own assessment.

The struggle over Zolghadr has also intersected with a broader factional conflict surrounding Ghalibaf and the negotiating process. Hardline critics have increasingly portrayed the security council under Zolghadr as too accommodating of the diplomatic approach associated with Pezeshkian and Ghalibaf. There is not enough public evidence, however, to conclude that Zolghadr was simply Ghalibaf’s ally or representative inside the council. Zolghadr is himself a longtime Revolutionary Guard commander with deep roots in the conservative security establishment.

Rezai’s own history further complicates any interpretation of his appointment as a straightforward move against Ghalibaf. Ghalibaf rose through the Revolutionary Guards during Rezai’s sixteen-year tenure as commander-in-chief. During the Iran-Iraq war, Ghalibaf commanded the IRGC’s 5th Nasr Division while Rezai headed the Guard as a whole. The two therefore belong to the same generation of wartime commanders who later moved into the highest levels of the Islamic Republic.

Their subsequent political careers have not always been aligned, and they later competed against one another in presidential politics. But they are not products of opposing security networks. Their relationship goes back to the war, when Ghalibaf was one of the senior commanders serving under an IRGC led by Rezai.

Ghalibaf’s immediate reaction is notable in this context. He welcomed Rezai’s appointment, saying Iran was in “one of the most sensitive moments in its history” and emphasizing the confidence placed in Rezai’s military and managerial experience. This does not establish a current political alliance between them, but there is also little public indication so far that Ghalibaf regards Rezai’s arrival as a direct challenge to his position.

The backgrounds of Rezai and Zolghadr also make a simple moderate-versus-hardliner interpretation difficult. Both emerged from the same generation of revolutionary security figures, both were associated before the revolution with the Islamist militant organization Mansouroun, and both subsequently became important figures in the Revolutionary Guards and the Islamic Republic’s security establishment.

Zolghadr therefore cannot reasonably be described as a moderate displaced by a hardliner. Only one day before leaving the council, he declared that the Strait of Hormuz would not reopen unless the United States changed its behavior and accepted Iran’s demands, including ending military operations, lifting the naval blockade and sanctions, paying compensation and releasing blocked Iranian assets. He also insisted that the Supreme National Security Council would retreat neither in war nor in negotiations.

Iranian political analyst Ahmad Zeidabadi has pointed to this contradiction. Zolghadr had traditionally been identified with the harder-line conservative establishment, while Rezai had at times appeared comparatively more pragmatic. Their positions during the recent crisis, however, complicated those older classifications. Following the reshuffle, Zeidabadi argued that, considering the backgrounds and recent positions of the two men, understanding the precise meaning of the replacement from the outside is “if not impossible, extremely difficult.”

Rezai has nevertheless been considerably more outspoken in criticizing the recent diplomatic course. During the postwar period, he repeatedly argued that Iran could not indefinitely pursue negotiations while remaining under military pressure and warned that Tehran could move from retaliation toward a more offensive military posture. His interpretation of Mojtaba Khamenei’s “Ali al-osul” statement also placed him publicly alongside those arguing that the Supreme National Security Council had followed the wrong path. His appointment therefore may give critics of the recent negotiating course a much stronger institutional voice, even if it does not yet prove that their preferred strategy has become government policy.

Rezai also carries unusual institutional weight. He became commander of the Revolutionary Guards at 27 and remained in the position for sixteen years, overseeing almost the entire Iran-Iraq war and a critical period in the IRGC’s transformation into a major military and political institution. He subsequently spent roughly twenty-four years as secretary of the Expediency Council and later served as economic vice president under Ebrahim Raisi. His return puts one of the Islamic Republic’s most experienced military-political figures back at the center of day-to-day national-security decision-making.

Rezai’s appointment also comes amid a broader reorganization of Iran’s postwar military and security command. In a series of new decrees, Mojtaba Khamenei appointed Ali Abdollahi as chief of the Armed Forces General Staff, replacing Abdolrahim Mousavi, who was killed in U.S. and Israeli attacks. The decree specifically called for completing the integration of the Armed Forces General Staff and Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters. Keyomars Heydari was appointed deputy chief of the General Staff, while Ahmad Vahidi received a new decree as IRGC commander and Mostafa Izadi was appointed his deputy. Former IRGC intelligence chief Hossein Taeb was also returned to the leadership of the Basij, replacing Gholamreza Soleimani, who was killed during the war.

