Week of August 31, 2026 | Iran Unfiltered is a digest tracking Iranian politics & society by the National Iranian American Council

• Iranian Activists Reject a Wartime Choice Between Foreign Attack and Domestic Repression
• Workers Who Kept Tehran’s Power Grid Running Through the War Say They Are Struggling to Get By
• Iran and the U.S. Trade Their Biggest Strikes in Weeks as the War Becomes a Test of Endurance
• Iran Secures SCO Backing Against U.S. Pressure While Leaving the Door Open to Diplomacy
• U.S.-Iran Fighting Returns as Washington’s Shift From War to Economic Pressure Runs Into Hormuz

Iranian Activists Reject a Wartime Choice Between Foreign Attack and Domestic Repression

More than 100 Iranian former political prisoners, civil society activists, writers, academics and artists have signed a new statement arguing that Iranians should not be forced to choose between opposing the Islamic Republic’s domestic repression and opposing the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. The statement, titled “Solidarity Beyond Ideological Camps,” calls for an immediate halt to executions, the release of all political prisoners, an end to the war and an end to what they describe as the collective punishment of the Iranian people. The letter states, “Moral clarity lies not in collapsing distinctions, but in refusing to let one form of domination justify another. True solidarity rejects the false dilemma of choosing between injustices; it demands opposition to all systems of repression and oppression that ensnare the vulnerable.

The letter explicitly supports an August 20 open letter from left-leaning activists outside of Iran, which described Iran’s political prisoners as caught between “two blades of a scissors” – repression by the Islamic Republic on one side and foreign military and economic pressure on the other. The original letter highlighted opposition to U.S. and Israeli military intervention and economic coercion, and opposition to executions, imprisonment and restrictions on political and civil society activity by the Islamic Republic.

That framing quickly generated controversy. Some critics argued that the “two blades” metaphor risked creating a false equivalence between the Iranian government’s domestic repression and a foreign military attack against Iran. The two, they argued, have different origins and objectives, and placing them side by side could blur responsibility for the war. Adding to the debate, some of that letter’s signatories asked to be removed as signers, suggesting they had not meant to sign.

Others worried about a different danger: that Iran’s position as a country under attack could push executions, political prisoners and restrictions on civil society into the background, particularly as wartime conditions strengthen the role of security institutions inside the country.

The new “Solidarity Beyond Ideological Camps” statement directly addresses that criticism. Its signatories argue that recognizing two forms of violence does not mean treating them as morally or politically equivalent. A government, they say, can simultaneously be the target of foreign aggression and the perpetrator of repression against its own citizens.

Most of the signatories of the new letter are based outside Iran, but the list also includes a notable group living inside the country. Among them are sociologist and former political prisoner Saeed Madani, teachers’ union spokesperson Mohammad Habibi, writer Reza Khandan, journalist Nasim Soltanbeigi and poet Hafez Mousavi. Other signatories inside Iran include former political prisoners, labor activists, writers and student activists.

Their participation gives the statement particular weight. Some of those signing from inside Iran have themselves experienced imprisonment or political pressure and are now publicly criticizing both state repression and a foreign war against their country.

That distinction is at the heart of their argument. The signatories of the new letter reject the use of human rights violations inside Iran as a justification for military intervention. But they also reject the idea that resisting the United States and Israel requires suspending demands for political rights inside Iran.

In their view, the war does not make executions, imprisonment or censorship less consequential, just as repression inside Iran does not make foreign military attacks more legitimate. The statement places this argument within a longer Iranian history. Its authors point to foreign interventions including Russian involvement in the bombardment of Iran’s first parliament after the Constitutional Revolution and the U.S.- and British-backed 1953 coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. They place sanctions and the current war within that broader historical experience of external intervention and pressure.

At the same time, they point to Iran’s history of state repression, particularly after the 1979 revolution, including executions, censorship and restrictions on political and civil society activity. The statement gives particular attention to Iran’s political left. Its authors argue that Iranian support for Palestinian rights and opposition to Western intervention long predate the Islamic Republic. Iranian leftist movements developed ties with Palestinian movements and participated in anti-colonial politics before the 1979 revolution.

Yet those same political currents became among the Islamic Republic’s earliest targets after the revolution, with many leftists imprisoned or executed. The statement specifically recalls the mass executions of political prisoners in 1988. The historical argument has a clear contemporary purpose: opposition to U.S. power and foreign intervention does not belong exclusively to the Islamic Republic, just as opposition to the Islamic Republic does not necessarily translate into support for U.S. pressure or military action. That question has become more difficult as the war has continued.

War tends to narrow political space and turn complicated political positions into questions of loyalty. Inside Iran, criticism of the government can become more politically risky when the country is facing foreign attack. Outside Iran, meanwhile, opposition to the Islamic Republic or its actions can be interpreted as support for militaristic approaches toward the country, including the ongoing war. The signatories are trying to resist that polarization.

