Special Interview on Sanctions Blocking Medicine, Trump’s Economic “D-Day,” Ghalibaf Defends Negotiations, and More

Iran Unfiltered

August 28, 2026

Week of August 24, 2026 | Iran Unfiltered is a digest tracking Iranian politics & society by the National Iranian American Council

Special Interview: When a Medication Does Not Arrive, Politics Decides a Life

Published August 24, 2026

Editor’s Note: Maryam Shirinsokhan conducted an interview with Amin Afshar, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Iranian Hemophilia Society, and offered for Iran Unfiltered to run the interview in full in order to shine further light on the impact of sanctions on public health in Iran. Below follows Shirinsokhan’s interview with Afshar:

While political decision-makers debate sanctions, negotiations, and geopolitical strategies, thousands of people in Iran are fighting for something far more fundamental: access to life-saving medication. For many patients with hemophilia or other severe bleeding disorders, it is not the disease itself that determines life or death, but whether the necessary treatment reaches them in time.

On July 29, Maryam Shirinsokhan conducted an in-depth interview with Amin Afshar, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Iranian Hemophilia Society, about the consequences of international sanctions on medical care. He describes concrete examples of how supply chains collapse, international aid efforts fail, and families are forced to live with the constant fear that a bleeding episode affecting their child may no longer be treated in time.

This interview is not intended as a political statement, but rather as an insight into the humanitarian consequences of a healthcare crisis whose impact is felt primarily by the most vulnerable: children, women, and people who depend on life-saving medication.

Maryam Shirinsokhan: During the brief period when a sanctions exemption existed: Which medications were you able to import, and what impact did this have on the situation of hemophilia patients?

Amin Afshar: Since September 2025, with the reactivation of the so-called snapback mechanism, there has effectively been no meaningful exemption for the import of life-saving medications for hemophilia patients. Even during periods of political negotiations, temporary agreements, or short-lived ceasefires, there was, in practice, no improvement over the past more than twelve months in the supply of the three essential medications that these patients urgently require.

The shortage of these three medications directly affects around 4,000 patients in Iran. The majority are women, children, and people with severe von Willebrand disease and Factor XIII deficiency.

During this period, several patients have died. Others continue to fight for their lives in hospitals, while some have suffered irreversible brain, joint, and physical damage — injuries that cannot be reversed even if the medications become available again in the future.

MS: What happened specifically after the return of sanctions?

AA: The problem was by no means limited only to the sale of medications.

In reality, an entire chain of simultaneous obstacles emerged: from money transfers and cooperation with banks, to insurance coverage for shipments and transportation, as well as the issuing of export licenses and pharmaceutical companies’ concerns about so-called secondary sanctions.

In many cases, manufacturers were willing to provide the medications. However, the process of actually getting them to patients in Iran was effectively blocked.

In other words, Iranian patients are not victims of a single obstacle, but rather of an entire chain of restrictions.

MS: The United States repeatedly emphasizes that medicines are not affected by sanctions. What has been your practical experience?

AA: Our practical experience clearly contradicts this statement.

A particularly illustrative example concerns the World Federation of Hemophilia (WFH). After assessing the dramatic situation of Iranian patients, the organization decided to donate medication free of charge to people suffering from von Willebrand disease in Iran. The necessary coordination with the Iranian Red Crescent Society, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and other relevant institutions had already been completed.

However, the shipment required the necessary official approvals. These approvals were ultimately not granted, meaning that the medication never reached Iran.

This was a purely humanitarian donation. There was no commercial transaction and no financial transfer involved.

From our perspective, the problem therefore cannot be reduced solely to financial transactions. In some cases, even patients’ access to donated medication was effectively prevented.

MS: How many patients are currently affected by medication shortages?

AA: In Iran, more than 16,000 people with hemophilia and other inherited bleeding disorders are receiving care through the Iranian Hemophilia Center.

In recent months, the most severe supply crisis has affected around 4,000 patients with Factor XIII deficiency as well as people with severe von Willebrand disease.

The consequences of this medication shortage include a growing number of hospital admissions, severe bleeding episodes, postponed surgeries, permanent mobility limitations, higher treatment costs, and, unfortunately, the deaths of several patients.

MS: What happens when a patient does not receive their clotting medication in time?

AA: For a person with hemophilia, a delay in receiving medication is not merely a postponement of treatment.

Every hour can determine whether a joint will suffer permanent damage, whether a brain hemorrhage will occur, or whether the patient will lose their life.

Bleeding into joints can lead to irreversible joint damage within a short period of time.

Brain, gastrointestinal, or internal bleeding represents an immediate threat to life.

This is especially critical for children, whose bodies are still growing. Every untreated bleeding episode can result in lifelong disability.

MS: Some argue that domestic mismanagement is the real problem – not sanctions. What is your response?

AA: In reality, both factors play a role.

Sanctions significantly restrict access to life-saving medications, lengthen procurement processes, and make them considerably more expensive.

At the same time, domestic issues such as bureaucratic procedures, delays in allocating foreign currency, problems within the insurance system, limited budgetary resources, and lengthy administrative processes further intensify the crisis.

If either of these two factors were removed, managing the healthcare crisis would become significantly easier.

Therefore, we believe that neither aspect can be ignored.

MS: Have there been cases in which foreign companies discontinued business relationships because of sanctions?

AA: Yes.

Over the past years, we have repeatedly witnessed international companies, intermediary banks, or transportation companies terminate their cooperation solely because of concerns about U.S. secondary sanctions.

In many cases, the problem was not a legal prohibition against selling medication, but rather fear of the possible consequences of doing business with Iran.

MS: What problems are patients’ families facing today?

AA: In addition to the financial burden of treatment, families live in a state of constant fear and uncertainty.

Mothers go to sleep every night worrying that, if their child suffers a bleeding episode, the urgently needed medication may not be available.

Some families have had to travel hundreds of kilometers in the hope of finding the necessary medication somewhere.

Others have been forced to postpone essential treatments.

This psychological burden, emotional exhaustion, and constant feeling of insecurity do not appear in any official statistics.

MS: Have you had to resort to alternative treatment methods?

AA: Unfortunately, yes.

In some cases, patients have been forced to use non-purified plasma-derived blood products, such as cryoprecipitate or fresh frozen plasma, instead of clotting factor concentrates.

