Trump says US strikes show Iran ‘cannot have a nuclear weapon’

Several Iranians told Iran International that familiar rituals that normally fill homes with activity in the weeks before the holiday have stalled.

“This year we did nothing,” Leila, a 38-year-old resident of Tehran, told Iran International. “We didn’t wash carpets and we didn’t do the house cleaning. Every year I would start from early February, but this year we are just looking at the sky, waiting for the fall of this regime.”

Nowruz, the Persian New Year marking the arrival of spring, has been celebrated for more than 3,000 years across Iran and parts of Central Asia and the Middle East.

The holiday usually falls on March 20 or 21 and begins nearly two weeks of family visits, meals and gatherings.

‘Shaking the house’

In most years, the weeks before Nowruz transform daily life across Iran. Families traditionally begin with Khaneh Tekaani, a deep spring cleaning whose name literally means “shaking the house.” Carpets are washed, cupboards reorganized and homes refreshed to symbolically welcome the new year.

Another essential ritual is planting Sabzeh — dishes of sprouting wheat, lentils or barley that represent renewal and rebirth and are later placed on the Haft-Seen table, the centerpiece of the celebration alongside candles, colored eggs, a mirror and often a red goldfish.

But this year, some residents say even modest traditions feel out of reach.

“Planting Sabzeh is something we Iranians do every year, but this year with all the news about war we completely forgot about it. God damn the Islamic Republic for ruining everything,” Kamran, a 42-year-old office worker in Hamedan, told Iran International.

‘No money, no mood’

Markets that normally bustle in the run-up to Nowruz — with families buying sweets for visiting relatives, decorative items for Haft-Seen tables and new clothes for children — have also been quieter this year, residents say.

Some cite the worsening economic situation as a key reason holiday traditions have faded.

“Every year despite inflation we bought at least a few things,” said Golnaz, a 35-year-old shop owner in Karaj. “But this year we had neither the money nor the mood. We are waiting for that final moment.”

Golnaz described how rising prices have weighed heavily on households and small businesses.

“Even if we wanted to prepare and had the energy, prices are so high we simply cannot afford it. Everything has become several times more expensive. I run a small cosmetics shop and this month I have not even earned the rent for the store,” she said.

Her husband, who drives for a ride-hailing service, is working less frequently amid fears of bombings and falling demand as more people stay home.

‘No ordinary time’

On social media, many Iranians say the emotional tone of the season has shifted sharply compared with previous years.

“If things were normal, I should be excited for next week and finishing my preparations. The scent of night-blooming flowers would be filling the house and the holiday sweets would already be in the refrigerator,” one user wrote.

Another reflected on the contrast with childhood memories: “What burns me is that it is the New Year season. People should now have the mood of buying for the holiday and welcoming the new year in Iran. I remember how excited I was as a child. But those feelings slowly died inside me.”

For generations, the approach of Nowruz has filled Iranian homes with cleaning, cooking and preparations symbolizing renewal. This year, residents say those rituals — once a nationwide signal of spring’s arrival — have been overshadowed by war, rising prices and uncertainty about what the new year will bring.

Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said on Tuesday a projectile struck the Bushehr nuclear power plant site but had no financial, technical or human casualties and inflicted no damage to any part of the facility.

It is not clear the source of firing and no other source reported it.

Russia, which supplies fuel for the plant already withdrawn a number of its specialists and their families from Bushehr due to the unsafe wartime conditions in Iran.

Despite publicly urging Iranians to revolt, Israel told US diplomats that any street protests would lead to protesters being “slaughtered” by the IRGC, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday citing a State Department cable.

Senior Israeli officials said the regime remains strong and ready to “fight to the end” after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s killing.

Israel still hopes for an uprising and wants the US to prepare support, the report said citing the cable from the US embassy in Jerusalem.

As dusk falls across Iran on Tuesday, bonfires, fireworks and street gatherings take place to mark Chaharshanbeh Suri, an ancient fire festival that has also become a public act of defiance, this year unfolding under war, heavy security and fears of bloodshed.

