Week of September 14, 2026 | Iran Unfiltered is a digest tracking Iranian politics & society by the National Iranian American Council

• New U.S. Aviation Sanctions Are Cutting Iranians Off From International Travel
• Iran’s Oil Trustees Put Sanctions, Corruption and Political Connections Under Scrutiny
• As Iran’s Regional War Drags On, Armed Violence Is Rising on Its Periphery
• Iran’s Gasoline Price Increase Was Only the Beginning of a Broader Reform
• Iran’s Hormuz Card Survives as Saudi Bypass Routes Come Under Pressure

New U.S. Aviation Sanctions Are Cutting Iranians Off From International Travel

Iranian travelers are beginning to bear the costs of Washington’s latest sanctions on the country’s aviation sector. One of Iran’s largest airlines is losing access to several important international destinations and domestic authorities are warning that ticket prices are already rising.

Mahan Air announced this week that it would suspend flights between Tehran and Muscat, Oman, beginning September 17, followed by its routes to Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey on September 21. Flights to Georgia are also set to stop on September 21. The airline attributed the suspensions to decisions by aviation authorities in those countries.

The cancellations come less than two weeks after the United States dramatically expanded sanctions on Iran’s aviation industry, designating all Iranian airlines under sanctions along with the foreign companies that provide them with cargo, sales, aircraft and logistical services. Key sanctions licensing that allowed for overflights of Iranian airspace and U.S. origin aircraft to fly into Iran have also been revoked. The effect is to increase the risks for companies outside Iran that provide the basic infrastructure Iranian airlines need to operate internationally.

The timing is particularly significant in Turkey. On September 8, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned two Turkish companies it said had provided services to Mahan Air. S Sistem Lojistik Hizmetler was accused of coordinating shipments including drone components and industrial equipment destined for Iran, while Mes Cargo was identified as a general sales agent that coordinated shipments for Mahan. Treasury also targeted companies and intermediaries in several other countries as part of what it calls “Operation Economic Outcast.”

Mahan itself has been under U.S. sanctions since 2011. Washington accuses the airline of providing transportation and logistical support to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Quds Force, including the movement of personnel, weapons and military equipment. But Mahan is also a major civilian carrier used by ordinary Iranians for domestic and international travel.

That dual role exposes a central problem with Washington’s escalating aviation sanctions: measures justified as a way to disrupt Iranian security logistics are also restricting the civilian infrastructure on which millions of Iranians depend.

The latest measures are significantly more consequential than simply adding another Iranian airline to a sanctions list. By targeting foreign companies that sell tickets, handle cargo, provide aircraft or otherwise enable Iranian carriers to operate abroad, Washington can make international passenger service into and out of Iran significantly more difficult to sustain.

And this pressure is being applied while Iran is already at war and its civilian aviation system is under extraordinary strain. Foreign carriers including Turkish Airlines and flydubai have stopped serving Iran amid the security risks created by the war, while European aviation authorities continue to advise operators against entering Iranian airspace. Iran’s own carriers, meanwhile, struggle with an aging fleet, shortages of spare parts and decades of sanctions restricting access to aircraft and aviation equipment. According to data from aviation analytics company Cirium cited by the Financial Times, roughly one-third of flights scheduled to operate in Iran on a recent day were cancelled or did not operate. Iran Air, the country’s flag carrier, reportedly has only nine operational aircraft.

The loss of connections to Turkey and Oman are particularly important. Istanbul and Gulf hubs are gateways for Iranians traveling onward to Europe and North America. These routes connect families separated across borders and are used by students, business travelers and people seeking medical treatment abroad. When those connections disappear, the consequences are straightforward: fewer seats, more complicated itineraries and greater costs for travelers.

Signs of that pressure are already appearing inside Iran. Following Mahan’s announcement, Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization warned airlines, travel agencies and charter operators against sharply increasing ticket prices for routes to Turkey and Oman. The agency said it had received reports of significant price increases and threatened violators with penalties, including temporary suspension of their flight allocations on those routes.

Price controls, however, cannot replace lost flight capacity. If sanctions make it increasingly risky for airports, service providers and other foreign companies to work with Iranian airlines, Tehran has limited ability to prevent the resulting contraction in international travel.

The Trump administration says the sanctions are aimed at preventing Iran from using civilian aviation networks to support military activities. The Treasury Department says Iranian aviation has been used to transport weapons, personnel and sensitive technology, and its latest measures specifically identified foreign companies it says helped move drone components and other equipment.