That does not mean their position represents a new consensus among Iranians or even among opponents of the Islamic Republic. The controversy surrounding the original letter shows how divided Iranian political and civil society remains over the war, sanctions, foreign intervention and the future of the country.

Iran continues to be a dynamic country with a diversity of political views, both inside and outside the country. The authors of the new statement reject both the notion that opposition to the Islamic Republic requires support for the war and that resisting the war requires overlooking the abuses of the Iranian government. For them, the rights of political prisoners cannot be postponed until the war ends, while opposition to repression cannot become an argument for military intervention. The significance of the statement is therefore not that it resolves these divisions, but that it exposes a political debate inside Iranian civil society that is largely missing from international coverage of the war.

Iranian society is not neatly divided between supporters of the Islamic Republic and supporters of its foreign adversaries. There is also a political current – including former political prisoners and activists still living inside Iran – that opposes the government’s treatment of its critics while rejecting the idea that U.S. or Israeli military power can deliver political freedom to Iran.

That distinction matters for the United States as well. Human rights concerns in Iran have repeatedly become intertwined with debates in Washington over sanctions, military pressure and regime change. Iranian officials, meanwhile, have often used the threat of foreign intervention to portray domestic criticism as part of a broader campaign against the country.

For Iranian civil society, those competing pressures can make maintaining an independent political position particularly difficult. The new statement is an attempt to preserve that space. Its signatories reject using the suffering of Iranians either to justify foreign intervention or to excuse repression at home.

There is no reason to assume this position will become dominant. The war has exposed substantial divisions across Iran’s opposition, diaspora, civil society and intellectual communities, and the new statement is itself part of that disagreement rather than its resolution. But the presence of activists and former political prisoners still living inside Iran makes the intervention harder to dismiss simply as another diaspora debate.

Their message is ultimately straightforward: ending the war and defending political rights do not have to wait for one another. Iranians should not have to choose between protection from foreign attack and protection from repression at home.

Workers Who Kept Tehran’s Power Grid Running Through the War Say They Are Struggling to Get By

Published September 3, 2026

Workers who have helped keep electricity flowing across Tehran during the war and a difficult summer of power shortages are now asking why their own livelihoods remain so precarious. Contract workers at the Greater Tehran Electricity Distribution Company say they worked under intense pressure as the capital’s electricity network faced both wartime demands and the country’s longstanding power shortage. Now, their representatives say many of those same workers are dealing with inadequate pay, heavy workloads and significant disparities in compensation compared with directly employed staff.

“We kept Greater Tehran’s electricity stable during the war and the summer,” Mokhtar Vaezi – a labor activist representing contract workers at the company – told Iran’s ILNA news agency this week. He argued that officials who expect workers to maintain the stability of the power network should pay similar attention to the stability of their livelihoods.

The complaint comes at a particularly difficult time for Iran’s electricity system. The country entered the summer already struggling with a longstanding gap between electricity supply and demand, which has resulted in scheduled outages in Tehran and other cities. The war added another layer of pressure to a system that had little room to spare. 

For the workers, however, the immediate complaint is about something that predates the fighting. Vaezi says contract workers carry much of the operational burden of the electricity system while receiving lower compensation and fewer benefits than direct employees. He also argues that intermediary contracting companies benefit from an arrangement that leaves workers with little influence over their employment conditions.

He challenged electricity companies’ argument that government regulations leave them little room to improve compensation. Iran’s electricity distribution companies have their own boards, he said, and those boards have some discretion over the allocation of resources. In his view, management has chosen not to use enough of that flexibility to improve workers’ livelihoods.

The dispute in Tehran is part of a much larger and longstanding argument over the use of contract labor across Iran’s public sector. The Iranian government says roughly 700,000 contract workers have been registered across government institutions. These workers can spend years working inside ministries, state companies and other public institutions while technically remaining employees of private contractors rather than the institutions where they actually work. The arrangement has generated years of complaints over job security, wages and benefits. Workers and their supporters in parliament have pushed for the removal of intermediary companies and direct employment relationships between workers and government institutions.

The issue has been before parliament since 2020. A plan intended to reorganize the employment status of contract workers was eventually approved by lawmakers, but its implementation stalled after objections from the Guardian Council and the Expediency Council’s High Supervisory Board. Government officials say some of those objections have been resolved, while others remain.

The Pezeshkian government has now chosen a more limited approach. Rather than converting hundreds of thousands of contract workers into direct government employees, the government has approved a new system under which their salaries and benefits will be paid more directly and subjected to greater government oversight. Executive agencies are required to register contract workers in a centralized administrative system, and payments to workers who have not been registered are prohibited.

Under the new arrangement, payments will be made through accounts jointly controlled by the government agency and the contractor, while competition among contracting companies is supposed to be limited largely to a management fee of around two to three percent. The stated goal is to reduce delays, increase transparency and prevent portions of workers’ compensation from being lost in the contracting process.