Taken together with Rezai’s appointment, the changes suggest that Khamenei is moving relatively quickly to rebuild and consolidate the military-security command after the losses suffered during the war. The reliance on veteran figures such as Rezai, Vahidi and Taeb also points toward a renewed role for experienced members of the Islamic Republic’s older security establishment at the expense of the next generation of security figures.

There is, however, an important counterpoint to interpreting the reshuffle simply as the marginalization of Pezeshkian and the diplomatic camp. Pezeshkian says his latest meeting with Mojtaba Khamenei lasted approximately seven hours, with discussions covering living conditions, employment, housing, sanctions, how the government and public should respond to external pressure and the preservation of national unity. According to Pezeshkian, Khamenei particularly emphasized maintaining “unity and cohesion” and warned against efforts to create internal divisions.

The timing of the disclosure is particularly notable. Details of the lengthy meeting emerged alongside the changes at the Supreme National Security Council and the broader reshuffling of Iran’s military-security leadership. While neither Pezeshkian nor Khamenei’s office has said that the appointments were discussed, the timing suggests that major personnel and security decisions were among the issues addressed during such an extensive meeting. The public disclosure of the meeting may also be intended to signal that the president and the new supreme leader are coordinating, and that the changes should not necessarily be interpreted as having been imposed on Pezeshkian against his will.

That possibility is particularly relevant to Rezai’s appointment because the change formally required actions from both sides of the political system: Khamenei appointed Rezai as his representative on the Supreme National Security Council, while Pezeshkian appointed him secretary of the council following Zolghadr’s resignation. The simultaneous emphasis on the Khamenei-Pezeshkian meeting therefore presents the reshuffle publicly as a coordinated transition between the presidency and the new leadership, even as hardline factions are portraying Zolghadr’s departure as their own political victory.

Pezeshkian had previously said that his first meeting with the new leader on May 6 lasted roughly two and a half hours. The latest meeting lasted nearly three times as long, suggesting that despite disagreements over the negotiating course and pressure from hardline factions, Pezeshkian remains directly involved in extensive discussions with Khamenei over the country’s direction.

One possible interpretation is that, as the new leader consolidates his position amid another lull in the war, he is increasingly placing experienced figures from the Islamic Republic’s longstanding military-security establishment in key positions. Rezai’s appointment, alongside the broader command reshuffle, could fit that pattern. But there is not yet enough evidence to conclude that Zolghadr was removed because he lacked Khamenei’s confidence, or that the personnel changes represent a rejection of Pezeshkian’s negotiating strategy.

The meeting also carries extra significance because Mojtaba Khamenei has yet to appear publicly or release an audio or video message since becoming supreme leader. Pezeshkian remains the only senior official to have publicly described an in-person meeting with him and specifically said after the latest meeting that Khamenei was in “complete physical health.”

The most defensible conclusion for now is therefore that Rezai’s appointment, together with the wider military reshuffle, demonstrates a significant reorganization of Iran’s postwar security establishment and a shift in the internal balance surrounding its strategy. Hardline factions that had attacked Zolghadr and the direction of negotiations have clearly gained ground, while Khamenei is simultaneously rebuilding the military command around experienced figures from the Islamic Republic’s security establishment. 

The real indication of a strategic shift will be what happens next: whether negotiations continue, whether Iran changes its conditions surrounding Hormuz and the broader agreement, and whether Ghalibaf retains his central role in the diplomatic process. If those elements remain largely intact, the reshuffle may ultimately represent an effort by the new supreme leader to consolidate the postwar security establishment and accommodate hardline pressure while preserving room for negotiations. If the negotiating framework changes substantially or the roles of Pezeshkian and Ghalibaf are reduced, the appointments will look increasingly like the institutional foundation of a broader change of course.