But the civilian consequences of the policy are increasingly difficult to separate from its stated military objectives. Ground handling, ticket sales, aircraft maintenance, financial services and access to foreign airports are not primarily military functions. They are also the infrastructure that allows an Iranian student to reach a university abroad, a family to visit relatives in another country, or a patient to travel for medical care. Sanctioning that infrastructure inevitably creates costs far beyond the Iranian government and military.

This has long been one of the most consequential features of sanctions on Iranian aviation. Restrictions on aircraft purchases, financing and access to parts have contributed to the isolation of a civilian aviation system already struggling to maintain an aging fleet. Although U.S. regulations have provided mechanisms for licensing some transactions related to civil aviation safety in the past, the broader sanctions environment has repeatedly made legitimate commercial activity involving Iran difficult and risky.

A disturbing video on Tuesday showed a Sepehran Airlines flight from Mashhad to Kermanshah experiencing a mid-air emergency, with portions of the cabin buckling. Thankfully, the airline was able to make an emergency landing and all passengers were ultimately safe, but it underscored the risk to ordinary civilians of unsafe air travel. As sanctions escalate, more emergencies – potentially fatal ones – could become increasingly difficult to avoid.

The consequences could also extend beyond passenger travel. Medical goods are roughly seven times more dependent on aviation linkages than Iranian imports overall, according to Esfandyar Batmanghelidj of the Bourse & Bazaar Foundation, making medical supply chains particularly vulnerable to further disruption.

That vulnerability is already being felt inside Iran. Patients contacted by Iran Unfiltered say they have been unable to obtain influenza vaccines as flu season approaches. Further restrictions on aviation and air cargo could therefore affect not only Iranians trying to travel for medical treatment, but also access to time-sensitive medicines, vaccines and other medical supplies inside the country.

Mahan Air still operates international routes, including connections to Russia and China, and other Iranian airlines continue flying to some regional destinations. Iran has not been cut off from all international air travel yet. But the developments of the past week illustrate how isolation can deepen incrementally: one service provider, one airport and one route at a time.

That matters particularly in the context of the current war. Washington is simultaneously applying military and economic pressure against Iran, while ordinary Iranians are living with the consequences of both. Air travel provides a particularly visible example of how economic measures aimed at weakening Iran’s capabilities can reach far beyond government institutions.

Less than two weeks after the latest aviation sanctions were announced, the civilian consequences are already becoming visible: Iran has fewer international connections, passengers are facing pressure on ticket prices, and one of the country’s largest civilian carriers is losing access to neighboring destinations that serve as crucial gateways to the rest of the world.

For Iranian travelers, this is not an abstract debate about sanctions architecture. It means fewer ways to leave the country, higher costs for staying connected to family and the outside world, and another aspect of everyday life being squeezed by a confrontation they have no ability to control.

Iran’s Oil Trustees Put Sanctions, Corruption and Political Connections Under Scrutiny

Published September 17, 2026

A new controversy over the intermediaries selling Iranian oil is reviving a larger debate inside Iran over corruption, political connections and the enormous private fortunes created around the country’s sanctions economy. Hamshahri, a major Tehran newspaper, has published the names of four individuals – Ali Bayandarian, Rouhollah Razavi, Mohammad-Hadi Momenin and Hossein Shamkhani – while reporting on questions raised in parliament about how tens of millions of barrels of Iranian oil have been allocated to private intermediaries.

These intermediaries, often described in Iran as “trustees,” have become essential to the country’s oil trade under sanctions. Because Iran cannot freely use conventional banking, shipping and insurance networks, it relies on traders, foreign companies, ships and indirect financial channels to sell oil and return the proceeds.

But the latest parliamentary scrutiny is exposing the other side of that system: who selects these intermediaries, how much oil they receive, what guarantees they provide and whether proximity to political power influences who is intimately involved in the trade of Iran’s most valuable national resources.

Lawmaker Valiollah Bayati has demanded documentation explaining how the four traders were selected, their financial capacity and previous performance, the prices and discounts they received and the guarantees obtained for returning oil revenues. He has also asked whether intermediaries with outstanding debts were nevertheless given additional cargoes and whether other qualified companies had a genuine opportunity to compete for the business.

The quantities involved make those questions difficult to dismiss. Bayati has sought an accounting of roughly 72 million barrels of crude oil associated with the period he is examining. Another lawmaker, Hossein Samsami, has separately alleged that more than 86 million barrels were provided on credit to one individual without sufficient guarantees, with only part of the oil ultimately reaching the final buyer.

These parliamentary claims do not establish that the four people named by Hamshahri committed crimes, nor has the Oil Ministry publicly connected each of the disputed quantities to particular individuals. But they raise a broader question about how officials entrusted potentially billions of dollars in public assets to a relatively small and largely opaque group of private actors.