This represents a return to treatment standards that were common approximately four decades ago.

This year, the World Health Assembly also classified the use of these treatments for hemophilia patients as medically undesirable and recommended their gradual elimination from healthcare systems.

The Iranian Hemophilia Center, as an official member of the World Federation of Hemophilia (WFH), also supported this resolution.

These blood products are significantly less effective, carry a higher risk of complications, and are insufficient to meet patients’ medical needs in cases of severe bleeding or major surgical procedures.

MS: To what extent have international organizations been able to provide assistance?

AA: We greatly appreciate the efforts of the World Federation of Hemophilia (WFH).

The organization has repeatedly attempted to find ways to support Iranian patients.

However, restrictions caused by sanctions have resulted in a significant portion of these efforts ultimately failing.

We have contacted numerous international organizations and conducted extensive correspondence with them.

Our impression is that many of these organizations also fear the possible consequences of U.S. sanctions and are therefore, in practice, unable to deliver life-saving medication to Iran.

MS: Have you submitted reports to the United Nations?

AA: Yes.

Over the past years, the Iranian Hemophilia Center has submitted numerous reports and documented evidence regarding the humanitarian consequences of medication shortages to international organizations, specialized institutions, and global networks.

From our perspective, however, the international response has not matched the scale of the crisis.

We remain convinced that the health of patients must never become a casualty of political conflicts.

MS: What would you say today to political decision-makers in the United States?

AA: I would not ask them for political concessions.

I would simply ask them to allow a child to access the life-saving medication they need.

No political decision should result in the death of a child who could have lived a normal life simply because they did not receive essential medication in time.

As a non-governmental organization, we are prepared to work together with the World Federation of Hemophilia (WFH), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and other humanitarian organizations to establish a transparent, traceable, and verifiable mechanism for importing life-saving medications — even when these medications are purchased through regular channels rather than donated.

MS: What would you say to the authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran?

AA: I would urge them to make access to life-saving medications for patients with rare and severe diseases their highest priority.

The allocation of foreign currency, expansion of domestic production, investment in plasma processing, establishment of strategic medication reserves, and removal of bureaucratic obstacles must be accelerated significantly.

Furthermore, we believe that patient organizations should be more actively involved in fundamental decisions concerning pharmaceutical policies. They are the first to witness the direct consequences of medication shortages among affected patients.

MS: Are children particularly affected by these consequences?

AA: Unfortunately, yes.

One of the most tragic events in recent times was the death of a three-year-old child with Factor XIII deficiency in the city of Khash.

In the months before his death, the child had been hospitalized several times due to the absence of the specific medication required for his condition and ultimately he passed away.

For us, this is not merely a number, but a symbol of the real and human consequences of medication shortages.

Currently, four additional children in different regions of Iran are receiving inpatient treatment due to a lack of medication and insufficient access to appropriate care. Their families hope and pray every day for their survival.

MS: Is it possible to design sanctions in a way that prevents harm to patients?

AA: From our perspective, any sanctions policy that restricts patients’ access to life-saving medication has failed from a humanitarian standpoint.

If sanctions are imposed, there must simultaneously be a practical, transparent, accountable, and verifiable mechanism ensuring that medicines, medical equipment, and other essential goods can reach the affected people without obstacles.

The right to health is a fundamental human right.

MS: You have repeatedly stated that medications are affected by sanctions. Can you provide evidence supporting this claim?

AA: For me, the most important evidence is the story of the medication donation by the World Federation of Hemophilia (WFH).

These medications were not intended to be sold, nor was any money supposed to be transferred for them. No one would have gained any economic benefit from this.

Despite extensive coordination with international organizations, this shipment never reached Iranian patients.

If even donated medications cannot reach patients, it becomes difficult to maintain that medicines are, in practice, completely exempt from the effects of sanctions.”

MS: If you only had two minutes to speak with a political decision-maker responsible for sanctions, what would you say?

AA: Today, I do not want to talk about politics. I want to talk about children whose only wish is to go to school, play, and have a normal future like other children their age.

They must not pay the price for political conflicts over which they have no control. Access to life-saving medication must never depend on political disputes. Humanity should begin where a child’s life is at stake.

Today, thanks to advances in modern medicine, hemophilia is a manageable condition — provided that the necessary medications are available. When access to these medications is interrupted, the consequences are predictable: bleeding, permanent disabilities, chronic pain, and, in some cases, death.

I appeal to all governments, international organizations, and political decision-makers to separate healthcare for patients from political conflicts.

No child, no woman, and no patient should ever be denied life-saving treatment simply because of their place of birth or the political situation of their country.

This is not a political demand; it is a humanitarian appeal. Today, I am not asking you to take sides for Iran or for the United States. I am asking you only to take the side of life.”

Mohsen Namjoo Returns After Nearly 20 Years as Iran Reopens the Door to Its Diaspora

Iranian singer and songwriter Mohsen Namjoo has returned to Iran after nearly two decades abroad, an unexpected homecoming that comes as the Iranian government says it is working to make it easier for prominent artists, intellectuals and other members of the diaspora to visit or return to the country. Namjoo announced his decision in a video released Thursday, saying the message would become public when he was either on his flight to Tehran or had already arrived. He said that at this stage of his life, being in his homeland and close to family and friends mattered more than whether he would be allowed to resume his musical or cultural work.

What makes Namjoo’s decision particularly notable is not simply the identity of the musician coming home. It is who Namjoo was when he left Iran, and the ongoing relationship between the Iranian government and the large Iranian diaspora.

Namjoo emerged from Iran’s underground music scene in the 2000s and became known for an unconventional mix of Persian classical music and poetry with blues, rock and jazz. He left Iran in 2007 and eventually established himself in the United States. Two years later, a Tehran court reportedly sentenced him in absentia to five years in prison over allegations of insulting religious sanctities through his use of Quranic verses in a musical performance. Namjoo said he had not intended to insult the Quran and had previously apologized over the recording, which he said was released without his authorization.

That history makes his return particularly striking. Iranian authorities have offered no public explanation of what happened to the old sentence, whether it remains legally relevant, or what assurances, if any, Namjoo received before returning. Nor has there been any announcement that he will be allowed to perform or release music in Iran. Namjoo himself has separated the decision to return from his professional future, saying that being home now takes priority.