The government has begun moving the plan toward implementation. Aladdin Rafizadeh, Iran’s vice president and head of the Administrative and Recruitment Organization, said last week that contract workers would begin receiving their salaries directly in a manner similar to permanent and contractual government employees. The measure has also passed an important procedural hurdle. Parliament’s body responsible for reviewing government regulations approved the cabinet resolution in August, clearing the way for implementation of the new payment system.

But there is an important distinction between what the government has approved and what many workers have demanded: direct payment does not mean direct employment. Government officials say converting all 700,000 registered contract workers into direct employees is not currently possible. Zabihollah Salmani, deputy head of the Administrative and Recruitment Organization, has cited legal restrictions, including limits on government hiring and requirements to reduce the size of the public workforce. Formal government employment will also continue to generally require participation in competitive hiring examinations.

The financial implications are also substantial. Iranian reporting citing government estimates has put the potential cost of fully changing the employment status of contract workers at approximately 185 trillion tomans, adding another obstacle to a wholesale conversion of their contracts. That leaves the government trying to address some of the most immediate complaints without dismantling the contracting system itself.

The new rules could make a meaningful difference for workers if they prevent delayed payments, improve oversight and reduce the amount retained by intermediaries. But they do not resolve the broader questions of employment status, job security and disparities between workers performing similar jobs under different types of contracts.

For the electricity workers in Tehran, those longstanding grievances are now colliding with the demands of wartime. Electricity is one of the civilian systems whose importance becomes even more pronounced during a conflict. Hospitals, water systems, telecommunications, businesses and households all depend on a functioning grid. Electricity workers must also maintain and repair a network that was already operating under considerable strain before the latest fighting began.

That is what gives Vaezi’s complaint particular weight. He is not arguing that the war created the problems facing contract workers. He is arguing that workers who were already unhappy with their pay and employment conditions were nevertheless expected to keep one of the country’s most important civilian systems operating through the war.

The dispute also offers a different window into how Iran is absorbing the pressures of a prolonged conflict. Much of the discussion outside Iran about the country’s ability to withstand the war has focused on military capabilities: how many missiles Iran can launch, how much infrastructure has been damaged, whether its forces can continue retaliating and how long the government can sustain the confrontation.

But the ability of a country to function during a war also depends on much less visible systems, and on the people who operate them. For Tehran’s electricity workers, that means maintaining a strained power network while dealing with economic pressures and employment grievances that existed long before the first missiles were fired. The government has now begun addressing one part of those grievances by changing how contract workers are paid. Whether that will be enough is another question.

For Vaezi and the workers he represents, keeping Tehran’s electricity running through the war has strengthened the case they were already making: if their work is essential enough to rely on during a national emergency, they believe their livelihoods and employment conditions should be treated as essential as well.

Iran and the U.S. Trade Their Biggest Strikes in Weeks as the War Becomes a Test of Endurance

Published September 2, 2026

The United States and Iran carried out their heaviest exchange of attacks in weeks on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, widening a confrontation that has become a contest over which side can absorb military, economic and political pressure for longer. The latest round also offered a clearer picture of the strategies taking shape on both sides: Washington is trying to degrade Iran’s ability to disrupt the Strait of Hormuz while tightening its economic isolation, while Tehran is attempting to demonstrate that it can continue retaliating across the region, keep pressure on shipping and rely on economic and diplomatic relationships with countries unwilling to join the U.S. campaign.

U.S. Central Command said American forces struck Iranian air-defense systems, radar sites, maritime assets, mine-laying capabilities and communications facilities linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iranian officials said more than 40 locations across southern, western and central Iran were hit, with attacks reported in Hormozgan, Khuzestan, Kermanshah, Kerman and along the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman coasts. Iranian state television also reported a strike near the runway at Jiroft airport, although local officials said there were no casualties and the runway and airport buildings were not damaged.

The pattern of targets suggests that a major American objective was degrading Iran’s ability to threaten shipping through the Strait of Hormuz while locating and destroying the missile, drone and maritime systems Tehran can use to retaliate. CENTCOM specifically identified Iranian maritime assets, mine-laying capabilities, radar and communications systems among its targets, while U.S. reporting has indicated that anti-ship cruise-missile and drone launchers were also attacked.

Four members of the IRGC Aerospace Force were also reported killed in Kermanshah. Iranian authorities have not said what they were doing when they were killed or identified the specific target of the U.S. strike. But the timing raises an important possibility. Iran’s Aerospace Force was conducting missile operations against U.S. bases across the region that night, while Iranian authorities separately reported shooting down an American drone near Khomein. Taken together, those developments suggest U.S. drones or other surveillance and strike assets may have been operating over Iran as Iranian forces were launching their retaliation. It is therefore plausible that the Aerospace Force personnel killed in Kermanshah were operating or preparing a missile launcher when they were located and struck. There is not yet enough evidence to establish that, however, and it remains an analytical inference rather than a confirmed account of the strike.