The most politically sensitive name is Hossein Shamkhani, whose father, Ali Shamkhani, spent decades at the highest levels of Iran’s political and security establishment before he was killed in the opening U.S.-Israeli strikes of the current war on February 28, 2026. Ali Shamkhani served as defense minister and for nearly a decade as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council. After being seriously wounded during the June 2025 war, he later became secretary of Iran’s Defense Council. 

Hossein, meanwhile, built an extensive international shipping and commodities business involved in the trade of Iranian and Russian petroleum. The U.S. Treasury sanctioned Hossein Shamkhani and a network of companies and vessels in 2025, alleging that he had benefited from his father’s political influence and that vessels associated with his network received preferential treatment at Iranian ports. Shamkhani has denied that his father was involved in his business activities. Washington imposed further sanctions on companies and vessels it linked to his network in 2026, after Ali Shamkhani’s death.

Those are U.S. government allegations, not findings by an Iranian court. But the fact that an Iranian parliamentarian is now asking how Hossein Shamkhani and the other traders were selected gives the issue greater domestic significance.

The question is no longer simply how Iran circumvents U.S. sanctions – it is also who inside Iran gains access to the lucrative business created by circumventing them. Iran has confronted this problem before.

The most important precedent is Babak Zanjani, who emerged as a crucial oil and financial intermediary when sanctions tightened during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency. Zanjani operated a sprawling international network of companies and financial institutions capable of selling Iranian oil and moving money when conventional banking channels were increasingly unavailable. Iranian authorities later accused him of failing to return billions of dollars in oil revenues. He was arrested in 2013 and eventually sentenced to death for corruption. However, 

After authorities said assets connected to Zanjani had been recovered, his death sentence was commuted to 20 years in prison in 2024. He subsequently was released from prison in April 2025 and has returned to highly visible business activity, including major transportation and investment projects.

Zanjani’s return makes the current controversy particularly striking. More than a decade after Iran experienced one of its largest corruption cases involving a sanctions intermediary, the country remains dependent on essentially the same model: private actors trusted with enormous quantities of oil because they possess the networks necessary to operate outside the conventional international financial system.

That does not mean the four individuals named by Hamshahri have followed the practices of Zanjani. No evidence currently establishes comparable wrongdoing under Iran’s legal system. The parallel is instead about the system that produces such powerful intermediaries.

Sanctions push various economic actors into secrecy to mitigate risk. Ownership structures may be obscured, payments routed through third countries and informal financial networks, and oil transported through companies and vessels designed to reduce exposure to U.S. enforcement. These mechanisms have allowed Iran to continue exporting oil despite extensive sanctions. But the same secrecy that protects transactions from foreign enforcement also makes domestic oversight considerably more difficult.

This creates opportunities for corruption and political patronage. Traders capable of providing foreign companies, ships, bank accounts, currency networks and access to buyers become extremely valuable to the government. But the government must decide whom to trust with those assets, and those decisions are largely hidden from public scrutiny.

This is why the current parliamentary inquiry is ultimately about more than four businessmen. If tens of millions of barrels were handed to intermediaries, government officials had to authorize those transactions. Someone determined who qualified as a trustee, approved the prices and discounts, accepted the guarantees and decided whether additional oil could be provided when previous obligations remained unresolved.

That moves the corruption question up the chain of authority. Who recommended the traders? What criteria were used? Were politically connected individuals treated differently from competitors? Who approved transactions involving insufficient guarantees? And if oil revenues were not returned, were the officials who authorized those transactions ever held responsible?

These questions have implications far beyond Tehran’s internal political disputes. Oil remains one of Iran’s most important sources of foreign currency. Excessive discounts, unpaid debts, commissions and corruption ultimately reduce resources available to a country already struggling with inflation, currency depreciation and the economic consequences of sanctions and war.

For ordinary Iranians, the sanctions economy can therefore impose costs from two directions. Sanctions themselves restrict trade, investment and access to financial markets. But they also push increasingly valuable economic activity into opaque networks where oversight is weaker and individuals with privileged access can accumulate extraordinary wealth.

That does not absolve Iranian officials of responsibility. Sanctions did not force officials to favor politically-connected individuals, accept inadequate guarantees or tolerate corruption where it occurred. Those are domestic decisions for which Iranian institutions remain responsible.

But sanctions have helped create an economic environment in which secrecy is not an exception but a requirement — and where the line separating steps to mitigate sanctions risk, political patronage and private enrichment can become extraordinarily difficult for the public to see.