Just one day before news of Namjoo’s return emerged, Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister Abbas Salehi described a broader government initiative aimed at reconnecting with prominent Iranians abroad. Salehi said his ministry had submitted more than 100 names of Iranian cultural, artistic and intellectual figures living outside the country as part of an effort to address obstacles that might prevent them from coming to Iran. Salehi said the initiative is not limited to permanent return. Someone might visit for several days, participate in a short-term program and leave again, or eventually move back permanently. The goal, he said, is to make different forms of return and engagement possible.

The initiative predates the latest war, but the experience of two conflicts appears to have given it greater significance. According to Salehi, the government intensified its outreach after the 12-day war, which officials saw as evidence that many Iranians abroad retained a strong attachment to the country despite their political, cultural or personal distance from the Islamic Republic. The process was disrupted by the subsequent 40-day war, he said, but the government intends to resume it as conditions stabilize.

Salehi said relations with the diaspora are becoming more open, with channels for dialogue and participation gradually expanding. That distinction – between attachment to the Iranian nation and support for the political system governing it – may be the most important part of the initiative.

For decades, Iran’s relationship with its diaspora has been marked by distrust. Millions of Iranians live abroad, including artists, academics, entrepreneurs and professionals whose relationship with the Islamic Republic ranges from engagement to outright opposition. For some, returning even for a visit has carried uncertainty about questioning, travel restrictions or old legal cases. Iranian political discourse, meanwhile, has often blurred the line between criticism of the government from abroad and hostility toward Iran itself.

Moreover, many individuals who have returned to Iran and thought they would not encounter obstacles have been blocked from leaving, arrested on dubious grounds and subjected to long and intense imprisonment. Several American citizens are believed to be held by Iran currently, including Kamran Hekmati and journalist Reza Valizadeh. These actions cast a long shadow and understandably deter many Iranians from returning to the country. Adding to this, many governments – including the United States – have warned about these dangers and explicitly recommend against travel to Iran under any circumstances.

Salehi’s comments suggest that at least part of the government is trying to reduce barriers to return. He said Iranians abroad should be respected except for those who “stand alongside Iran’s enemies,” while emphasizing that many expatriates had stood with their homeland during the recent wars.

But that formulation leaves a critical question unanswered: who decides where legitimate disagreement ends and “standing with the enemy” begins? Without clear legal guarantees and predictable procedures, government invitations alone are unlikely to erase the concerns that have kept some expatriates away.

The contradictions are already visible. Tehran is talking about greater engagement with Iranians abroad, and Parliament has passed legislation intended to support them. Yet journalists, students, artists and civil-society figures inside Iran continue to face restrictions, while a recently approved parliamentary measure on “countering foreign infiltration” has raised new concerns about contacts with foreign media, institutions and universities.

Iran is, in other words, trying to lower some of the barriers separating it from its diaspora while parts of the political system are simultaneously seeking tighter controls over interaction with the outside world. It is too early to know which tendency will prove stronger. There is also no evidence that Namjoo’s return resulted from the government’s list of more than 100 prominent expatriates. Neither Namjoo nor Iranian officials have publicly made that connection. His decision may be exactly what he says it is: a deeply personal choice to go home.

But it is difficult to separate his return from a broader question now emerging inside Iran: whether the experience of war can produce a different relationship between the Iranian state, Iranian society and millions of Iranians who have built lives abroad. The wars appear to have underscored an important distinction: many Iranians abroad who are critical of the Islamic Republic still feel a deep attachment to Iran itself. During the conflicts, disagreement with the government did not necessarily translate into support for attacks on the country or indifference to the suffering of people inside Iran.

For Tehran, recognizing that distinction could open access to an enormous pool of Iranian cultural, scientific and economic talent abroad. But turning emotional attachment to Iran into greater engagement with the country will require more than welcoming statements. It will require predictable rules, legal security and confidence that returning home does not depend on shifting political judgments about who is considered acceptable.

Namjoo’s arrival does not prove that such a change has taken place. The unanswered questions surrounding his own old court case are reason enough for caution. But a musician who once said he was prepared to face prison if he ever returned has now come home nearly two decades later, just as Tehran says it wants to reopen channels to prominent Iranians abroad. Whether Namjoo’s return remains an exception or becomes part of something broader may tell us considerably more about postwar Iran than the homecoming of one famous musician.

Washington Wants to Isolate Iran. Its Neighbors May Make That Harder

Published August 27, 2026

The Trump administration’s new “Economic D-Day” campaign is built around a sweeping objective: cut the economic connections that have allowed Iran to withstand six months of war and decades of sanctions. Announcing “Operation Economic Outcast” this week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington intends to sever “every economic lifeline” sustaining Tehran and warned governments, banks and companies that they could be forced to choose between economic ties with Iran and access to the United States.

Iran is already under severe economic pressure, and Washington retains enormous leverage over international finance. Yet the experience of the war has exposed a potential obstacle to Washington’s strategy: Iran is surrounded by countries that have their own reasons to oppose cutting off a neighboring economy of 93 million people. Geography grants Iran a structural advantage against intense economic pressure. Iran has land or maritime boundaries with 15 countries, placing it among the states with the largest number of neighbors in the world. Its borders stretch from Turkey and Iraq in the west to Pakistan and Afghanistan in the east, the Caucasus and Central Asia in the north, and the Arab states across the Persian Gulf to the south.

That geography has often created security vulnerabilities for Iran, but in a campaign built around economic isolation it can also become an asset. A country connected to so many different markets, transportation corridors and political systems has more potential routes through which trade, humanitarian supplies and financial relationships can be redirected when one channel is closed. None can fully replace access to the global financial system or major commercial hubs such as the UAE, but closing all of them simultaneously requires Washington to secure cooperation from a remarkably diverse group of governments with very different interests.

The war has begun to demonstrate what that advantage can look like in practice. When maritime routes became more difficult, Iran turned more heavily toward rail and overland connections; when one commercial partner pulled back, other neighbors kept borders open, provided alternative transit routes or expanded cooperation.