The apparent strategy is significant. Rather than attempting a single decisive attack on Iran’s military, Washington appears to be trying to suppress the capabilities Tehran uses to impose costs on commercial shipping and American forces around Hormuz

The human cost inside Iran was also substantial. Iranian authorities reported military casualties in several provinces. In addition to the four IRGC Aerospace Force personnel killed in Kermanshah, local officials reported three Basij members killed on Lavan Island. In Khuzestan, provincial authorities said seven people were killed and eight wounded in strikes around Ahvaz and Aghajari.

The most serious reported civilian incident occurred in Kohestak, a coastal village in Sirik County in Hormozgan, where a U.S. strike hit a residential location hosting a wedding. The head of Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences said four people were killed – including two children, the youngest only four years old – and 65 wounded. Earlier Iranian reports put the toll at five dead and as many as 68 injured. Several of the wounded remained in intensive care, and images published by Iranian media showed civilian casualties, including children.

New evidence has raised additional questions about what happened. Open-source researchers geolocated the house where the wedding was taking place roughly 130 meters — about 430 feet — from a communications tower that was also struck. Imagery from the scene indicates that the residential building itself was hit, while weapons analysts examining debris reportedly recovered there have identified components consistent with a U.S.-made SLAM-ER precision-guided cruise missile, although that identification has not been officially confirmed.

Iranian officials have called the Kohestak strike a war crime. CENTCOM, responding to reports of civilian casualties, said it was aware of the incident and maintained that U.S. forces do not target civilians, but that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps does. The United States has not yet publicly explained whether the residential building was itself a target, what it believed was located there, or how a precision-guided weapon came to strike a wedding gathering more than 100 meters from the communications tower that was also attacked.

Iran began retaliating within hours, and the geographical breadth of its response was notable. The IRGC and regular army announced missile and drone attacks against U.S. military positions in Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. Regional governments confirmed incoming Iranian missiles or drones in several of those countries, although Tehran’s claims about the damage inflicted remain largely unverified.

One of the most consequential Iranian claims involved Camp Titin, a U.S. Marine Corps facility roughly 15 kilometers south of Aqaba on the northern Red Sea, close to Jordan’s borders with Saudi Arabia and Israel. U.S. military records show that Titin has long been used for American-Jordanian training, including exercises involving Marines, rapid-response forces and maritime infrastructure protection. The IRGC said it subjected the camp to a ballistic-missile attack and claimed American personnel were killed and helicopters and other facilities damaged. Jordan confirmed that 13 Iranian ballistic missiles entered its airspace, saying ten were intercepted and three landed in remote areas. U.S. officials, however, said there were no American casualties or significant damage at Camp Titin.

The missile attack on Jordan is therefore confirmed, but whether Iranian missiles penetrated the defenses and struck Camp Titin — and whether anyone was killed there — remains contested. There is not yet satellite imagery, casualty information or other independent evidence supporting Tehran’s claims of American deaths.

The choice of Titin nevertheless matters. Unlike the larger air bases usually associated with the American military presence in Jordan, Titin sits near Aqaba and has been used by U.S. Marines for training and maritime-security missions. Iran separately said it targeted facilities associated with American RQ-4 and MQ-9 drones at Prince Hassan Air Base. Taken together, the claims suggest Tehran was selecting different components of the U.S. military network in Jordan to do damage rather than simply firing missiles toward a single symbolic target.

Iran also expanded its response across the Gulf. The regular army said dozens of attack drones targeted radar systems and American positions at Al Dhafra and Al Minhad in the UAE and struck Sheikh Isa Air Base in Bahrain with Arash drones. Kuwait reported hostile drone activity, including a drone that caused a fire at a residential complex in Kuwait City. The extent of damage to U.S. facilities remains unclear, but the attacks demonstrated that Iran retains the ability to launch missiles and drones toward several countries simultaneously despite months of sustained military pressure.

Tehran is simultaneously making clear that the Strait of Hormuz remains central to its strategy. The IRGC said two tankers were damaged Wednesday after entering a mined route in the strait, although the circumstances have not been independently verified. That came after two supertankers carrying Saudi crude were struck while transiting Hormuz on Monday.

Iranian officials have increasingly made the connection explicit. Parliament Speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said this week that if Iran is prevented from exporting oil through the Persian Gulf, “no one will be able to export oil.” He warned that further tightening of what Tehran describes as the American maritime blockade would receive a military response.

The United States is now expanding that confrontation to Iran’s own tanker fleet. Axios reported, citing U.S. officials, that American drones struck the engine rooms of two Iranian government-owned oil tankers anchored off Iran’s coast during the latest operation. One U.S. official described the approach as a new “tanker for tanker” policy approved by Trump: Iranian attacks on tankers transiting Hormuz could be answered with attacks on Iranian tankers.

