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Conflicting voices in Tehran on the competing prospects of war and diplomacy with Washington may be deliberate, but they more likely reflect an absence of consensus at the top.
A quick look at the main headlines on the IRGC-linked Tasnim News Agency on Monday captured the mood in Tehran: “Possibility of Iran–US Negotiations Confirmed,” “Implications for America if War Spreads Across the Region,” and “With Trump’s Conditions, There Will Be No Negotiations.”
Together, they betray a system simultaneously preparing for talks, threatening escalation, and insisting negotiations are impossible.
Despite the government’s efforts to project calm beneath Tehran’s smog-covered skyline, a speech on Sunday by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei only deepened the sense of foreboding.
Khamenei recounted a joke from his native province of Khorasan about a man boasting of how close he was to marrying the woman he loved. “Only two steps remain,” the man says. “I ask her father for her hand, and he replies: ‘How dare you!’”
Those seated around Khamenei, including his financial confidant Mohammad Mokhber, smiled uncertainly—perhaps only gradually realizing that, in Khamenei’s telling, the hopeful suitor was US President Donald Trump, and the disapproving father was Khamenei himself.
‘American graveyard’
For opportunistic politicians and commentators in Tehran, the message was unmistakable: recent claims by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and security chief Ali Larijani about ongoing negotiations with Washington mattered far less than the Supreme Leader’s evident reluctance to engage.
On the central question—whether Iran is prepared to make concessions—Khamenei remains firmly unwilling to yield.
Hardliners, who had briefly lowered their volume in anticipation of a possible diplomatic opening, appeared to have received the memo and quickly returned to form.
In parliament, the cleric Mohammad Taghi Naghdali declared that Iran should not only close the Strait of Hormuz but also disrupt Europe’s shipping routes and gas export networks, while calling for reduced cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The rhetoric soon veered into the absurd. The managing director of Tehran’s main cemetery, Behesht-e Zahra, claimed he had prepared 5,000 graves for US soldiers he believed would be killed on the first day of a war with Iran.
The statement was swiftly refuted by Tehran city councillor Jafar Tashakori, who warned that reckless remarks could trigger crises “far beyond domestic politics.”
Vested interests
Even seasoned analysts struggled to impose coherence on the moment. Political commentator Ali Bigdeli said no one could say with certainty whether war was coming, arguing that Iran’s only viable path forward lay in direct talks with the United States.
While Iran’s official position, articulated by Araghchi, is that any talks must be confined to the nuclear file, Bigdeli cautioned that Washington’s ambitions extend to Tehran’s missile program and its regional allies.
“Trump is not interested in a direct war with Iran,” Bigdeli told the moderate outlet Khabar Online. “But he is unlikely to leave the region with his armada without achieving something.”
Ebrahim Rezai, spokesperson for parliament’s National Security Committee, cited a briefing by IRGC Aerospace Force commanders to assert that any US attack would trap American forces in a regional war.
Yet another conservative figure, Hossein Naghavi Hosseini, cautioned that those beating the drums of war in Tehran were playing into Israel’s hands.
Taken together, the cacophony points less to confidence than to paralysis: a system torn between waiting for a signal from the top and being pulled in opposing directions by vested interests, each pressing for the outcome it prefers.
Armed Iranian boats tried to stop a US-flagged oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing US officials.
The report cited maritime security firm Vanguard Tech as saying in a message to clients that six Iranian gunboats armed with 50-caliber machine guns approached the tanker as it entered the strategic waterway and ordered it to shut down its engines and prepare to be boarded. The vessel instead increased speed and was later escorted by a US warship, the report said.
Earlier, the UK Maritime Trade Operations agency said it had received a report of an incident involving a vessel about 16 nautical miles north of Oman, within the inbound traffic separation scheme of the Strait of Hormuz.
TIME magazine on Tuesday published a cover titled “After the Ayatollah,” focusing on Iran’s nationwide protests and the crackdown that followed, which the magazine described as one of the most intense episodes of civilian killings by gunfire in decades.
The cover illustration, by artist Edel Rodriguez, shows what appears to be a clerical figure viewed from behind, with the figure’s robe composed of stylized faces representing protesters, some raising fists or making victory signs.
A meeting between Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff, which had been expected to take place in Istanbul on Friday, may now be held outside Turkey, Middle East Eye reported, citing Turkish officials.
“The exact location of the meeting has not yet been finalized,” Middle East Eye quoted an unnamed Turkish official as saying. “What is important for us is the establishment of a peace table. We are ready to contribute wherever the diplomatic table is established.”
The United States has deployed dozens of aircraft to bases near Iran and assembled about a dozen warships in or around the Middle East over the past month, moves that could set the stage for possible US strikes against Iran within weeks, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday, citing US defense officials, satellite imagery and tracking data.
The report, citing unnamed current and former US officials, said the buildup falls short of preparations seen ahead of last year’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear program, but provides President Donald Trump with a credible military option as his administration seeks to pressure Tehran back into nuclear talks.
The report said the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, accompanied by three guided-missile destroyers, entered US Central Command’s area of responsibility on Jan. 26 and is operating in the north Arabian Sea.
At least eight other US warships are in the region, including destroyers near the Strait of Hormuz, according to US defense officials and satellite imagery cited in the report.
Iran has also increased activity in the area, the report said, citing flight tracking data and satellite imagery showing Iranian drones operating near the Strait of Hormuz and what analysts identified as an Iranian drone carrier, the Shahid Bagheri, in the same waters.
More than three dozen US aircraft, including fighter jets, drones, and refueling, reconnaissance and transport planes, have moved through or into the region since mid-January, with many landing at al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar, according to the report.
Additional US aircraft were observed at bases in Jordan, including fighter jets and search-and-rescue aircraft, analysts told the newspaper.
