Ex-Israeli air force chief says Iran standoff must end in talks or invasion

The July strikes – described by Reuters as retaliation for US action against Iranian nuclear sites weeks earlier – hit the Sarsang field operated by HKN Energy and another run by Dallas-based Hunt Oil, disrupting output across the region.

By the end of four days of attacks, nearly half of Kurdistan’s production was offline, Reuters said.

In the following weeks, US officials delivered what one administration source called “extremely intensive” messages to Baghdad, pressing for a restart of the pipeline to Türkiye’s Ceyhan port.

Washington has argued that the line’s closure diverted crude into southern routes and informal channels that enriched Iran-aligned networks.

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  Local Iraqi officials blame gas field rocket strike on Iran-backed groups

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  Trump says Iraq more friendly after US attacks on Iran

A preliminary restart deal was reached in mid-July, and exports resumed late in September after a 30-month halt, helping normalize flows of Kurdish crude.

Iraqi officials have not named the group behind the strikes, and no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Iraqi Kurdistan security sources said that initial investigations suggested that the drone came from areas under the control of Iran-backed militias.

The Justice Ministry’s gazette carried a committee decision freezing funds of designated entities and, in error, named Hezbollah and the Houthis, according to Reuters.

A letter from the acting deputy governor of the Central Bank asked the Committee for the Freezing of Terrorists’ Funds to delete the clause, two bank sources was cited by the outlet.

Tasnim, an outlet close to Iran’s IRGC, framed Baghdad’s correction as a climbdown under intense public and political pressure, saying Iraq’s Central Bank “backed off” after outrage over the Gazette notice.

Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani said Iraq had approved freezing only the assets of entities and individuals linked to Islamic State and al Qaeda, in line with UN Security Council Resolution 1373 and following a request from Malaysia.

He ordered an urgent investigation “to hold accountable those responsible” for the mistake and stressed Baghdad’s stance on Lebanon and the Palestinians was “principled and not subject to exaggeration.”

The clarification followed publication in issue No. 4848 of the Iraqi Gazette of Decision No. 61 by the Committee for the Freezing of Terrorists’ Assets, which named 24 entities and ordered their funds frozen.

The committee is chaired by Central Bank Governor Ali Mohsen al-Alaq, with members from the anti-money-laundering office and the ministries of finance, interior, foreign affairs, justice, trade, communications, and science and technology, as well as the integrity, intelligence and counter-terrorism bodies.

The committee said on Thursday that the publication was meant to cover ISIS- and al-Qaeda-related listings only and that unrelated groups appeared because the list was released before final revisions were completed. It said a corrected version will be printed in the official gazette.

Publication of the committee’s decision in the Justice Ministry’s gazette led some outlets to report that Hezbollah and the Houthis had been designated terrorist entities, prompting denunciations from politicians aligned with Iran-backed factions.

Hussain Mouanes, a lawmaker from a bloc affiliated with Kataeb Hezbollah, called the government’s conduct “irresponsible” and accused it of failing to defend Iraq’s sovereignty.

Lawmaker Mustafa Sanad, who shared the gazette and is aligned with Popular Mobilization Forces-linked blocs, condemned the designations on social media.

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  Trump says Iraq more friendly after US attacks on Iran

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  Iran-backed militias’ election gains may expand Tehran’s sway in Iraq - FT

Iraq has balanced relations with both the United States and Iran, but faces mounting risks to its financial system if it falls foul of global sanctions regimes.

Hezbollah and the Houthis are key members of a broader network of Iran-backed groups across the region.

Iran views Iraq as a strategic economic and political partner amid Western sanctions, while Baghdad remains wary of being drawn into US efforts to squeeze Tehran and its regional allies.

He was detained last month in a joint probe by Jerusalem District detectives and the Shin Bet; police did not detail the alleged espionage.

Malka is to be indicted in the Beersheba District Court.

The agencies said they are intensifying efforts to deter Israelis from spying for Iran following the 12-day war in June, with the Shin Bet working with municipalities.

Bat Yam Mayor Tzvika Brot this week urged residents who contacted Iranian agents to come forward, implying leniency.

Internal contestation is harsher than at any time in recent memory, with competing factions trying to preserve or redefine their place in a system that has lost the capacity for reform or institutional expansion.

Yet Iran's nearly 50-year-old theocracy persists, compensating for poor governance with stiff security control and the careful redistribution of shrinking resources.

Just as authorities have slackened enforcement of Islamic social rules, allowing unveiled women and open-air concerts in public, it has stepped up a crackdown on political dissent and alleged spies.

Opposing this order are three forces whose interaction with the securitized state produces neither fundamental change nor imminent collapse, but something closer to endurance through erosion.

Those are: people inside Iran fighting localized economic and professional battles without organized networks, an exiled opposition adept at narrative and symbolism but detached from lived realities inside Iran and foreign actors committed to curbing Tehran’s nuclear and regional strength but not to toppling it.

