Iran International
A temporary ceasefire between the United States and Iran has triggered anger and cautious hope among Iranians who sent messages to Iran International, with many describing a sense of abandonment by President Donald Trump.
The two-week ceasefire was announced after weeks of fighting that began on February 28 when the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran while negotiations were still underway.
President Trump said on Wednesday that Washington would work closely with Iran following what he described as a “productive regime change,” adding there would be no uranium enrichment.
But messages from across Iran suggested the pause in fighting has stirred mixed and often painful reactions. Some described the truce as a missed opportunity for political change.
“We asked you for help to free Iran, but not only did you not free it, you handed us a much worse country and trampled the blood of 45,000 martyrs,” one citizen wrote in a message addressed to Trump, referring to protesters killed during past nationwide unrest.
Others expressed deep despair about the country’s future.
“When I heard the news of the ceasefire, it felt like the world collapsed on my head,” a resident of Tehran said.
“We were miserable and now we will become more miserable. We no longer have any hope,” another message said.
Despite the truce, a weeks-long internet blackout across Iran has persisted, limiting communication and access to outside information.
Some urged patience, however, suggesting the ceasefire could be part of a broader strategy.
“Trump knows what he is doing. If he intended to accept the conditions, he would not have entered the war at all. Perhaps more surprises will occur in the coming days,” one citizen wrote.
Another message called on Iranians not to lose hope.
“Do not be so hopeless. Regime change is possible. This ceasefire may be another surprise. You have the right to be tired, but you must remain patient,” a citizen from Kerman wrote in a message addressed to fellow Iranians.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Wednesday that US and Iranian delegations would arrive in Pakistan on Friday for talks, raising the prospect that the ceasefire could open the way for negotiations.
Some also warned that the pause in fighting could allow the authorities to intensify domestic repression.
“With this ceasefire, the killing machine will be activated faster and more young people will be at risk,” one message said.
Iran has carried out executions during the war, raising fears among activists that the authorities may use the ceasefire period to tighten control.
Others reflected on the uncertainty surrounding the fragile truce.
“I feel like a patient whose surgeon, in the middle of surgery, says let us wait a bit and see if it heals on its own,” one citizen wrote.
The precise texts are still only partly visible. The White House never publicly confirmed the full contents of the US 15-point proposal, saying only that some reporting had “elements of truth” but was “not entirely factual,” while Iranian state and semi-official media published a far more detailed public account of Tehran’s own terms.
Still, enough has emerged to show how far apart the two sides remain.
Public reporting on the US proposal described a plan centered on rolling back Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities, curbing support for allied armed groups and reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s 10-point plan pointed in the opposite direction. It sought recognition of enrichment, sweeping sanctions relief, compensation, continued influence over Hormuz, US military withdrawal from the region and an end to attacks on Iran and its allies.
That distinction matters because a ceasefire can stop the shooting without answering the political question of what comes next.
On the American side, the administration’s stated war aims remained consistent through March and April: destroy Iran’s missile arsenal and production capability, sever support for what Washington calls terrorist proxies, and ensure Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon.
Tehran’s public plan, by contrast, treated the ceasefire as the start of an arrangement that would preserve core elements of Iranian power rather than dismantle them.
In March, that divide was already visible. Time, citing reporting from Israeli Channel 12 and other outlets, said the US proposal called for dismantling Iran’s nuclear capabilities, ending uranium enrichment on Iranian soil, decommissioning Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow, limiting missile activity, ending support for proxy groups and keeping Hormuz open.
Iran rejected the proposal and, even before its fuller 10-point plan appeared publicly, made clear it was seeking a permanent end to the war rather than a simple pause.
Enrichment: rollback versus recognition
No issue illustrates the contradiction more clearly than uranium enrichment.
The publicly reported US plan sought to end enrichment inside Iran and dismantle the country’s main nuclear facilities. Tehran’s published plan did the reverse.
Iranian media versions of the 10-point framework explicitly demanded acceptance of enrichment, and some outlets reported that the phrase appeared in the Farsi version even though it was omitted from some English versions shared publicly by Iranian media.
That is not a minor drafting dispute. It is a disagreement over first principles. Washington’s reported position was that Iran’s nuclear program should be rolled back at its core. Tehran’s position was that enrichment should survive in principle, with any later discussion focused on scope rather than existence.
So long as those remain the baseline positions, the ceasefire may limit violence while leaving one of the central causes of the conflict unresolved.
Allied militias: disarmament versus protection
The same gap runs through the issue of Iran’s regional allies.
The Trump administration said one of its central objectives was to sever Iran’s support for proxies. Reporting on the 15-point proposal likewise said Washington wanted Tehran to stop financing and arming those groups.
Iran’s public plan moved the other way. It called for an end to attacks not only on Iran but on its allies, and its 10-point version included a halt to war on all fronts, including Lebanon.
That contradiction was not theoretical. It surfaced almost immediately after the ceasefire announcement.
AP reported that Israel backed the US ceasefire with Iran but said it would continue operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, directly undercutting mediation claims that Lebanon was covered.
In a statement on X on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel backed Trump’s efforts to ensure “Iran no longer poses a nuclear, missile and terror threat to America, Israel, Iran’s Arab neighbors and the world”. But the two-week ceasefire “does not include Lebanon”, he said.