Pakistan offers perhaps the clearest example. Even as Washington threatens countries maintaining economic ties with Tehran, Pakistan and Iran have been discussing how to expand them. The two governments have reiterated a target of raising bilateral trade to $10 billion, while working on barter arrangements, border markets, transportation and customs cooperation. More consequentially, Iranian and Pakistani officials have discussed using Karachi and Gwadar as alternative ports for Iranian trade with third countries, giving Tehran another potential route at a time when maritime access through the Persian Gulf remains constrained.

The discussions have continued through the current crisis. Iran and Pakistan held another meeting of their joint maritime and ports committee this week, while Islamabad has simultaneously emerged as one of the most important diplomatic intermediaries between Tehran and Washington. Field Marshal Asim Munir, Pakistan’s army chief, traveled to Tehran this week as part of those efforts. Pakistani officials said afterward that significant progress had been made toward finding a path back to negotiations. That creates an unusual contradiction at the heart of Washington’s new strategy: one of the countries the United States would need to help economically isolate Iran is simultaneously helping Tehran preserve alternative trade routes and trying to bring Iran and the United States back to the negotiating table.

Pakistan also demonstrates why the challenge is not purely economic. During the war, demonstrations expressing solidarity with Iranians and opposition to U.S. and Israeli attacks were held in several Pakistani cities. Dawn reported that hundreds gathered in Dera Ismail Khan in one such demonstration, joined by political and social groups. Jamaat-e-Islami, a major Sunni Islamist political movement, also organized protests against the attacks and in solidarity with Iran.

These demonstrations should not be interpreted as evidence that Pakistani society uniformly supports the Iranian government. It does not. But sympathy for Iranians, opposition to another regional war and hostility toward policies perceived as collectively punishing Iran can raise the domestic political cost of fully joining an American campaign to isolate the country. That distinction may become increasingly important as Washington attempts to turn financial pressure into regional policy.

Azerbaijan provides an even more striking example because its relationship with Iran before the war was anything but easy. For years, Tehran and Baku clashed over Azerbaijan’s close security relationship with Israel, regional transportation routes and mutual accusations of interference and security threats. At several points, the relationship deteriorated sharply enough to generate open warnings from both sides. Yet during the recent phases of war, that relationship moved in a different direction.

Azerbaijan sent humanitarian assistance to Iran. President Ilham Aliyev subsequently told Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian that assistance would continue, while Pezeshkian publicly thanked Azerbaijan for its support during the conflict. Iranian officials have also said Azerbaijan helped keep transportation routes functioning and facilitated the movement of assistance from Russia into Iran.

Baku, for its part, publicly emphasized that Azerbaijani territory would not be used by another country to threaten Iran. The disagreements between Tehran and Baku have not disappeared, and it would be premature to describe the two countries as strategic partners. But the contrast is significant: a neighbor that had one of Iran’s most contentious regional relationships before the war became a source of humanitarian and logistical cooperation during it.

That experience was not unique to Azerbaijan. Turkmenistan sent medicines, medical equipment and other humanitarian supplies to Iran and kept its border crossings functioning. Iranian officials later credited Ashgabat with facilitating a humanitarian corridor that also allowed assistance from other countries to reach Iran. Armenia likewise sent medicines to Iran. Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan described providing assistance to a neighboring country under such circumstances as natural, while Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had earlier said Tehran would not need to formally request assistance if Armenia saw a need it could meet.

This points toward a larger geographic reality: Iran’s northern borders connect it to countries that have their own economic and strategic interest in keeping trade routes open. While it cannot offset the entirety of Iran’s wartime losses, it is a considerable factor allowing Iran to weather intense military and economic pressure.

For the landlocked economies of Central Asia, the calculation can be even more concrete. Iran offers one of the region’s shortest routes toward the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean. Central Asian governments have therefore continued pursuing transportation projects involving Iran even during the conflict.

One of the most striking examples came from Kazakhstan. In late June, Kazakhstan signed a 27-year agreement to develop and operate a logistics terminal at Iran’s Shahid Rajaee port, expanding a transportation corridor that would give Kazakh trade greater access to southern maritime routes. The significance for Washington’s strategy runs in both directions. Iran needs Central Asia as it searches for alternatives to traditional commercial routes. But Central Asian countries can also need Iran.

That makes economic isolation more complicated for Washington. In some cases, Washington is asking them to reconsider infrastructure, trade routes and investments designed around their own national interests.

Iraq presents another version of the same problem. The Iraqi economy is deeply connected to both Iran and the United States. Iran remains an important supplier and trading partner, while a post-invasion arrangement ensures that Iraq’s oil revenues are deposited in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, providing Washington with enormous continuing leverage over Baghdad. Successive Iraqi governments have therefore spent years trying to maintain relations with both sides.

The war has made that interdependence even more visible. Iraqi officials have sought arrangements with Tehran to ensure Iraqi oil tankers can move safely through the Strait of Hormuz, with Iran granting special passage to Iraqi vessels following requests from Baghdad. For an economy overwhelmingly dependent on oil exports, Iraq now has a direct economic interest in maintaining a functioning relationship with Iran regardless of Washington’s broader strategy toward Tehran.

Domestic politics make the equation more difficult still. Iran remains a deeply polarizing actor inside Iraq. Tehran’s extensive political and security influence, including its longstanding relationships with Iraqi armed groups and political factions, has drawn significant criticism from some Iraqi constituencies. At the same time, powerful Iraqi political and social constituencies oppose the U.S. war and would resist seeing Baghdad transformed into an instrument for economically strangling its neighbor.

Opposition to economically isolating Iran should not automatically be interpreted as support for the Iranian government. Turkey illustrates the same distinction from yet another direction. Ankara has substantial disagreements with Tehran and has worked to diversify some of its economic and energy relationships away from Iran. Yet when the war disrupted normal movement across the border, Turkish authorities kept commercial cargo moving through the three principal border crossings even while restricting ordinary passenger traffic.

For Turkey, the question is not simply whether it agrees with Tehran. Iran is a large neighboring country connected to Turkish calculations involving trade, energy, border security, migration and regional stability. Economic collapse or prolonged warfare next door would create costs for Turkey that Washington does not have to bear directly.