This is what makes the publication of the four names significant. The stakes are not just whether the individualized actors are corrupt, but whether Iran replicated the Zanjani model and incorporated it as an intrinsic part of its vital oil trade. More than a decade after Zanjani’s arrest, the Iranian public still knows remarkably little about who receives the country’s oil, who selects the trustees, how much they earn, what guarantees they provide and who is accountable when billions of dollars in public assets are placed at risk.

The parliamentary inquiry could begin answering those questions. But doing so would require looking beyond the traders themselves to the officials and institutions that gave them access to Iran’s oil in the first place.

As Iran’s Regional War Drags On, Armed Violence Is Rising on Its Periphery

Published September 17, 2026

A series of violent events have flared in Iran’s restive border regions as the war with the U.S. continues to play out in the Strait of Hormuz and broader Middle East. This includes a nine-hour gun battle in southeastern Iran, the assassination of a Sunni cleric close to the government in Zahedan, and separate killings of figures affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and Basij in Iran’s Kurdish northwest.

There is no evidence that the recent incidents in Sistan and Baluchistan and Iranian Kurdistan were coordinated with each other or directed by the United States, Israel or another outside power. Armed conflict in both regions long predates the current war and has distinct local roots. But their timing raises a consequential question: could a prolonged external war fuel Iran’s existing internal conflicts?

The clearest recent warning came from Saravan, near Iran’s border with Pakistan. On September 12, Iranian security forces and members of the People’s Fighters Front fought for roughly nine hours in the Bakhshan area. The Revolutionary Guards said four militants and three Iranian personnel were killed. The armed group said security forces had surrounded one of its units and that it dispatched five reinforcement teams to break the encirclement.

The competing details cannot be independently verified. But even the government’s account indicates that this was more than an isolated shooting: an organized armed group engaged Iranian forces in a prolonged battle with fatalities on both sides.

The organization itself reflects a recent change in the Baloch insurgency. The People’s Fighters Front was established in late 2025 through the merger of Jaish al-Adl and several smaller armed Baloch organizations. In announcing the new coalition, its leaders spoke not only about Baloch grievances but about broader political change in Iran and cooperation with other anti-government movements. Iranian hardline media have largely described the merger as a rebranding of Jaish al-Adl following security-force pressure, and there is not yet enough evidence to determine whether consolidation has significantly increased the militants’ capabilities.

However, the situation escalated further with the assassination of a pro-government figure. Molavi Yousef Gorgij, a Sunni cleric close to the Islamic Republic, attended the funeral of security personnel killed in the fighting and spoke publicly there. Shortly afterward, gunmen assassinated him in Zahedan.

No organization has claimed responsibility, and Iranian authorities have not produced public evidence identifying the perpetrators. The timing is striking but does not establish that Gorgij was killed in retaliation for Saravan. Other recent armed attacks in the province have included the killing of two Revolutionary Guards personnel in the Kurin area of Zahedan earlier in September.

Hundreds of miles to the northwest, a separate series of attacks has occurred in Iran’s Kurdish regions. Mullah Mohammad Nezhati, a Sunni cleric and active Basij member, was shot dead by motorcycle-riding gunmen in Piranshahr on September 8. Iranian authorities blamed Kurdish opposition groups, although no Kurdish organization initially claimed the attack. Days later, Eslam Kak Darvishi, a longtime Revolutionary Guards member who had served in Marivan, Baneh and Piranshahr, died from wounds sustained in another attack. A group calling itself Khori Hiva, or Sun of Hope, claimed responsibility for that killing.

The similarities with Baluchistan should not be overstated. Iran’s Kurdish and Baloch conflicts are not a single insurgency. Their organizations, histories and political demands differ, and there is no evidence connecting the attacks in Piranshahr to the fighting in Saravan. Peaceful Kurdish political activity and the nationwide Woman, Life, Freedom movement must also be distinguished from armed Kurdish organizations.

But Tehran’s behavior since the beginning of the current war shows that Iranian Kurdish armed groups have already become part of its wartime security calculations. Since the regional war began on February 28, Iran has repeatedly struck positions, camps and residential areas associated with Iranian Kurdish opposition organizations across the border in Iraqi Kurdistan. Targets have included factions of Komala, the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, the Kurdistan Freedom Party and the Khabat Organization. Adding to the securitization in Kurdish areas, President Trump has said that the United States sent guns intended for Iranian protesters but that Kurdish groups kept them, a claim that has been denied.

The strikes began early in the war and continued through subsequent months, including during periods when direct Iran-U.S. and Iran-Israel fighting declined. Kurdish organizations have reported multiple fatalities, although their cumulative figures cannot all be independently verified. A July strike on the Zargwezela camp near Sulaymaniyah reportedly killed ten Komala members.

