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Iran's foreign minister said the country was prepared to show no restraint in retaliating to any military attack and mocked Europe over its standoff with the United States over US President Donald Trump's push to control Greenland.
Tensions between Tehran and Washington have flared in the wake of the deadliest crackdown on protests in the history of the Islamic Republic earlier this month.
Trump warned Iran not to kill protestors and vowed in a social media post the "help is on the way," in comments which heartened demonstrators and appeared to signal readiness for a military intervention which has yet to materialize.
"Unlike the restraint Iran showed in June 2025, our powerful armed forces have no qualms about firing back with everything we have if we come under renewed attack," Araghchi said in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal, referring to a 12-day war with Israel and the United States.
At least 12,000 protestors were killed by security forces, according to medics and government sources speaking to Iran International.
The veteran diplomat and strident defender of Tehran's crushing of the nationwide demonstrations had his invitation to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland revoked this week.
"An all-out confrontation will certainly be ferocious and drag on far, far longer than the fantasy timelines that Israel and its proxies are trying to peddle to the White House," he added. "It will certainly engulf the wider region and have an impact on ordinary people around the globe."
Trump is weighing "decisive" military options toward Iran in the wake of the mass killing of demonstrators, the same newspaper reported on Tuesday, as a US carrier strike group steams toward the region.
Meanwhile the United States has ramped up its bid to lay claim to Greenland, a part of Denmark, citing Arctic and world security in a diplomatic drama which is opposed by the European Union and is straining the nearly 80-year-old NATO alliance.
Araghchi cited what he called Europe's support for Trump's move to exit an international deal over Iran's disputed nuclear program in his first term, saying the United States was behaving in a unilateral way which challenged global order.
"Sadly for Europe, its current conundrum is the very definition of 'blowback'. The E3/EU faithfully obeyed and even abetted President Trump when he unilaterally abrogated the Iran Nuclear Deal," he wrote on X.
"Mr. Trump's threat to take over Greenland by any means—unlawful as it is under any conception of international law or even a 'rules-based order'—could not happen to a more deserving continent," he added.
"We did our job. If we didn't do that, you would have never had peace in the Middle East," US President Donald Trump told the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday, referring to US stealth bomber and submarine-launched missile attacks on Iranian nuclear sites on June 22.
An interviewer at the gathering did not ask Trump about Iran's crackdown on protests this month, the deadliest in the Islamic Republic's history, nor did the US President touch on the unrest in a lengthy speech.
"They may try again, but they're going to have to try from a different area, because that area was obliterated," he said, referring to Iranian nuclear activities. "Incredible thing we did, and because we did that, we were able to make peace."
Trump clinched a deal for a ceasefire to a nearly two-year-old war in Gaza late last year.
"They're not the bully of the Middle East anymore," Trump said of Iran.
Security forces opened fire during burials for slain protesters in at least two Iranian cities amid nationwide demonstrations, local sources told Iran International, in messages received on Wednesday.
In Abdanan, in Ilam province in western Iran, local sources said security forces attacked people after burial ceremonies and fired metal hunting pellets at mourners, leaving at least 100 people injured and around 50 blinded.
In Jahrom, in Fars province in southern Iran, local sources said security forces fired live ammunition and metal pellets during burial-related gatherings on January 8 and 9, killing at least 14 people and blinding 18 others.
Medical facilities in several Iranian cities are facing shortages of body bags as the number of people killed in nationwide protests rises, witnesses told Iran International, describing a heavy security presence at hospitals and morgues.
In messages received from inside Iran on Wednesday, sources said the shortage has led to the accumulation of protesters’ bodies in hospital halls and morgues, while security forces have intervened in the process of handing over the remains.
They said hospital entrances are being tightly controlled, medical staff and families are under pressure, and the registration of information related to the dead has been restricted, in an apparent effort to prevent the true number of those killed from becoming public.
In Khorramabad, the capital of Lorestan province in western Iran, local sources said around 200 to 250 bodies remained at Ashayer Hospital, with no capacity for proper handling or orderly release.
In Arak, in central Iran’s Markazi province, and in Gorgan, the capital of Golestan province in northeastern Iran, they said the number of those killed exceeded morgue capacity, resulting in delays and restrictions on transferring bodies.
Local sources said similar conditions were being seen in other cities, adding that the measures appeared aimed at concealing the scale of the killings and limiting the flow of information about protest casualties.
The thank-you note from US President Donald Trump to Iran’s leadership for halting what he described as planned mass executions reveals much about his politics, but more about the rulers in Tehran who have canonised deception as a political instrument.
Trump said last week that he had it “on good authority” that Iran intended to execute 800 prisoners, a claim for which no corresponding evidence has appeared in Iranian official announcements or domestic reporting.
American media reports suggested Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi had been communicating with Trump's Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff and his statements had influenced the president's thinking to relent on a mooted attack.
Trump’s apparent willingness to take the claim at face value may also reflect his own preference, at least momentarily, for de-escalation—or for deferring action he may have judged premature at that stage.
Whether the specific information circulated in this episode was exaggerated, fabricated, or misunderstood remains unclear. But if misleading claims were fed to American officials or intermediaries, such behavior would be entirely consistent with Tehran’s long-standing political logic.
Concealment as expediency
This logic does not arise from classical Islamic jurisprudence as such. In traditional Islamic legal thought, deception is generally condemned in ordinary political and social life and tightly constrained even in wartime.
The Islamic Republic, however, reconfigured this ethical boundary when its first supreme leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, argued that actions normally considered impermissible could be justified under the higher imperative of preserving Islam—and later, preserving the system itself.
Concepts such as maslahat (expediency) and political taqiyya (concealment) were thus transformed from narrowly defined exceptions into governing principles. Deception ceased to be situational and became structural.
This transformation was evident even before the Islamic Republic consolidated power. Khomeini publicly promised political pluralism, civil liberties, and limits on clerical authority. After 1979, these commitments were quietly discarded or retrospectively framed as tactical necessities of the revolutionary struggle.
What occurred was less a political reversal than the institutionalization of a widening gap between public narrative and actual intent. Decisions of lasting consequence were made offstage, while legality and transparency were preserved largely in appearance.
‘Managing’ foes
In later decades, deception became a stable feature of Iran’s foreign policy as well. Negotiations were often used not to resolve disputes but to reduce pressure, fragment opposition, and buy time.
Iran’s best-known diplomat, Mohammad Javad Zarif, boasted several years ago that his team had deliberately “managed” international perceptions. Misrepresentation was not incidental; it was strategic.
Within such a system, misleading a foreign government or manipulating a prominent political figure would be a default option, not merely a necessary evil.
Whether or not the recent execution claims were accurate, their circulation fits a familiar operational pattern: deflect scrutiny, reshape headlines, ease pressure, and gain time.