This helps explain why the regional response to Iran’s isolation cannot be reduced to a binary choice between supporting Tehran and supporting Washington. Some of Iran’s neighbors may sympathize with Iranians suffering through the war. Others may oppose U.S. military action while strongly disagreeing with the Islamic Republic. Still others may simply conclude that cutting trade, transportation or energy connections with Iran would damage their own economies.

Often, all three calculations coexist. None of this means Economic D-Day cannot impose considerable harm. Nations may downgrade their levels of trade and cooperation under pressure, and workarounds may not be able to deliver the level of trade Iran needs to stay afloat.

But six months of war have demonstrated that Iran’s regional connections are not sustained only by ideology or support for the Islamic Republic. Iran cannot simply be removed from the map. That reality creates a choice for Washington. Economic pressure may provide additional leverage for diplomacy, particularly if Tehran concludes that the costs of continued confrontation are becoming unsustainable. But if the objective becomes the complete economic isolation of Iran, the United States will find itself asking neighboring governments to absorb significant economic and political costs of their own.

There is also a longer-term risk. The more difficult Washington makes Iran’s traditional economic relationships, the stronger Tehran’s incentive becomes to build alternative routes through Pakistan, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Russia and China and to develop financial arrangements less exposed to U.S. pressure. Economic isolation can weaken Iran in the short term while simultaneously accelerating its search for economic networks outside Washington’s reach, undermining the efficacy of pressure over the long term.

Whether Iran’s alternatives are significant enough to compensate for lost access to major financial centers remains an open question. Iran’s economic difficulties suggest they are not a 1-for-1 replacement, at least for now. But while Washington may be able to make Iran’s relationships with its neighbors more costly, making those relationships disappear is a much harder proposition. A country with 15 land and maritime neighbors has many doors to the outside world, and Washington will have to close far more than one of them to achieve genuine isolation.

Ghalibaf Defends U.S. Negotiations as Debate Over Diplomacy Deepens in Iran

Published August 26, 2026

An unusually direct public exchange between two prominent figures on Iran’s political right is exposing a deeper debate in Tehran over a question that has become increasingly urgent after months of war: should negotiations with the United States be treated as a necessary instrument for ending the conflict, or as a trap that could surrender leverage Iran believes it gained on the battlefield?

The dispute erupted after Hossein Shariatmadari, editor-in-chief of the hardline Kayhan newspaper and a longtime influential voice among Iran’s conservative establishment, published a note addressed to Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the parliament speaker who also leads Iran’s negotiating team with the United States.

Shariatmadari’s criticism was carefully framed. He described Ghalibaf as a committed revolutionary with a long record of service, but warned that some of his recent positions appeared – at least superficially – to overlap with those of reformists and figures Kayhan routinely labels “pro-Western.” He suggested that these groups were attempting to shift Ghalibaf’s political base and urged him to state his revolutionary positions more explicitly.

The message was difficult to separate from Kayhan’s broader campaign against the emerging diplomatic track. Days earlier, the newspaper accused senior Iranian officials of sending Washington “signals of weakness and passivity” by emphasizing the economic costs of the conflict and the desirability of ending the war. Kayhan specifically objected to arguments that Iran cannot indefinitely sustain military confrontation while its population faces severe economic pressure. In the newspaper’s telling, presenting Iran with a choice between war and negotiations – or between military strength and economic welfare – accepts a false framework created by Iran’s adversaries.

Ghalibaf has now answered publicly, and his response amounts to one of his clearest defenses yet of negotiations with Washington.

“Negotiations, in my view, have neither intrinsic value nor are they taboo,” Ghalibaf wrote. They are neither inherently good nor inherently bad, he argued, but become useful when they advance national interests, secure Iranian rights and preserve gains achieved through resistance.

More significantly, Ghalibaf rejected the idea that diplomacy and resistance necessarily stand in opposition. Negotiations conducted from a position of strength, he argued, can themselves constitute part of the struggle rather than a retreat from it.

His language remained firmly within the ideological vocabulary of the Islamic Republic. Ghalibaf stressed his opposition to “Westernization,” repeatedly invoked Iran’s military resistance and portrayed the United States as an enemy responsible for Iranian deaths. But within that framework, he drew a clear distinction between engagement and capitulation.

He also delivered an unusually pointed criticism of those attacking the negotiating process from the sidelines, arguing that refusing responsibility for negotiations while waiting to label any resulting achievement a betrayal amounts to political risk avoidance.

The exchange matters because Ghalibaf is not a reformist advocating rapprochement with the West. He comes from the Revolutionary Guard, has spent much of his political career in the conservative establishment and currently heads the team negotiating on behalf of the Iranian state. His argument therefore represents something more consequential than the familiar reformist case for diplomacy: it is an attempt to establish negotiations with Washington as legitimate within the political vocabulary of the Islamic Republic itself.

President Masoud Pezeshkian is making essentially the same case from a different political tradition.

Speaking during a three-hour economic meeting at Iran’s Central Bank as the government confronts Washington’s new economic pressure campaign, Pezeshkian said Wednesday that Iran’s approach is to resolve disputes through “understanding, interaction and negotiations.” At the same time, he insisted that Tehran would resist economic pressure and argued that Washington would fail to achieve through sanctions what it had failed to accomplish militarily.

That combination – openness to negotiations alongside claims of continued resistance – increasingly appears to be the government’s preferred political formula.

It also comes as regional diplomacy accelerates. Field Marshal Asim Munir, Pakistan’s army chief, visited Tehran this week and met Pezeshkian, Ghalibaf and Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei. A senior official in Pezeshkian’s office subsequently described the visit as “very fruitful” and containing “very valuable diplomatic achievements,” adding that its results would soon become apparent.

Iranian reporting citing a source close to the negotiating team indicates that Munir heard Iran’s conditions for renewed negotiations and then conveyed them to Washington. That report has not been independently confirmed.

Yet the same diplomatic activity that Pezeshkian’s office is presenting as productive is being portrayed very differently elsewhere inside Iran.

Kayhan on Wednesday described the visits by Munir and Omani Foreign Minister Badr Al Busaidi as part of a new American “deception operation.” It portrayed Munir as effectively carrying out a U.S. mission designed to lure Iran back to negotiations while Washington maintains military and economic pressure. The newspaper argued that it is Washington — not Tehran — that now needs diplomacy because of the costs of the conflict and disruptions surrounding the Strait of Hormuz.