A September 7 drone attack on a Komala-associated camp in Surdash was therefore part of an established wartime pattern rather than an isolated escalation. Komala said the site housed families and that the attack caused damage but no casualties.

This chronology matters. Tehran began repeatedly targeting its Kurdish opponents across the Iraqi border well before the latest killings inside Iranian Kurdistan. Its actions suggest that the government has regarded the possibility of Kurdish armed groups exploiting the wider war as a security concern from early in the conflict.

Whether that concern is now materializing is much less clear. Iran’s Kurdish armed organizations remain predominantly based across the Iraqi border, and there is no evidence that the recent attacks inside Iran represent a major cross-border offensive. Nor is there concrete evidence that Washington or Israel is directing the attacks in Kurdistan or Baluchistan, despite repeated Iranian government claims that foreign enemies are seeking to exploit ethnic and regional divisions.

The local origins of these conflicts are much older. Baluchistan has experienced decades of armed insurgency alongside grievances involving poverty, discrimination, political representation, Sunni religious rights and state violence. Kurdish opposition to the central government has an even longer history and includes a wide spectrum ranging from civil and political activism to armed organizations.

The current war did not create these conflicts. What it may be changing is the environment in which they operate. Iran is now managing multiple military and security pressures simultaneously. Its confrontation with the United States and Israel has spread across the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, while the Houthis and armed groups elsewhere in the region have created additional fronts. At home, economic pressure and heightened fears of infiltration and sabotage have produced an increasingly securitized environment.

For armed organizations already opposed to the Islamic Republic, such circumstances could create opportunities. For the government, they create an incentive to prevent those organizations from expanding their operations while much of the state’s attention is directed toward the external war.

But the evidence does not currently point to a coordinated internal front or an approaching nationwide insurgency. The Iranian state retains a large security apparatus; armed opposition groups control no major population centers; and the recent incidents remain geographically separated and involve different actors.

There is also a significant risk of intensified repression in the border regions. If Tehran increasingly views Kurdish or Baloch political activity through the lens of its external war, the distinction between armed organizations, peaceful opposition and civil society could become even more blurred. The heavy security presence around the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death and recent arrests in Kurdish areas underscore that risk.

The recent violence therefore does not show that Iran’s regional war has become a domestic war. But Saravan, Zahedan and Piranshahr provide signs worth watching: longstanding internal conflicts are becoming more active at the same time that the Iranian state is under extraordinary external military and economic pressure.

The critical question is no longer whether those fault lines exist. They have existed for decades. It is whether a prolonged regional war will give them a larger role in Iran’s conflict — and whether Tehran’s efforts to prevent that outcome could themselves deepen instability in the country’s border regions.

Iran’s Gasoline Price Increase Was Only the Beginning of a Broader Reform

Published September 15, 2026

When Iran recently doubled its third-tier gasoline price from 5,000 to 10,000 tomans per liter, the government sought to reassure motorists that the two heavily subsidized gasoline allocations used by most drivers would remain unchanged. New comments from government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani, however, provide a clearer picture of the policy behind that increase: the government had planned periodic adjustments to gasoline pricing before the war, and while it hopes to preserve the two cheaper quotas, it is not ruling out further changes to the subsidy system.

Speaking Tuesday, Mohajerani said the latest increase had actually been scheduled for last winter but was postponed because of the war. “According to the government resolution, this adjustment was supposed to take place quarterly,” she said. She also addressed the question most important to Iranian motorists. “We hope there will be no need for any reduction in the first and second gasoline quotas,” Mohajerani said.

For now, those allocations remain unchanged: private motorists receive 60 liters per month at 1,500 tomans per liter and another 50 liters at 3,000 tomans. Gasoline purchased beyond those allocations now costs 10,000 tomans. Mohajerani also said all additional revenue generated by the higher price would be spent on household livelihoods and promised that if the government decides to take further action, it will speak with the public beforehand.

Taken together, the comments suggest that the recent doubling of the third-tier price should be understood not as a one-time adjustment, but as the first visible stage of a broader effort to gradually restructure one of Iran’s largest and most politically-sensitive subsidies. The government created the framework before the current war. A resolution adopted in November 2025 and amended the following month preserved the two heavily subsidized allocations while establishing a mechanism for reviewing the higher price charged through emergency fuel cards at filling stations.

Under the amended resolution, that higher rate is subject to quarterly review by a government working group, with changes requiring presidential approval. There is an important limitation. The resolution does not mandate quarterly increases in the 1,500 or 3,000 toman gasoline price tiers. The quarterly mechanism specifically applies to the least-subsidized tier. Mohajerani likewise did not say Tuesday that the government has decided to increase either of the two cheaper rates.

