Iran will target US and its interests if attacked, senior ex-official says

A third of Iran’s projected oil revenue for the year ending March 2026—worth $12.4bn—will go directly to the armed forces and military projects, three times more than last year.

The rest of the oil income, along with $33.5bn in gas revenues, will be split between the government’s budget, the National Development Fund (NDF), and the national oil company.

“The best course of action is to deposit all oil revenues into the National Development Fund,” the head of Iran’s planning and budget organization Hamid Pourmohammadi told a forum in Tehran on Monday.

“This way, we can determine at the start of the year how much the government needs, and based on that, the government can plan how much it can spend by year’s end.”

Pourmohammadi offered no detail on the existing arrangements which allow the fund to be bypassed and institutions such as the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) access a portion of Iran’s oil revenue before it reaches the government’s coffers.

He conceded, however, that the administration of moderate president Masoud Pezeshkian lacks consensus on how to implement the NDF-takes-it-all idea.

The NDF was established in 2010 to replace the Foreign Currency Reserves Fund (FCRF). While the FCRF was meant to safeguard oil income for future generations, the NDF has increasingly been used to cover budget deficits, despite the state objective of investing oil revenues.

The fund has long operated under the direct control of supreme leader Ali Khamenei, with administrations needing his approval for withdrawals.

One of Pezeshkian’s first moves in office was to request funds to pay wheat farmers.

In recent years, billions have been syphoned to the IRGC and the state broadcaster, functioning as main vehicles of Khamenei’s hard and soft power.

The NDF’s share of oil and gas revenues dropped from 40% to 20% in the two years ending December 2024, according to Didban Iran citing a deputy of Iran’s budget office Hamid Amani Hamadani.

Iran’s private sector owed $7bn to the fund in January 2025, according to senior NDF official Mehdi Ghazanfari. This is a debt repaid slowly in local currency, which the fund must convert to dollars at below-market rates.

Ghazanfari put the total pay-outs from the fund to the administration at just above $103bn in 12 years. He also said $45bn had been loaned to private-sector in the same period—often to firms with ties to the IRGC or the supreme leader’s office

As of May, the fund’s remaining assets stood at $30.7bn—dragged down by unpaid debts from both government and politically shielded companies.

"Let me be clear, we will not tolerate growing state backed threats on UK soil. The Iranian regime poses an unacceptable threat to our domestic security which cannot continue," Cooper told parliament on Monday.

"The UK will not accept any Iranian state threat activity in the UK."

The sharp statement comes after the arrests of Iranian nationals on UK soil this month in terrorism-related cases.

In two separate operations on May 3, eight men including seven Iranians were arrested by the British counter-terrorism police.

On Saturday, three of the Iranian nationals were charged with offences under the National Security Act, accused of acting on behalf of Iran’s intelligence service and carried out surveillance targeting Iran International journalists.

All three are accused of engaging in conduct likely to assist a foreign intelligence service between August 14, 2024 and February 16, 2025.

New counter-terror powers against IRGC

Meanwhile an advisor to the UK government on Monday recommended new powers targeting Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as calls for the IRGC’s proscription have grown following the spate of arrests.

The UK government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation Jonathan Hall published findings on Monday advising greater powers for ministers to designate people affiliated with the IRGC as terrorists.

Hall's report called for legislation proscribing public demonstrations of support for Iran's paramilitary organization such as displaying its insignia in public and recommended stiffer sentences for those aiding or benefiting from the IRGC.

The Revolutionary Guards cannot be blacklisted the same way non-state actors are, Hall argued, but he recommended its agents and supporters be targeted through a Statutory Alert and Liability Threat or Salt notice.

"It will allow the government to communicate decisive stigma at an international level for certain State and State-backed entities. Naming and shaming in a high-profile manner, accompanied by open reasons, can help address attempts at plausible deniability for serious harm caused to the UK or its allies," the report said.

"The Liability Threat Notice ... (puts the IRGC) on notice that its operations, and its minions and influence networks, are at greater risk of executive action, by way of arrest and prosecution, or deportation, or other forms of disruption, from UK authorities."