The disagreement is therefore no longer simply about whether Iran should negotiate. It is increasingly about how Iran interprets the outcome of the war itself.

For Kayhan and like-minded hardliners, Iran emerged with significant leverage, particularly through its ability to disrupt navigation and energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz. From that perspective, returning to negotiations under American economic pressure risks giving away at the negotiating table what Iran paid heavily to obtain through military confrontation.

Pezeshkian and Ghalibaf are advancing a different argument: military resistance and diplomacy do not have to be mutually exclusive. Iran can claim that it resisted American pressure while still using negotiations to convert whatever leverage it possesses into an agreement that reduces the danger of renewed war and relieves economic pressure.

The economic costs of the confrontation are increasingly difficult to separate from the political debate over diplomacy. Pezeshkian made his latest appeal for negotiations not at the Foreign Ministry but during a Central Bank meeting focused on the currency, inflation, trade and household economic conditions.

The debate also complicates a common outside depiction of Iranian politics as divided neatly between officials who favor confrontation and those who favor accommodation. Ghalibaf’s position illustrates a third argument now taking shape: negotiations can be defended not as an alternative to resistance, but as one way of converting military leverage into political and economic gains.

Whether that argument ultimately prevails will depend significantly on Washington. Tehran’s internal advocates of negotiations will have a much harder time defending diplomacy if the United States demands terms that can easily be portrayed inside Iran as capitulation, or if economic pressure intensifies while negotiations proceed without tangible benefits.

Conversely, a diplomatic process that produces visible reciprocal steps could strengthen those arguing that Iran does not have to choose between defending its interests and negotiating with an adversary.

For ordinary Iranians, this is more than an ideological argument inside the political establishment. The outcome could help determine whether the country moves toward another cycle of military confrontation and deeper economic isolation, or whether the current regional diplomacy opens a path back toward an agreement.

The striking development this week is that the argument for testing that path is no longer coming only from Iran’s reformists. It is now being made publicly by the president and by the conservative former Revolutionary Guard commander entrusted with negotiating on Iran’s behalf.

As Washington Threatens Economic Isolation, Iran Tests Diplomacy — and Its Economic Defenses

Published August 25, 2026

A day after the Trump administration declared an “economic D-Day” against Iran, the picture is already more complicated than the rhetoric from either Washington or Tehran suggests. The United States has threatened to force governments, banks and companies around the world to choose between doing business with Iran and maintaining access to the dollar-based financial system. But Washington has so far stopped short of some of the most consequential steps it could take. At the same time, Iran is responding on several fronts: intervening to stabilize its currency, expanding support for households, looking for economic channels beyond the reach of U.S. sanctions and, perhaps most importantly, continuing to negotiate through regional intermediaries.

Those two tracks – economic confrontation and diplomacy – are now moving at the same time. Whether they eventually converge may determine whether Washington’s new campaign becomes leverage for an agreement or simply another escalation that imposes additional costs on ordinary Iranians.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent presented the new campaign in sweeping terms, promising to attack Iran’s remaining connections to the global economy and warning foreign governments and businesses that continued trade with Tehran could cost them access to the U.S. financial system. The measures announced Monday broaden potential sanctions in areas including shipping, aviation, technology, gold and digital assets, alongside sanctions against nearly 60 individuals, companies and vessels. Additional measures removed general licensing allowing colleges to enroll Iranian students, for Iranian Americans to send remittances to Iranians and for sports exchanges between the two countries to take place. Washington stopped short of immediately targeting major financial institutions that could make the campaign dramatically more disruptive.

That gap between rhetoric and action was significant enough for Reuters Breakingviews to argue Tuesday that Washington’s much-advertised “D-Day” had barely made it off the beach. Major Chinese and Emirati financial institutions were not among the initial targets, even though China remains Iran’s most important oil customer and both countries play significant roles in Iran’s remaining international commercial networks. Bessent has indicated, however, that a major financial institution could be targeted before the end of the week.

The real test of Washington’s new strategy may therefore still be ahead. Targeting major Chinese institutions would mean moving beyond pressure on Iran and accepting the risk of a broader economic confrontation with Beijing. China has already signaled that it will resist such pressure. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian reiterated Beijing’s opposition to unilateral sanctions Tuesday and said China would take necessary measures to protect its legitimate rights and interests. Russia, meanwhile, is continuing to discuss alternatives to Western-dominated financial infrastructure. Alexander Trofimov, a Russian Foreign Ministry ambassador-at-large, said sanctions have accelerated interest in national-currency settlements, independent payment systems and potentially digital currencies in trade among countries facing Western restrictions.

Trofimov was not announcing a new Russian mechanism specifically designed to help Iran evade sanctions. But his comments illustrate a broader problem for Washington: the more aggressively the United States uses access to the dollar system as an instrument of coercion, the greater the incentive for targeted countries and their partners to develop ways of conducting trade outside it. None of those alternatives currently comes close to replacing the dollar-based financial system, but Iran’s ability to withstand the new campaign will partly depend on how quickly such channels can be expanded.

Inside Iran, meanwhile, the government is already trying to contain the domestic shock. After the rial crossed the psychologically significant threshold of 200,000 tomans to the dollar on the unofficial market, the Central Bank announced that it would make $500 million in physical foreign currency available through participating banks and exchange offices. Officials said additional currency could be released if necessary. Economy Minister Ali Madanizadeh has also said food-credit subsidies for some groups will increase during the second half of the Iranian year.

The response is telling: Tehran appears to expect external economic pressure to move quickly through the currency market and into household purchasing power. There are already signs that expectations alone are influencing daily life. Fuel distribution in Tehran reportedly jumped roughly 30 percent amid public concern about supplies, reaching more than 26 million liters on Monday. The sudden increase temporarily exhausted gasoline at a limited number of filling stations.

Iranian officials attributed the disruptions to unusually high demand, traffic and delays in replenishing stations rather than a nationwide gasoline shortage. That distinction is important. But so is the episode itself. Before the full effects of Washington’s new sanctions can even be measured, fear of what might happen is already changing consumer behavior.

President Donald Trump has sought to portray these economic pressures as evidence that the Iranian state itself is nearing collapse, claiming Tuesday that Tehran cannot pay large portions of its armed forces. Trump offered no evidence for that assertion, and it has not been independently verified. His claim nevertheless illustrates the administration’s public theory of the campaign: that sufficiently severe economic pressure can weaken the Iranian government to the point that it is forced to change course.