But rather than guaranteeing that the existing quotas will remain unchanged, Mohajerani said the government “hopes” there will be no need to reduce them. Even 10,000-toman gasoline remains heavily subsidized compared with what the government says it costs to obtain additional supplies. First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref has said imported gasoline costs the government more than 70,000 tomans per liter.

The government therefore appears to be keeping the politically sensitive core of the subsidy system intact while gradually increasing the price paid outside it. The difference is already substantial. A motorist using the first quota pays 1,500 tomans per liter; someone purchasing gasoline at the third-tier rate pays more than six times as much.

The problem facing the government is therefore straightforward but politically difficult: the gap between what consumers pay and what additional gasoline costs the state is enormous, but rapidly closing that gap would impose a major new burden on households already struggling with inflation and declining purchasing power.

Some newly registered vehicles valued above one billion tomans are being excluded from the standard cheap gasoline allocations and shifted toward the higher rate. The logic is that owners of more expensive vehicles should receive less government support for fuel. But inflation has complicated that distinction. A one-billion-toman vehicle in today’s Iran is not necessarily a luxury car. Years of inflation and currency depreciation have pushed some ordinary domestically-produced vehicles, including versions of the Peugeot 207, Tara and Dena Plus, toward or above that threshold.

Fuel-distribution officials have acknowledged that the threshold may need to be revised as vehicle prices rise. This points to the broader direction of the government’s strategy. Instead of eliminating cheap gasoline for everyone simultaneously, authorities can gradually determine who continues to receive it, how much they receive and what consumers pay after their allocation is exhausted.

There are strong economic pressures pushing the government in that direction. Iranian gasoline consumption has for years strained domestic production, leaving a country with some of the world’s largest hydrocarbon reserves dependent on gasoline imports. Extremely low prices encourage consumption, while inefficient vehicles and inadequate public transportation in many areas make reducing demand difficult.

War has made that imbalance more consequential. Damage and disruption affecting energy infrastructure, combined with greater difficulty obtaining imported fuel, have made the cost of maintaining extraordinarily=cheap gasoline harder for the government to absorb.

Gasoline prices carry a turbulent political history in Iran. In November 2019, authorities abruptly increased gasoline prices and introduced new rationing rules. Protests spread rapidly across the country and developed into a much broader confrontation with the political system. Security forces responded with lethal force, killing large numbers of protesters.

The government’s current strategy appears designed in part to avoid repeating that experience. Rather than imposing one dramatic nationwide increase, it is changing the system incrementally. Mohajerani’s promise that authorities will speak with the public before making further changes is notable in this context. She made a similar commitment when the current pricing framework was introduced last year.

The government’s effort to protect most motorists also explains why the first two quotas remain so important. Officials argue that the combined 110 liters available at 1,500 and 3,000 tomans are sufficient for most ordinary private motorists.

But the burden is not distributed evenly. Motorcycle couriers, delivery workers, taxi drivers and others who rely on vehicles for their livelihoods can exhaust subsidized allocations much more quickly. Representatives of Tehran’s light urban transport sector have said the monthly motorcycle allocation can last only a few days for full-time couriers. For these workers, the higher gasoline price comes alongside rising costs for tires, repairs and vehicle maintenance. Higher fuel consumption does not necessarily indicate greater wealth; in many cases it reflects the requirements of someone’s job.

That complicates the government’s attempt to distinguish between consumption that should remain heavily subsidized and consumption that should be priced closer to its actual cost. Aref has argued that people who frequently make discretionary long-distance journeys, including repeated trips to northern Iran, should pay more for the gasoline they consume. Critics inside Iran counter that consumer behavior is only one part of the country’s gasoline problem. Iran’s inefficient vehicle fleet, limited public transportation, urban development patterns and decades of government energy policy have also contributed to high consumption.

Mohajerani’s claim that all revenue generated by the latest gasoline increase will be spent on household livelihoods is another indication the government is seeking to manage public perceptions regarding gasoline pricing. The government is simultaneously discussing greater assistance through Iran’s kalabarg, or electronic coupon system, as rising food, medicine, housing and other costs put increasing pressure on household budgets. The implied strategy is redistribution rather than simply cutting subsidies: consumers using more gasoline and falling outside the categories receiving the cheapest fuel pay more, while some of the resulting resources are redirected toward household assistance. 

Whether that works as promised will be crucial. Iranian households have repeatedly experienced price increases whose effects were immediate while compensation was delayed, inadequate or rapidly eroded by inflation.