The apparent policy exposes a tension in Washington’s strategy: the United States says its operations around Hormuz are intended to make commercial passage safer and restore energy flows, but the logic of “tanker for tanker” might not deter Tehran from attacking other ships when its own tankers are effectively blocked from exporting. The U.S. blockade has already reduced Iran’s ability to export its own oil to a fraction of prewar levels. Destroying or disabling additional Iranian tankers therefore imposes another cost on Tehran without necessarily giving it a stronger economic incentive to protect the exports of neighboring oil producers.

Indeed, if Iranian leaders conclude that their own ability to benefit from an open Strait has largely been removed, attacking Iranian tankers could reinforce rather than weaken Tehran’s argument that other countries should not be allowed to export normally while Iran cannot. Whether the new approach deters Iranian attacks on shipping or gives Tehran another incentive to escalate around Hormuz will be an important test of the American strategy.

The threat has implications far beyond Iran. Saudi Arabia possesses one of the region’s most extensive systems for bypassing Hormuz through its East-West Pipeline to Yanbu on the Red Sea. But Saudi crude exports from its Persian Gulf and Red Sea terminals averaged only about 3.23 million barrels per day during the first 23 days of August, according to shipping data analyzed by Bloomberg – on track to be the lowest monthly level since the Iran war began. The previous wartime low was about 3.65 million barrels per day in May, compared with more than 6 million barrels per day of Saudi crude that historically moved through Hormuz before the war.

Saudi Arabia initially responded to the disruption by pushing much larger volumes through its roughly 746-mile East-West Pipeline to Yanbu, with flows reportedly rising to around 4.4 million barrels per day and at times approaching 5 million. But threats to Red Sea shipping have complicated Riyadh’s ability to rely on that route as a secure alternative, forcing exporters to balance the risks at both ends of the peninsula.

The broader lesson after six months of war is that bypassing Hormuz is much easier on paper than in practice. Even Saudi Arabia, with the largest alternative pipeline system, has not been able to fully insulate its oil exports from the conflict. When insecurity in Hormuz is combined with threats along the Red Sea route, disruption can follow Saudi oil regardless of which coast it uses.

That gives Iran leverage, but it also creates significant risks for Tehran. Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters warned regional governments Wednesday that cooperation with the U.S. military could bring “dangerous consequences,” while the Foreign Ministry called on neighboring states to prevent American forces from using their territory to attack Iran. Attacks involving the territory of Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain and the UAE – and threats to Saudi shipping – can deepen tensions with governments that warned against the Iran-U.S. conflict and have supported a peace deal to end it. 

Washington, meanwhile, is trying to match military pressure with its broader campaign of economic isolation to degrade Iran’s ability to enforce its position in Hormuz while restricting the commercial and financial networks that allow Tehran to sustain a prolonged confrontation. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday that airlines, shipping companies and digital assets could become the next targets of U.S. measures against Iran. His message to governments and businesses, he said, was to “distance yourselves” from Tehran. Bessent also warned that companies doing business with the IRGC could face sanctions and said Washington was tracking IRGC-linked assets and financial structures around the world.

Iranian officials appear to be thinking in similarly integrated terms. Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei said after the latest attacks that Washington would soon see a “new Iranian strategy” on the battlefield, in diplomacy and in confronting the economic siege. He did not explain what that strategy would entail. But the emerging pattern suggests Tehran may be attempting to connect military retaliation, pressure on regional shipping and efforts to keep trade and financial channels open through Russia, China and neighboring states.

That effort was particularly visible during President Masoud Pezeshkian’s trip to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Bishkek. In his meeting with Pezeshkian, Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly acknowledged that Moscow was helping Iran through what he described as a “difficult period,” including by providing essential goods, and indicated that Russia would continue that assistance. Russian officials also said Putin and Pezeshkian discussed the Bushehr nuclear power plant in detail, with Russian specialists preparing to participate in scheduled maintenance there.

For Iran, this kind of assistance could be more important to its ability to endure a prolonged war than direct military support. Tehran’s challenge is not simply preserving missiles and launchers, but keeping essential imports moving and preventing the combined effects of war, blockade and sanctions from producing an economic breakdown. Russian supplies – alongside continued trade with China and Iran’s neighbors – could therefore become an important part of Tehran’s effort to withstand Washington’s strategy of military and economic attrition.

China has meanwhile sharpened its diplomatic criticism of military intervention. After Bishkek, Xi Jinping traveled to Egypt, where he and President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi called for an end to foreign interference in the Middle East. For Tehran, the important question is not whether China or Russia would join the war militarily – neither Iran nor its partners appear to be seeking that – but whether they can help Iran withstand U.S. pressure through trade, essential supplies, financial channels and resistance to broader sanctions enforcement. That kind of economic and diplomatic backing could make Bessent’s effort to isolate Iran considerably more difficult.

