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"Listen to what President Trump says. He's a man who when he makes a promise he keeps it. And pay close attention to what he says, because what he says is what he will do," US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee told Iran International.
He made the remarks when asked about Trump's promise of help to Iranian protesters last month.
"We have not negotiated with the United States on any issue other than the nuclear matter," Iran's top security official Ali Larijani told Oman's state TV on Tuesday.
"The American side has also come to the conclusion that the talks must focus on the nuclear issue," he said.
"In my view, this issue is resolvable. If the Americans’ concern is that Iran should not move toward acquiring a nuclear weapon, that can be addressed. But if issues beyond this are introduced into the negotiations, the process could face difficulties."
"At present, the American side is thinking more realistically. In the past, they linked military and missile issues to the nuclear file, but now they are speaking only about the nuclear issue, which is a rational approach. Military matters are unrelated to the nuclear dossier," Larijani said.
Iran’s January protests were the predictable result of years of ignored economic and social warning signs, according to one of the country’s most prominent economists, who says the state failed to recognize how close society had come to the brink.
In an op-ed published this week in one of Iran’s leading economic newspapers, Donya-ye Eghtesad, the economist Massoud Nili described the country’s current predicament as a failure of governance that left mounting problems and public grievances unaddressed.
“The current situation marks one of the saddest and most critical junctures in Iran’s history,” Nili wrote, “a moment in which thousands of Iranians — mainly young people — lost their lives in less than 48 hours.”
He argued that “a combination of poverty, unemployment, inequality, inflation, psychological insecurity under the looming shadow of war, and cultural conflict placed young Iranians at the center of the crisis.”
The unrest began in Tehran’s historic Grand Bazaar in late 2025, initially driven by slogans reflecting economic hardship. Over the following week, they broadened into nationwide demonstrations calling for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.
Protests peaked on January 8 and 9, following a call for coordinated actions by exiled prince Reza Pahlavi.
As many as 36,500 people were killed during the crackdown on those two days, according to an internal assessment leaked to and reviewed by Iran International.
Among the clearest warning signs, Nili noted, was the existence of nearly 12 million young Iranians who are neither employed nor enrolled in education.
Iran’s labor market, he wrote, has been effectively stagnant since 2009. While the working-age population increased by 4.4 million, the economy created only about 200,000 jobs, even as roughly 700,000 people lost employment.
Official figures suggest that net job creation has approached zero in recent years.
Other economists have echoed Nili’s assessment in the weeks since the protests and their violent suppression.
Speaking at Tejarat Farda’s economic forum in late January, Mohammad Mehdi Behkish described the protests as the product of “forty years of flawed governance and policymaking,” arguing that rigid political and economic structures had pushed society toward a breaking point.
Another prominent economist, Mousa Ghaninejad, pointed to the scale of the deterioration. In 2011, he said, fewer than 20 percent of Iranians lived below the poverty line. Today, that figure has risen to roughly 40 percent.
Declining oil revenues have further constrained the state’s ability to provide social support, while access to adequate nutrition and medical care has sharply declined.
Official data show inflation has exceeded 40 percent for at least two years, eroding purchasing power even among government employees and military personnel.
High inflation has enriched groups with preferential access to state-linked resources, widening inequality and deepening social resentment.
Nili concluded that a convergence of poverty, unemployment, inequality, psychological insecurity under the shadow of war, and cultural conflict had placed young Iranians at the center of the crisis.
Writing from inside Iran, Nili confined his analysis to economic and social indicators and avoided the political roots of the crisis—the deepening rupture between the state and a society that has come to resent the worldview and governing vision of its rulers.
He did mention “realities”, however, that if ignored, would steer the country toward “an extremely dangerous future.”
American forces in Qatar's al-Udeid air base, the biggest US base in the region, put Patriot air defense missiles into truck launchers amid heightened tensions with Tehran, Reuters reported on Tuesday citing satellite imagery.
"Patriot missiles were placed in M983 Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Trucks (HEMTT) rather than semi-static launcher stations-- which could allow them to be less easily targeted by Iran or deployed more quickly if needed," the report said.
"The decision to do so gives the Patriots much greater mobility, meaning they can be moved to an alternative site or repositioned with greater speed," William Goodhind, a forensic imagery analyst with Contested Ground, told Reuters.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to discuss possible military options against Tehran during his meeting with US President Donald Trump in Washington this week, CNN reported citing two Israeli sources.
Netanyahu intends to present Trump with new intelligence on the Islamic Republic’s military capabilities, the report said citing one of the sources.
“Israel is worried about Iran’s progress in restoring its ballistic missile stockpiles and capabilities to its status before the 12-day war,” the source was quoted as saying.
The Israeli assessment is that without action, Iran could possess 1,800-2,000 ballistic missiles within weeks or months, the report said.