Iranian authorities have issued stark warnings ahead of Chaharshanbeh Suri, pointing to what they describe as wartime conditions and the risk of unrest.

Nevertheless, Iranians celebrated the festival, as Iran International's Negar Mojtahedi explains.

Iran confirmed on Tuesday that Larijani—Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and one of the regime’s central security coordinators— was killed in a morning strike on Tehran.

The strike inevitably recalls the killing of Qassem Soleimani in 2020: another precise removal of a figure who linked diplomacy, intelligence and military power.

Soleimani’s death did more than eliminate a commander. It weakened the regime’s ability to calibrate risk. Radical in purpose, cautious in execution, he pushed proxies forward without inviting existential retaliation.

His absence left a gap no successor fully filled. Coordination frayed, misjudgments mounted and responses grew less predictable. The network endured, but its timing became erratic and its restraint thinner.

Larijani’s role must be understood against that backdrop.

According to a source cited by Christiane Amanpour, Larijani had, as recently as September 2025, been viewed in some Western and Israeli assessments as a potentially acceptable transitional figure before becoming a target by early February 2026.

The account attributes the shift to his role in pressing for domestic crackdowns, adopting a more confrontational posture toward the United States and Israel and assuming a central role in shaping IRGC military operations.

The claims remain unverified but highlight how Larijani straddled internal consolidation and external escalation at a moment of acute pressure.

His career began during the Iran-Iraq War, where he rose within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to brigadier general. In the years that followed, he moved from battlefield to bureaucracy, helping consolidate the regime’s coercive and ideological infrastructure.

As head of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (1994–2004), Larijani oversaw more than a media organization. The state broadcaster worked closely with the intelligence services and the IRGC, shaping narratives that reinforced loyalty and narrowed the space for dissent.

The 1996 Hoviyyat (Identity) series publicly branded intellectuals and professionals as traitors, airing coerced confessions and drawing sharp limits around permissible thought. At the same time, official memory of the Iran-Iraq War was recast into doctrine: martyrdom elevated, endurance framed as victory.

Over time, this messaging helped consolidate a narrower but more disciplined base embedded across Basij and IRGC networks. Its purpose was not persuasion but enforcement: to secure the regime against a broader, often unwilling society.

That framework endured. It underpinned repression during the 2009 Green Movement, resurfaced during the Woman, Life, Freedom protests in 2022 and shaped the violence of January 2026.

Beyond Iran, the same logic informed Hezbollah’s campaign in Syria, Hamas operations culminating in October 7 and the IRGC’s maritime doctrine of asymmetric pressure.

Despite tensions within the political elite, Larijani remained firmly inside the core leadership. Loyal and disciplined, he embodied continuity across institutions.

Following the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the February 28 strike that opened the current phase of war, Larijani’s experience and connections positioned him as a potential stabilizing figure.

His 2025 reappointment as Iran’s security chief reinforced that role. From there he coordinated nuclear policy, crisis management and relations among the regime’s core institutions.

Larijani’s removal would introduce immediate disruption: friction in command and pressure for retaliation. The deeper consequence may be fragmentation.

The Islamic Republic now operates less as a unified state than as a dispersed system under sustained pressure from Israel and the United States. Authority increasingly runs through provincial clerical networks, IRGC commanders and Basij structures. Resources are mobilized locally, repression enforced locally and survival managed locally.

Larijani belonged to the shrinking circle still capable of linking these fragments to a central command. His loss risks accelerating the incoherence the system is already struggling to contain.

Soleimani’s precedent is instructive: decapitation weakens coordination and invites miscalculation, even as the structure endures.

Missile infrastructure remains dispersed across hardened and subterranean sites. Fast naval craft and unmanned vessels continue to threaten shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Proxy militias operate through channels designed to outlast leadership losses.

What appears as resilience may instead reflect dispersal without coordination — a system that survives but no longer acts as one.

Larijani’s killing tests not only the state’s durability but its capacity to function as a coherent force under sustained pressure. The war may not bring immediate collapse. But without figures such as Soleimani and Larijani, adaptation may hasten, rather than forestall, its demise.