On Saturday, over 550 UK MPs and peers in an open letter urged the government to proscribe the IRGC as a terrorist group.

The European Union and the UK on Monday expressed deep concern over Iran’s expanding nuclear program and what they called its destabilizing activities and hostage diplomacy in a joint statement.

Tensions between Tehran and London have ratcheted up sharply in recent weeks, likely sharpening the collective European tack on Iran.

"Let me be clear, we will not tolerate growing state backed threats on UK soil. The Iranian regime poses an unacceptable threat to our domestic security which cannot continue," British interior minister Yvette Cooper told parliament on Monday.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday summoned the UK’s chargé d'affaires in Tehran to protest the arrest of several Iranian nationals in the UK in connection with alleged spying and terror-related activities. On Monday, Iran's ambassador to London Ali Mousavi was summoned in response.

British authorities charged three Iranian nationals under the National Security Act on Saturday for conducting surveillance against journalists from Iran International. Earlier this month, five other Iranian nationals were detained in a separate counter-terrorism operation.

The case has added urgency to ongoing debates in the UK Parliament over whether to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization.

Over 550 members of the UK Parliament and peers have signed a letter urging the British government to move forward with the designation, reflecting growing bipartisan concern over Iran’s activities in the UK and abroad.

Tense meeting in Istanbul

The EU statement released on Monday came after a meeting of senior diplomats of the UK, France, and Germany –collectively known as the E3– with two Iranian deputy foreign ministers in Istanbul on May 16 to discuss the future of the 2015 nuclear agreement (JCPOA).

The three European powers are not directly involved in ongoing Tehran-Washington talks. However, they can trigger its snapback mechanism of the JCPOA before an October deadline and reimpose all UN sanctions on Iran should talks with Washington fail.

Quoting unnamed sources, Iran’s conservative Farhikhtegan newspaper reported on Sunday that the atmosphere of the meeting in Istanbul on May 16 was highly tense, with the European side allegedly issuing serious threats to impose additional sanctions on Iran—potentially exceeding the scope of UN sanctions—if Tehran fails to comply with future agreements.

The European side, the report claimed, also demanded that any potential Tehran-Washington deal include a clause— which it referred to as “snapback-plus”—that would allow the E3 to reimpose UN sanctions in the future if Iran violated the JCPOA.

Broader grievances, distrust

Beyond the nuclear file, the E3 has cited a wide range of concerns in their dealings with Tehran: Iran’s ballistic missile program, its support for Russia in the Ukraine conflict, threats to European national security, ongoing human rights violations, and the detention of European nationals.

Iran charged a British couple on a road trip in the country with espionage in February, drawing London's ire. France too is irate at Iran's detention of two French citizens for three years, deepening collective European mistrust with Tehran.

For its part, Iran accuses the E3 of failing to uphold their economic commitments under the JCPOA following the US withdrawal. Iranian officials argue that European governments and companies yielded to American pressure, rendering the promised sanctions relief largely ineffective.

Tehran also accuses the E3 of aligning too closely with US and Israeli positions on regional security issues.

Iranian foreign minister hot and cold

Despite the strained atmosphere, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has continued to espouse a conciliatory tone in public statements towards the remaining Western signatories of the JCPOA, from which the United States unilaterally withdrew in 2018.

“Iran is ready, should it see genuine will and an independent approach from the European side (parties to the 2015 nuclear deal), to begin a new chapter in its relations with Europe,” he told a diplomatic forum in Tehran on May 18.

Nonetheless, Araghchi has issued a stern warning cautioning that any move by the E3 to trigger the snapback mechanism could mark not only the end of Europe’s role in the nuclear agreement but also push Iran toward more drastic measures.

Iranian officials have threatened withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) if talks with the US fail and sanctions remain.

Adding to the diplomatic strain, the E3 have so far not responded to Araghchi’s April 24 proposal to visit London, Paris, and Berlin and offer to engage in direct talks on the nuclear deal and other mutual concerns.