The United States faces an increasingly concrete constraint of its own: the depletion of key munitions needed to sustain the current war. Every large Iranian missile and drone barrage requires the United States and its partners to expend valuable interceptors, while repeated American attacks consume additional precision weapons. Washington’s strategy requires repeatedly locating and destroying Iranian launchers, protecting bases spread across several countries and defending commercial shipping over an extended period. The rate at which both sides can replace what they are losing and consuming is a critical part of the military balance.

That does not mean American air defenses have stopped functioning. Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait all reported intercepting Iranian weapons during the latest exchange. But the depletion problem is real, acknowledged in Washington and directly relevant to the fighting taking place now. For Tehran, prolonging the conflict may therefore serve a military purpose even without defeating U.S. forces outright: forcing the United States and its regional partners to keep consuming scarce and expensive interceptors while maintaining a large defensive posture across several countries.

At the same time, Iran is paying a far greater direct price inside the country. American strikes are killing Iranian military personnel, damaging infrastructure and producing civilian casualties, while sanctions, disrupted trade and the continuing war compound pressure on an economy already under severe strain. Tehran’s ability to endure therefore depends not only on its missile arsenal but on whether it can prevent military and economic pressure from producing a broader breakdown.

Diplomatic hopes have dimmed considerably. Pakistan said Wednesday that it remains hopeful Iran and the United States will return to negotiations and said Army Chief Asim Munir’s visit to Tehran last week had produced “significant momentum” on the Hormuz issue. Iranian officials have repeatedly said Tehran would return to the previous understanding if Washington resumes compliance.

Trump, however, struck a very different tone after the latest attacks. He said he was not attempting to bring Iran back to the negotiating table and claimed he preferred the current situation, in which he claimed the United States had near-total control over the Strait of Hormuz and suggested Iran’s economy is collapsing. He asked when Iranians will rise up in revolt against their government.

The latest exchange looks less like the beginning of a decisive final phase than a continuing contest over endurance. Washington is betting that sustained military and economic pressure will eventually force Tehran to retreat. Iran appears to be betting that it can survive long enough to force Washington to do the same. For ordinary Iranians, American service members and civilians across the region, the danger is that testing those two assumptions will require a much longer and more destructive war.

Iran Secures SCO Backing Against U.S. Pressure While Leaving the Door Open to Diplomacy

Published September 1, 2026

Iran received unusually broad political backing at this week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, with China, Russia, India, Pakistan and the group’s other members condemning military attacks on Iran and rejecting unilateral economic pressure. President Masoud Pezeshkian used the same gathering to send another message: Tehran still wants a way back to an agreement with Washington.

The ten SCO members adopted the Bishkek Declaration alongside 27 other cooperation documents. The declaration condemned military attacks against Iran that it said had caused civilian casualties and significant economic damage, expressed condolences on the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, reaffirmed Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and called for the conflict to be resolved through political and diplomatic means.

It also addressed another major source of pressure on Tehran. SCO members rejected unilateral coercive measures outside the framework of the United Nations and World Trade Organization and warned about their effects on the global economy. They separately reaffirmed the right of states under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to research, produce and use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination.

For Tehran, the significance is that this was not simply another statement of support from China and Russia. India, Pakistan and the Central Asian members signed the declaration as well, despite having very different relationships with both Iran and the United States. Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are also dialogue partners of the organization, giving the SCO a political reach beyond the countries usually associated with Iran’s “look East” strategy.

While the SCO is not an alliance committed to defending Iran, it does complicate Washington’s effort to turn military and economic pressure into broader international isolation. Countries that the United States would need to make such a strategy effective are publicly opposing attacks on Iran and rejecting unilateral economic coercion.

Yet Pezeshkian’s most important message in Bishkek may have been that Iran wants to use that support to strengthen its position, not to close the door on the United States. Speaking as renewed fighting threatens to undo months of regional diplomacy, Pezeshkian returned to the Islamabad memorandum that briefly halted the Iran-U.S. war in June. He accused Washington of violating an agreement bearing President Donald Trump’s signature less than two weeks after it was reached, but added that if the United States returns to its commitments, Iran will “immediately” reciprocate.

The setting made that offer particularly significant. Pezeshkian was offering Washington a diplomatic off-ramp from a summit where some of the world’s largest non-Western powers were simultaneously backing Iran against military attacks and unilateral economic pressure.

His meetings on the sidelines reflected the same effort to preserve multiple options. Pezeshkian met Russian President Vladimir Putin, with both sides discussing bilateral relations and ways to expand cooperation. Before the meeting, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had said Pezeshkian would likely brief Putin on developments between Tehran and Washington.

Pezeshkian also spoke briefly with Chinese President Xi Jinping for several minutes on the sidelines, while Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held a separate meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. The absence of a full Pezeshkian-Xi bilateral meeting has prompted some Iranian observers to question whether relations with Beijing are developing as Tehran had hoped, particularly after Iran appointed a special representative to oversee ties with China.