Yet at almost exactly the same moment, another process is unfolding. Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, traveled to Tehran on Monday accompanied by Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi. Munir met President Masoud Pezeshkian, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei. Pakistan’s military said the discussions focused on preventing further escalation, reopening the Strait of Hormuz and accelerating an end to the conflict.

Naqvi described the talks with Pezeshkian as “very positive and constructive” and said “significant progress” had been made. Pakistan says the two sides discussed steps needed to revive the earlier Islamabad understanding between Washington and Tehran. The language coming from Tehran was also unusually optimistic. Mehdi Tabatabaei, a senior official in Pezeshkian’s office, described Munir’s visit as “highly productive” and said its results would become apparent soon. Pezeshkian thanked Pakistan for its mediation but called on Washington to change its “tone and approach,” arguing that reliance on coercion would only complicate implementation of an agreement.

There may also be more substance behind those statements than has been publicly disclosed. Tasnim, citing a source close to Iran’s negotiating team, reported Tuesday that Munir had not carried a new American threat to Tehran but had instead sought to reopen space for negotiations. According to the report, Iran communicated its conditions concerning the Strait of Hormuz through the Pakistani delegation and insists that a return to the Islamabad understanding – including what Tehran describes as its fifth provision concerning arrangements in the strait – must be part of the process. That account cannot yet be independently verified. But taken together, the Iranian and Pakistani statements suggest that substantive bargaining is continuing behind the confrontational public rhetoric.

The Oman channel, meanwhile, delivered a more concrete outcome Tuesday. Omani Foreign Minister Badr Al Busaidi held talks in Tehran with his counterpart Abbas Araghchi, after which Iran and Oman announced a phased framework aimed at restoring safer navigation through the Strait of Hormuz. The plan includes a temporary joint shipping corridor and cooperation on mine-clearing, with further technical negotiations aimed at establishing a permanent corridor and longer-term arrangements for maritime traffic and security.

The agreement stops well short of fully reopening the Strait of Hormuz or resolving the broader Iran-U.S. confrontation. That distinction is important. Tehran appears willing to take incremental steps to ease pressure on regional shipping without surrendering Hormuz as one of its principal sources of leverage in negotiations with Washington. It also suggests that the recent Pakistani optimism was not occurring in isolation: while Washington was announcing a sweeping new campaign of economic pressure, regional diplomacy was simultaneously producing tangible movement on one of the war’s most consequential disputes.

Qatar is pushing in the same direction. Doha has criticized Iran’s restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz and wants commercial shipping and energy exports restored, but Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari also stressed Tuesday that the new U.S. sanctions are unilateral rather than multilateral or UN measures. Qatar, he said, continues to regard negotiation and regional mediation as the only viable route out of the crisis.

If Washington’s objective remains forcing Tehran to accept terms Iranian leaders view as surrender, the United States risks reproducing a familiar pattern: escalating pressure imposes substantial costs on Iran without producing the political concessions that were supposed to justify those costs.

What is different now is that this pressure campaign is unfolding alongside an active diplomatic channel. Neither side has demonstrated that it is prepared to make the compromises necessary for a durable settlement, and the progress reported by Pakistan and Oman does not mean a broader breakthrough is imminent. Washington could still dramatically escalate its economic campaign this week, particularly if it moves against a major Chinese financial institution. Tehran, meanwhile, continues to treat control over passage through the Strait of Hormuz as a central source of leverage.

The coming days may therefore reveal what Washington’s “economic D-Day” is actually intended to accomplish. If economic pressure is being used to strengthen Washington’s negotiating position before pursuing an agreement in which both sides can claim meaningful gains, the Pakistani channel could provide an offramp from nearly six months of war.

If economic isolation instead becomes an end in itself – another attempt to compel Iranian capitulation – the more immediate consequences are easier to foresee: deeper pressure on Iran’s currency and households, greater efforts by Tehran and its partners to build alternative financial channels, continued disruption in the Persian Gulf and a higher risk that economic confrontation once again feeds military escalation. For ordinary Iranians, the impacts are already being felt. The rial, food subsidies and even the sudden rush to Tehran gas stations are already showing how quickly decisions made in Washington and Tehran can reach the household level.

Trump’s “Economic D-Day” Is Raising the Stakes – From Iran’s Rial to China and Hormuz

Published August 24, 2026

Three days ago, Iran Unfiltered argued that Washington’s shift toward economic warfare was an attempt to accomplish through financial pressure what nearly six months of military operations had failed to achieve: forcing Tehran to accept U.S. terms. As the Trump administration prepares to unveil its new sanctions campaign Monday, the contours of that confrontation are becoming clearer, and considerably more dangerous.

The Iranian rial has already fallen to a new record low, with the U.S. dollar crossing 2 million rials, or 200,000 tomans, on the open market as Iranians brace for the next round of U.S. economic measures. The timing is significant because the details of the new sanctions have not yet been announced. Fear of what comes next is already pushing households toward dollars and gold in an effort to protect their savings. Central Bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati sought to calm the market Monday, describing the latest jump as temporary and partly driven by the publicity surrounding the U.S. campaign.

But the vulnerability Washington is targeting is real. Iran enters this new phase with high inflation, severely constrained maritime commerce and an economy already weakened by years of sanctions and six months of war. A sustained decline in the rial quickly feeds into higher prices for imported goods, medicine and other necessities. The first effects of Washington’s new economic offensive are therefore reaching ordinary Iranians before the offensive itself has even been fully unveiled.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has made clear that the campaign is intended to go considerably further than adding more Iranian individuals and companies to U.S. sanctions lists. Writing in the Financial Times, Bessent described Monday as an “Economic D-Day,” called the confrontation with Iran the “final phase,” and said Washington intends to cut the remaining economic lifelines sustaining Tehran. President Donald Trump reinforced that message Monday, declaring that Iran is “totally collapsing.”

The most consequential part of the strategy may be its focus on everyone outside Iran who continues doing business with it. Washington is threatening intensified economic consequences for countries, companies and financial institutions that facilitate Iranian commerce. The real test of the new campaign, then, may not be how much more of Iran the United States can sanction, but how effectively it can force the rest of the world to stop trading with Iran.