"No matter how many times they repeat it, our position will not change. Our stance is clear: we will continue enrichment," Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told reporters on Monday, responding to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt's remarks earlier in the day.

Israel's military said it had found the Hamas documents in tunnels in the Gaza Strip, the US daily reported. Iran International in November reported that the Joe Biden administration had leaked sensitive information on the peace drive before the attack.

The Hamas documents contain minutes of a high-level meeting by the Iran-aligned militant group in Gaza purporting to show that days before the assault, Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s former leader in Gaza, said an “extraordinary act” was required to derail the talks that he said risked marginalizing the Palestinian cause.

The WSJ report said the meeting minutes were from an October 2, 2023 gathering of Hamas’s political bureau in Gaza, just five days before the deadly attacks on Israel. They cite Sinwar as saying, “There is no doubt that the Saudi-Zionist normalization agreement is progressing significantly.”

Sinwar, who was killed last year, warned a deal would “open the door for the majority of Arab and Islamic countries to follow the same path.”

Since the October 7 attacks which saw at least 1,200 people killed and more than 250 more taken hostage by the militant group, Israel’s military campaign has seen over 53,000 people in Gaza killed, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health statistics.

The Israeli military says at least 20,000 of those are militants.

Normalization on hold

The Gaza war has for now succeeded in halting the normalization, which was aimed to be an extension of the 2020 US President Donald Trump-brokered Abraham Accords that saw Israel form diplomatic ties with Arab states such as Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

Around two-thirds of Gazans have been displaced with huge swathes of the strip now in ruins after Israeli military bombing and ground incursions as international aid agencies warn the population is on the brink of famine.

During a trip to Riyadh last week, Trump reiterated his calls for Saudi Arabia to establish relations with Israel but said, “You’ll do it in your own time.”

In November, Iran International reported that an official in White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan's office leaked information about Saudi-Israeli peace talks just before the Hamas attack on Israel, suggesting it had been the final spur for the group to attack.

Speaking on the Eye for Iran podcast, Jeff Sonnenfeld, a US academic who assisted Jared Kushner in the Abraham Accords told Iran International that a deputy on Sullivan’s team leaked information on the diplomatic push.

The potential disclosures dealt with the Biden administration's talks with Saudi Arabia and Israel on expanding the Abraham Accords just prior to Oct. 7.

“It would have been amazing but by tempting fate like that Hamas realized this was their last moment to strike,” Sonnenfeld said.

A spokesperson from the national security advisor denied the allegations.

'Strategic shift'

The Palestinian militant group which has controlled Gaza since a 2007 takeover has long voiced its opposition to the normalization of ties between Israel and the kingdom, whose vast oil wealth and custodianship of the Islam's holiest sites give it heft in the region.

Hamas calls for the destruction of Israel and the creation of a Palestinian state in its place.

In the alleged meeting minutes, Sinwar said the time had come “to bring about a major move or a strategic shift in the paths and balances of the region with regard to the Palestinian cause”, expecting support from other Iranian-backed forces of the so-called axis of resistance to Israel.

Since the Hamas attacks, Israel has come under fire from other Iranian allies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, as well as facing two direct missile barrages from Tehran. Most were handily repelled by Israel and its allies.

In September, Saudi’s de-facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, said explicitly that there would be no normalization before the creation of an independent Palestinian state, telling the country's Shura Council that "we affirm that the kingdom will not establish diplomatic relations with Israel without one."

It came just a year after the kingdom was more openly suggesting formal ties were close, bringing the once-secret ties into the open.

In June 2023, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the US went as far as saying Saudi Arabia hopes to see a “thriving Israel” as part of a unified Middle East, a tacit nod to finally acknowledge the Jewish state.

Princess Reema bint Bandar al-Saud, a member of the Saudi royal family, told an event in Colorado: “We want to see a thriving Israel, we want to see a thriving Palestine.”

Referring to Bin Salman’s long-term agenda, in which Israel would be a part, she added: “Vision 2030 talks about a unified, integrated, thriving Middle East and last I checked, Israel was there.”