But there is not enough evidence to interpret the brief encounter as a change in Chinese policy toward Iran. It is not publicly known whether Tehran sought a formal meeting, and Beijing has its own reasons to carefully calibrate its relationship with Iran, including its much larger economic relationship with the United States and an interest in avoiding unnecessary confrontation with Washington. China’s decision to sign the Bishkek Declaration backing Iran against attacks and unilateral pressure is itself an important counterpoint to suggestions of a broader rupture.

Iran also tried to move the SCO discussion beyond political declarations. Pezeshkian proposed creating an SCO bank, an export and investment insurance union, and an energy consortium – mechanisms that could, at least in theory, make trade and investment among members less vulnerable to outside pressure. The documents adopted at the summit also included an action plan for developing ports and logistics centers across SCO countries through 2030.

These proposals come as Washington intensifies efforts to pressure Iran’s trading partners. Tehran has increasingly looked to China, Russia and neighboring states for trade, transportation and financial connections that are harder for the United States to disrupt. The question now is whether the political support Iran received in Bishkek can be converted into practical economic arrangements that actually reduce the impact of U.S. pressure.

While positive for Tehran, opposition to sanctions does not necessarily mean governments will accept the costs of defying U.S. secondary sanctions. India and the Central Asian states have important relationships with Washington, and even China balances its relationship with Tehran alongside much larger global interests. The SCO also offers Iran no equivalent of a collective defense guarantee.

Still, the summit challenges two simplified narratives about Iran’s position after months of war: that Tehran can simply be isolated into submission, or that China and Russia provide an alternative bloc capable of insulating it from the United States. Neither is quite true. Iran has more diplomatic and economic relationships than the first argument assumes, but those partners have interests and limits of their own. Tehran’s response appears to be to use those relationships to make isolation more difficult and increase its bargaining power, while continuing to pursue a negotiated exit from the conflict. That was ultimately the message Pezeshkian carried to Bishkek: Iran has partners willing to push back against attacks and economic pressure, but it is still leaving Washington a path back to diplomacy.

U.S.-Iran Fighting Returns as Washington’s Shift From War to Economic Pressure Runs Into Hormuz 

Published August 31, 2026

After nearly a month without a publicly-acknowledged U.S. attack on Iranian territory, the relative quiet amid the U.S.-Iran war broke down over the weekend, with the Strait of Hormuz again the flash point of the military confrontation. U.S. forces struck two Iranian launchers on Larak Island on Sunday, the first known American attack inside Iran since late July. U.S. Central Command said Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) forces were preparing rockets capable of dispersing naval mines into the Strait of Hormuz and described the strike as a limited action intended to remove an imminent threat to commercial shipping.

Iranian officials gave a very different account. The governor of Qeshm told IRNA that two people were killed and several others wounded in the attack. Iran’s Foreign Ministry called the strike a violation of the country’s sovereignty, while the Revolutionary Guards promised retaliation.

That retaliation came quickly. The IRGC said ballistic missiles and drones were launched against U.S. military facilities at Jordan: Muwaffaq al-Salti Air Base in Al-Azraq and King Hussein Air Base. Iran said the strikes targeted aircraft positions as well as technical and maintenance infrastructure. Jordan said its air defenses intercepted eight missiles entering its airspace, while initial U.S.-linked reports said “nearly all” incoming missiles had been intercepted and that no significant impact had been reported.

Iranian media have circulated videos showing missiles reaching their targets, while other footage from Jordan appears to show Iranian ballistic missiles passing through air-defense fire before explosions near Muwaffaq al-Salti Air Base. Low-resolution Sentinel-2 satellite imagery published later Monday also appears to show at least one possible impact site inside the base. The imagery is not detailed enough to determine what was hit or the extent of any damage, and higher-resolution satellite photographs will be needed to establish that conclusively.

The emerging evidence nevertheless complicates the initial impression that the Iranian attack was almost entirely intercepted. Jordan said its air defenses intercepted eight missiles, while President Trump later said all but one Iranian missile had been intercepted, claiming that the remaining missile was not targeted because it was not headed toward anything significant. There is still no independent confirmation of the IRGC’s claim that the base suffered heavy damage, but the available evidence suggests that at least one Iranian projectile may have reached Muwaffaq al-Salti.

Iran’s regular army separately said it launched dozens of explosive drones toward Al Minhad Air Base in the United Arab Emirates, targeting locations where U.S. personnel and helicopters are stationed. The UAE denied that Al Minhad itself had been struck, but confirmed that its forces intercepted an incoming drone from Iran over Emirati territorial waters. Iran’s claim that the base was successfully hit has not been independently verified.

The Revolutionary Guards also announced Monday that they had shot down a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper over the Strait of Hormuz, saying the drone crashed into the Persian Gulf. Iranian media reported the claim widely, but the United States has not publicly confirmed losing the aircraft.