That puts China directly at the center of the confrontation. China has long been the principal destination for sanctioned Iranian oil and remains Tehran’s most important economic escape valve. Iranian oil exports to China reportedly fell to roughly 534,000 barrels per day in August, but independent Chinese refiners continue purchasing Iranian crude and payment channels involving the yuan remain active.

Beijing’s response Monday was notably sharper than its earlier general objections to sanctions. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said China was closely following developments and would take “necessary measures” to protect its legitimate rights and interests, while warning that sanctions and pressure would not resolve the conflict and could instead intensify it.

That creates a potentially much larger test for Washington. Secondary sanctions are most effective when foreign governments, banks and companies conclude that access to the U.S. financial system matters more than commerce with the sanctioned country. Applying that logic to smaller Iranian trading partners is one thing; applying it to the world’s second-largest economy is another. If Washington seriously targets Chinese refiners, banks or other institutions involved in Iranian oil trade, the Iran pressure campaign could destabilize the broader U.S.-China economic relationship. If it does not, Tehran may retain one of the most important channels through which it has mitigated the impacts of previous sanctions.

Iran, meanwhile, is making clear that it does not intend to treat the new campaign as a purely economic contest. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, issued one of Tehran’s strongest warnings yet, saying neighboring countries that participate in Washington’s economic campaign would be treated as enemies. He said Tehran would first try to persuade them not to participate, but warned that if they continued, Iran could target their interests.

Most significantly, Rezaei threatened that if regional countries join what Tehran calls Washington’s “economic war,” Iran would prevent “a single drop of oil” from leaving the Persian Gulf. This vow could implicate not only the Strait of Hormuz, but potentially alternative export routes as well. Iran has not carried out that broader threat, and Rezaei simultaneously insisted Tehran does not seek to expand the war. But his warning explicitly connects Washington’s secondary-sanctions strategy to the security of Gulf energy infrastructure.

Iran is effectively signaling that if Washington tries to turn its neighbors into participants in an economic siege, Tehran may treat their cooperation as participation in the war itself. That leaves Gulf governments caught between American economic power and Iran’s ability to further threaten energy infrastructure in their immediate neighborhood.

The threat carries additional weight because the Strait of Hormuz remains far from normal. Kpler data indicate that only 13 vessels crossed the Strait on Saturday and four on Sunday, although the real number could be somewhat higher because some vessels travel without transmitting normal tracking signals. Iran has also warned ships against crossing without its authorization, while Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait authority – designed to oversee the waterway – has reportedly identified dozens of vessels as violators and warned that ships ignoring Iranian orders could face future fines, detention and confiscation.

Rezaei said Iran considers the Strait effectively closed and will not reopen it until Washington changes its behavior. He also warned that Iran would change the way it fights in any future round of military confrontation, saying the lessons of the past year would be incorporated into a different approach to warfare and that Iranian forces remain prepared for additional operations if escalation continues.

His comments on the nuclear issue were similarly striking. Rezaei argued that the U.S. attack had demonstrated the weakness of international nonproliferation guarantees and rhetorically questioned why countries should refrain from pursuing nuclear weapons if membership in the NPT and acceptance of international inspections do not protect them from military attack. His remarks are not evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear weapon, but coming from the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, they illustrate how war and economic pressure may be affecting Iran’s internal debate over deterrence and the value of remaining within existing nuclear constraints.

All of this is unfolding while the regional military confrontation remains unresolved. Commercial traffic through one of the world’s most important energy corridors is still drastically reduced, Iran and the United States continue exchanging threats, Tehran is warning Gulf states against joining Washington’s campaign, and the possibility of renewed military escalation has not disappeared. The economic offensive is therefore not replacing the war so much as adding another potentially destabilizing layer to it.

Yet at precisely the same moment, diplomacy is also moving. Pakistani Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir arrived in Tehran Monday, his fourth visit in less than six months. Pakistan’s military described the trip as an effort to advance a peaceful, sustainable resolution to the conflict, while Iranian state media have increasingly portrayed Pakistan as an important channel between Tehran and Washington. Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi is expected in Tehran Tuesday as well, with Oman already involved in discussions over navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and historically serving as an intermediary between Iran and the United States.

President Masoud Pezeshkian has also repeatedly argued in recent days that Iran should find a way out of the current “neither war nor peace” situation. He has defended the earlier Islamabad understanding with Washington and argued that Iran should seek to end the conflict while it can still do so from what he describes as a position of strength and dignity.

The contrast is striking: Washington is preparing its most ambitious economic escalation yet, Tehran is threatening to widen the economic confrontation into a regional energy crisis and China is signaling that it will resist U.S. pressure. Yet, at exactly the same moment, Pakistan and Oman are trying to preserve the diplomatic path.

Maximum-pressure sanctions after the U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear agreement in 2018 inflicted enormous economic costs on Iran. They reduced oil exports, weakened the rial, drove inflation higher and damaged household purchasing power. But they did not produce the political capitulation Washington sought. The new campaign begins from a much more fragile baseline: Iran has endured not just the maximum pressure campaign launched eight years ago, but six months of war and a new naval blockade. Washington is now once again explicitly threatening the countries and institutions that provide Tehran with access to international commerce.

That means the new strategy could inflict significant damage. The rial’s plunge beyond 200,000 tomans may be the first warning of how quickly ordinary Iranians could bear those costs. But China’s response and Tehran’s threats also demonstrate why the consequences may extend far beyond Iran’s domestic economy.

The central question remains unchanged: what is all this pressure ultimately intended to achieve? Economic pressure could strengthen the argument inside Iran for reaching an agreement sooner, particularly as the costs of continued confrontation become harder for the government and ordinary households to absorb. The parallel diplomatic activity involving Pakistan and Oman suggests that an off-ramp has not disappeared.

The real strategic change, therefore, would not be moving from bombs to sanctions. It would be using whatever leverage Washington believes it has gained to move from demanding surrender toward demanding a deal that Iran can accept. Without that change, “Economic D-Day” risks becoming another escalation in a war that neither side has been able to win, with Iran’s population, regional energy security and a much wider set of international relationships once again caught in the middle.