One system, many channels

The Islamic Republic is structured around the Supreme Leader, whose authority ultimately resolves all major decisions. Around this axis sits an intricate constellation of parallel institutions, security councils, loyalty networks and overlapping hierarchies.

Policymaking is multi-layered. But decision-making is ultimately his sole prerogative.

President Masoud Pezeshkian recently issued a telling statement that unmanageable infighting would ensure should Ali Khamenei somehow exit the scene. It underscores a basic fear: without the Leader’s centrality, the power networks would drift apart.

Nothing illustrates this better than the way “system” is used interchangeably for both the political order and the leader himself.

Khamenei functions less as the manager of a unified apparatus than as the referee of internal conflicts. The state bureaucracy is not the engine of governance but one node among political, security and economic bodies each pursuing their own interests.

The 12-day war intensified these fissures. The removal of influential IRGC figures disrupted long-standing balances and sharpened factional sensitivities.

The Babak Zanjani affair illuminates the power politics at play.

Sprung with little explanation from a death sentence for corruption, the disgraced tycoon now not only walks free but weighs in regularly on politics, even appearing to threaten former President Hassan Rouhani with death in a tweet this week.

Such a rapid rehabilitation could not occur without powerful establishment backing.

Unorganized discontent

The war’s economic toll—passed on to society through inflationary policies—has deepened hardship and widened discontent. Iran’s society today is in ferment but unorganized: protests erupt across workplaces and cities, but without intermediary institutions they remain local and short-lived.

A recent nurses’ strike in Mashhad, much like the truck drivers’ strike before it this spring, showed the pattern clearly: strong anger, weak connective tissue.

The labor market’s collapse into unstable, platform-based work illustrates a society living in permanent emergency. Eight million rideshare drivers do not prove total collapse, but they reveal a mass shift toward insecure livelihoods.

Economic stress drains the psychological capacity for sustained organization; survival overrides solidarity.

Provincial centers skew toward economic protests, while peripheral regions experience conflict mainly through security confrontation.

The recurring demolition of homes in Baluchistan in southeastern Iran is one example of a strategy that provokes local resistance but rarely ratchets up because no networks link periphery grievances to central demands.

Inside Iran, opposition forces function like isolated islands. Outside, the opposition produces abundant media output but struggles to translate daily grievances into a shared political language.

The gap between “voice” abroad and “life” inside has produced an opposition that amplifies frustrations but does not alter the balance of power.

Survival on the edge

The Islamic Republic continues not as an effective state but as a mechanism that defers crises day by day. Security has replaced policy; the cost of maintaining power rises constantly as the quality of governance decays.

The system persists because no countervailing power with organizational depth has yet emerged.

European-triggered international sanctions and intermittent threats from the United States and Israel show that containment—not internal transformation—may be the ultimate priority from outside powers.

External pressure accelerates economic and infrastructural decay but cannot substitute for domestic political change.

For the West, Iran remains a security file, not a political project.

Foreign actors may accelerate or intensify pressure, but the indispensable condition for change is alignment between internal and external forces around a shared language and objective.

Until such convergence forms, the Islamic Republic will remain in a state of endurance through erosion—able to enforce the status quo even as it becomes less capable of maintaining stability or basic services.

US arms developers reverse-engineered a captured Shahed drone from Iran to produce the new model, CNN reported citing a US defense official.

The unit, called Task Force Scorpion Strike, was formed after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the Pentagon to speed up the delivery of low-cost drone technology to troops.

“This new task force sets the conditions for using innovation as a deterrent,” CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper said in a statement.

“Equipping our skilled warfighters faster with cutting-edge drone capabilities showcases US military innovation and strength, which deters bad actors.”

CENTCOM said the task force has already built a squadron using what it calls Low-cost Unmanned Combat Attack System drones, or LUCAS, developed by the Arizona-based company SpektreWorks.

'Flipping the script'

The drones can fly long distances, operate autonomously and be launched by catapult, rocket-assisted systems or mobile vehicles.

The LUCAS drones were created after developers reverse-engineered a Shahed drone from Iran, which the US captured a few years ago, CNN reported citing a US defense official.

CNN's report said the defense official acknowledged that the US military’s focus on larger and more expensive precision systems had “put our forces at a disadvantage” against cheap drones like those used by Iran.

“But now we’re flipping the script,” the official added.

The official declined to say how many drones the new squadron has, saying only there were “many” and more would be added. Each drone costs about $35,000, the official said.

'Low-cost option'

The official also told CNN that a damaged Iranian Shahed drone captured by the United States several years ago was examined by US companies, which worked to reverse-engineer elements of the system and use those findings in the development of LUCAS.

The official described the result as a US-produced, low-cost attack drone built to meet the needs of current conflicts.

Task Force Scorpion Strike, which helped lead the development of the drones, consists of nearly two dozen personnel, led by service members from Special Operations Command Central.

Not all of the personnel are based in the Middle East, CNN's report said citing the official.