Mohajerani’s comments now make the larger policy clearer. Iran is not preparing to eliminate gasoline subsidies overnight. It is building a system in which the government can periodically raise the least-subsidized price, narrow eligibility for cheap gasoline and potentially adjust quotas while attempting to shield most motorists from an immediate shock. The recent move from 5,000 to 10,000 tomans was therefore important not only because gasoline became more expensive. It demonstrated how the government intends to approach a problem Iranian governments have struggled with for decades.

The question is no longer simply whether gasoline prices will rise. It is how far Tehran can gradually move consumers away from extraordinarily cheap fuel – quarter by quarter and category by category – without turning an economic necessity into another major social and political crisis.

Iran’s Hormuz Card Survives as Saudi Bypass Routes Come Under Pressure

Published September 16, 2026

The attack on Saudi Arabia’s East–West oil pipeline, the Houthis’ strengthened position around Bab el-Mandeb and the postponement of regional talks in Oman have reinforced the same strategic point: Washington has not found a low-cost way to isolate Iran while insulating other Gulf exporters from the consequences. Developments in recent days have strengthened that conclusion, with another sharp decline in recorded Hormuz traffic and new attacks or incidents involving commercial vessels.

The larger contest is over whether the United States can separate two objectives that Tehran is determined to connect. Washington’s late-August economic campaign and naval blockade seek to stop Iranian trade while protected transit windows keep some oil from U.S. partners moving through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has responded that if its own exports are blocked, other Gulf producers should not expect normal access to global markets.

The September 10 strike on Saudi Arabia’s East–West pipeline exposed the vulnerability of the kingdom’s principal alternative to the Strait of Hormuz. The 1,200-kilometer system had recently moved roughly four to five million barrels per day from Saudi oil fields near the Persian Gulf to Yanbu on the Red Sea. Satellite imagery showed severe damage at a major pumping facility. Regional officials have said repairs could leave most of the pipeline out of service for three to five weeks, although partial operations may resume sooner. Riyadh has not issued its own repair timetable.

Who conducted the attack remains somewhat unclear. Saudi Arabia said the drones were launched from Iraq and blamed Iran-aligned fighters there. Baghdad confirmed that the launch originated in Maysan province, seized launch equipment near the Iranian border and opened an investigation. Iran has denied involvement, while the Islamic Resistance in Iraq denied conducting the strike but described the accusation as “an honor we do not claim.”

The strategic significance does not depend on establishing the precise chain of command. Iran has openly warned that if it cannot export oil, other Gulf producers will not be able to export normally either. An attack that disables Saudi Arabia’s principal Hormuz bypass therefore advances the logic Tehran has publicly articulated, regardless of who issued the operational order. 

The Houthis’ advances have created a similar problem at the other end of that bypass. The group has taken Mayun (Perim) Island inside Bab el-Mandeb and the Greater and Lesser Hanish islands farther north, while strengthening its position around the mountainous approaches overlooking the strait. These gains do not give the Houthis uncontested control of Bab el-Mandeb, and commercial traffic continues. But the mountainous terrain is considerably harder to retake than low-lying coastal areas and gives the group a more durable ability to threaten shipping through the waterway.

The Houthis have said navigation remains safe for vessels other than Saudi-linked shipping, while continuing missile and drone attacks against Saudi targets. For Riyadh, that creates vulnerability at both ends of its main Hormuz alternative: the pipeline carrying crude westward to Yanbu is badly damaged, while tankers leaving the Red Sea terminal toward Asia must pass through Bab el-Mandeb, where the military balance has shifted in the Houthis’ favor.
The pressure on Riyadh has increased further in recent days. Saudi Arabia has sought additional regional support as Houthi forces consolidated their gains, while Washington and European governments have so far stopped short of intervening directly to reverse the advances. U.S. officials also reportedly met Houthi representatives in Muscat over the weekend, where the Houthis indicated that their 2025 ceasefire with Washington remained in effect and that their current maritime threats were directed primarily at Saudi-linked rather than U.S. or general international shipping. That leaves Saudi Arabia facing a more immediate threat to its Red Sea route without a corresponding expansion of direct U.S. military protection.

Developments inside Hormuz reinforce the problem, although they also show that the strait is not completely sealed. Preliminary Kpler data showed only four commodity-vessel transits on Monday – two bulk carriers leaving the Persian Gulf and two empty oil tankers entering – down from ten on Sunday and far below prewar levels. TankerTrackers, however, reported from satellite imagery that VLCC supertankers were moving through Hormuz in both directions during daylight hours, while more crude, LNG and LPG was being transferred ship-to-ship in the Gulf of Oman.

The two observations are not necessarily contradictory because vessels operating without AIS can be missed by conventional tracking. Regardless, the picture is one of severely disrupted but adapting trade: some large tankers are still crossing and traders are finding ways to move cargo, but normal, predictable high-volume navigation has not returned.