Yet the most consequential development of the weekend may not have been any of these attacks. The IRGC said Monday that an unidentified supertanker attempting to use what Tehran considers an unauthorized route through the southern Strait of Hormuz struck two naval mines, caught fire and was immobilized. Iran has not identified the ship, its flag or its owner. CENTCOM has disputed the account, accusing the IRGC of spreading false information to intimidate commercial shipping.

While the incident has not been independently confirmed, the warning accompanying the announcement was explicit. The IRGC told shipping companies that vessels must follow Iranian navigation rules and warned that ships attempting to use alternative routes promoted by Washington could face similar consequences.

That goes directly to the heart of the dispute that triggered the latest round of fighting. Washington says U.S. forces completed mine-clearing operations in international shipping lanes last week and insists that the waterway is open. Tehran says the United States cannot simply declare Hormuz reopened and maintains that ships must comply with Iranian rules to transit safely.

The behavior of commercial shipping companies suggests that, whatever the competing claims, traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains far from normal. Reuters reported that visible commodity-vessel traffic through the strait fell to roughly five ships per day over the weekend. The real number may be somewhat higher because some vessels are switching off their tracking systems, but traffic remains dramatically below normal levels.

Oil markets reacted accordingly. Brent crude rose more than two percent after the Larak attack, returning above $90 a barrel. Higher energy prices are also feeding into a problem far removed from the Persian Gulf: persistent U.S. inflation. With American inflation still well above the Federal Reserve’s two-percent target, another sustained oil-price increase could further complicate the Fed’s choices and increase the economic costs of the war for Americans.

The renewed fighting is particularly striking because it came just days after the Trump administration signaled that economic pressure, rather than another major military campaign, would be the centerpiece of its next effort to force Tehran to change course. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington expects to announce new secondary sanctions against Iran almost every week, beginning with financial institutions. He also said the United States would press other governments at the G20 to reduce their economic ties with Iran or risk secondary sanctions.

But the events of the weekend illustrate how difficult it may be to separate that economic campaign from the military conflict. Washington’s pressure strategy ultimately depends in part on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, while Tehran increasingly treats its ability to restrict the strait as one of its strongest remaining sources of leverage.

The risks are not limited to Washington. Iran has spent recent weeks trying to deepen cooperation with neighboring states while Pakistan, Oman and Qatar have worked to find a diplomatic formula that could restore safer navigation through Hormuz and create a path back toward negotiations. Even governments closely aligned with Washington have shown little appetite for an indefinite regional war. Attacking U.S. positions on the territory of those same neighbors complicates that strategy. Iran wants regional governments to resist American efforts to isolate it, but its retaliation now risks exposing those governments to the very conflict they have been trying to contain.

The UAE’s reaction illustrates the problem. Abu Dhabi accused Iran of violating its sovereignty after intercepting the incoming drone, even as senior Emirati officials continued to argue that the region needs a political rather than military solution.

President Masoud Pezeshkian appeared to acknowledge the risk of additional escalation before leaving Tehran Monday for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Iran, he said, “is not looking for war,” but would respond decisively to attacks, adding that continued instability ultimately harms every country in the region. President Donald Trump told Fox News that the United States would retaliate for Iran’s attacks on U.S. forces in Jordan. “We’re going to hit them hard,” Trump said. “There will be a response.”

A senior Iranian source with direct knowledge of Tehran’s decision-making then told Reuters that every new American attack would receive a response “dozens of times greater,” arguing that the strikes following the attack on Larak demonstrated that “no target in the region is beyond Iran’s reach.” The source also warned that conditions in the Strait of Hormuz would become more difficult for ships violating Iran’s navigation rules.

Yet the same Iranian source described the latest fighting as a “limited and contained confrontation.” Tehran appears to be trying to restore deterrence by threatening increasingly costly retaliation while still signaling that it does not necessarily want the latest exchange to become another sustained round of war.

In another provocative move, President Trump posted an AI-generated video depicting Kharg Island – the hub for most of Iran’s seaborne oil exports – being destroyed in a massive explosion. He posted separately, declaring that “Iran is officially a Failed Nation. IT IS DEAD!,” claiming without evidence that Iran had now killed 100,000 protesters and should be tried for crimes against humanity.

What began as Washington’s attempt to enforce its claim that Hormuz had been reopened now risks restarting the military escalation that the Trump administration had only days earlier suggested it wanted to replace with economic pressure. That leaves both governments confronting increasingly difficult contradictions. Iran wants to demonstrate that the United States cannot reopen Hormuz by force, while the United States wants to break Iran’s control by combining military and economic pressure.

The events of the past 48 hours suggest neither side has yet found a way to do that. The first direct U.S. attack on Iran in roughly a month has already produced Iranian strikes across the region, higher oil prices and explicit threats of another round of attacks from both Washington and Tehran. After several weeks in which regional diplomacy appeared to be creating some space  between the two sides, the Strait of Hormuz has once again become the place where economic pressure, military deterrence and the risk of a wider war collide.