The damaged Panama-flagged tanker El Gaia illustrates the continuing risk. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy said the vessel entered the southern route Tehran considers unauthorized, struck Iranian naval mines and caught fire. CENTCOM rejected that account, saying El Gaia had previously been disabled by an Iranian missile and was struck again by an Iranian drone last week while anchored off Oman. The competing accounts cannot be independently verified. Oman’s Maritime Security Center says an Omani naval vessel evacuated 23 crew members, while two remained missing, and the tanker is being towed toward an Omani port.

A separate incident followed Monday night, when the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency reported that another vessel in Hormuz was struck by an unidentified projectile. No significant damage was reported and the attacker has not been identified. The incidents underline the limitation of the U.S.-backed southern route: military protection may allow individual ships to transit, but it has not yet created sufficiently predictable conditions for normal commercial navigation. Iran is simultaneously trying to make its own authorization commercially relevant, warning vessels, insurers and maritime service providers of penalties for using routes Tehran considers unauthorized.

The shifting events and retaliatory pressure on Saudi Arabia’s oil exports may be complicating the diplomatic path ahead, at least temporarily. Oman had planned to bring Iran, Iraq and the six Gulf Cooperation Council states together to discuss navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, but Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi said the meeting was postponed “in the interests of consensus.” Tehran said Saudi Arabia requested the delay, though Riyadh has not publicly confirmed that account.

Saudi caution reflects a genuine dilemma. Joining an arrangement that solidifies an Iranian role in managing traffic through the Strait of Hormuz while Saudi infrastructure is under attack could be perceived as rewarding or bowing to coercion. But rejecting such an arrangement does nothing to address the continued threats to the kingdom’s oil infrastructure, which is likely to remain at significant risk so long as the Iran war continues to spread across the region.

The postponement also does not necessarily end the Iran–Oman track. Tehran and Muscat have discussed a temporary navigation framework involving routes through waters under their jurisdiction, and could potentially move ahead without a broader Gulf agreement.

Iranian officials are increasingly explicit about what they want in return for reducing pressure. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said Monday that there would be no new negotiations until Iran’s existing conditions were fulfilled, adding that the “equations concerning oil and the straits have changed.” President Masoud Pezeshkian has similarly said that if Washington returns to the Islamabad memorandum and implements its commitments, Tehran will implement its own.

Washington’s intensifying economic pressure is continuing, however. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has called on people worldwide to provide information about Iran’s remaining financial and commercial networks, saying actionable information could qualify for financial rewards. The initiative expands the U.S. campaign to sever Iran’s banking, shipping, aviation and other commercial connections. Washington is trying to demonstrate that Iran can be economically isolated without destabilizing the wider regional economy, while Tehran is using the vulnerability of regional energy routes to argue that the two cannot be separated. 

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing on Wednesday, adding another dimension to the diplomatic picture. China remains the largest buyer of Iranian oil and Tehran’s most important major-power economic partner. Wang called for Iran and the United States to return to the Islamabad understanding and resume substantive dialogue, while also emphasizing the importance of restoring navigation through Hormuz to protect global energy supplies and supply chains. Beijing therefore has interests on both sides of the emerging equation: it opposes Washington’s escalating pressure on Iran but also has a major economic stake in restoring predictable energy flows through Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb.

The civilian costs are also spreading. Fighting in Yemen has displaced tens of thousands of people. Inside Iran, disruption to maritime imports and financial restrictions has sharply increased transportation costs for medicines and contributed to shortages of some imported drugs. Higher oil, insurance and shipping costs distribute the consequences well beyond the governments making the strategic decisions.

The central conclusion remains that Washington has not succeeded in separating Iran’s economic isolation from the security of its partners’ exports. Iranian crude exports through Hormuz remain effectively halted, but Saudi Arabia’s principal overland bypass has been badly damaged and the strategic balance around its Red Sea outlet has shifted in favor of the Houthis.

Hormuz itself is neither normally open nor completely closed. Tankers are adapting through limited crossings, reduced electronic visibility and ship-to-ship transfers. But Iran does not need to stop every tanker to preserve its leverage. It needs to make excluding Iran from regional energy trade sufficiently costly and risky for everyone else.

An Iran–Oman navigation arrangement therefore remains the most plausible near-term mechanism for reducing that pressure. Broader Gulf participation would make it more durable, but Tehran may not require unanimous regional approval to begin implementing a bilateral framework with Muscat. The developments of the past week suggest that Iran’s central strategic wager – that it cannot be economically isolated without imposing substantial costs on the wider region – has not yet been disproved.