If one side treats allied militias as part of the problem to be dismantled and the other treats them as part of the ceasefire to be protected, the truce does not settle this regional dimension of the war.
Hormuz, sanctions and US forces
The Strait of Hormuz offers another example of rival end states disguised as one ceasefire.
For Washington, reopening the strait was a condition of de-escalation. For Tehran, public versions of the 10-point plan framed continued Iranian control over Hormuz as part of the postwar order itself.
The Guardian and AP as well as IRGC media reported that the ceasefire allowed passage under Iranian military oversight, while AP also said Iran and Oman could charge transit fees under the arrangement.
That may have eased an immediate crisis in shipping, but it did not mean the two sides agreed on the underlying principle.
Later on Wednesday, Oman said it had signed agreements that prohibit charging ships passing through the waterway.
The same is true of sanctions and troop presence.
US reporting suggested sanctions relief would come in exchange for major Iranian concessions on enrichment, missiles and proxy activity. Tehran’s public plan demanded the lifting of primary and secondary sanctions, an end to UN and IAEA measures, compensation, and the withdrawal of US combat forces from the region.
Those are not different routes to the same destination. They reflect different answers to the basic question of who is supposed to come out of this war constrained and who is supposed to come out vindicated.
A ceasefire with competing narratives
The public record supports saying Trump at one stage described Iran’s 10-point proposal as a workable basis for negotiations. It does not support saying Washington accepted Tehran’s terms as stated.
The White House explicitly declined to confirm the full contents of the US proposal, and AP reported that key details of the ceasefire remained unclear even after the announcement.
The safer conclusion is narrower: Tehran published its expectations in unusually concrete form, while Washington left more of its own position in the realm of reported outlines and official war aims.
Trump added a partial public clue on Wednesday, writing on Truth Social that “many of the 15 points have already been agreed to” and that sanctions and tariff relief would be discussed, while also insisting there would be no uranium enrichment.
That leaves both sides room to claim success. Washington says military pressure forced Tehran toward talks. Tehran says resistance forced Washington to step back from a wider assault and negotiate from a different starting point.
But the announced expectations still clash on enrichment, allied militias, sanctions, US troop presence and control of Hormuz.
On the evidence now in public, this looks less like a settled peace than a pause built on incompatible definitions of what peace would mean.
If the ceasefire is to become something more durable, talks slated for Friday in Pakistan would have to narrow those gaps rather than merely postpone them, with the first day of the truce already marked by an attack on Iran’s Lavan refinery and reports of drone activity from Kuwait.
For now, both governments are presenting the pause as proof that force worked.
The unanswered question, especially for Iranians living with the consequences of both war and state power, is whether this truce can produce anything beyond a temporary reduction in fire – and whether any real change in Iran lies somewhere beyond the victory narratives now being claimed on both sides.
That matters not only because of the damage done, but because of what these places meant. In Iran, repression has never depended on one institution alone. It has been built as a layered system, running from the top decision-making bodies in Tehran down to the neighborhood police station, the local Basij outpost and the courthouse where detainees are processed.
A review by Iran International of citizen reports and source material found that, in about one month after the war began, at least 130 sites tied to internal repression were destroyed or hit.
They included 57 Basij buildings or bases, 43 police (FARAJA) facilities, 10 Revolutionary Guards compounds, and 11 security complexes involved in repression. Other targets included judicial buildings and the state broadcaster, institutions that helped complete the chain through prosecutions, propaganda and coerced confessions.
Iran International sources also put the toll among security forces at nearly 5,000 dead and about 21,000 wounded.
From the command center to the street
The internal security system has long worked in three layers.
At the top sits the command structure: the Supreme Leader, the Supreme National Security Council, provincial security councils and, in Tehran, the IRGC’s Tharallah headquarters, which can take control of multiple security organs during major unrest. Around the capital, a similar role has been played by the Seyyed al-Shohada corps.
Below that are the operational forces: The Police Command of the Islamic Republic of Iran (abbreviated as FARAJA); special anti-riot units; provincial Revolutionary Guards formations; and IRGC’s specialized units such as Saberin and Fatehin.
Alongside them is the Basij, the paramilitary network embedded in neighborhoods across the country. Its Imam Ali battalions, often arriving on motorcycles, became one of the most recognizable instruments of street repression after the 2009 protests.
The third layer is institutional support: intelligence bodies, courts, prisons and state media.
The strikes appear to have touched every layer.
Senior figures reported killed include Ali Khamenei, the longtime ultimate authority over crackdowns; the intelligence minister and several of his deputies; senior Guards and Basij commanders; commanders tied to Tehran’s suppression apparatus; police intelligence officials; and members of the judiciary, including officials linked to Evin prison and Tehran’s prosecutorial system.
The symbols that fell
The targets were not only militarily useful. Many were symbols.
In Tehran, the Ministry of Intelligence and compounds linked to the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence arm were hit again after earlier strikes in the June 12-day war. Tharallah-linked facilities in northern Tehran, security clusters in eastern Tehran, anti-riot police facilities and Basij sites across the capital were also struck.
Some locations had an importance that went beyond their walls. Tehran’s Revolutionary Court building on Moallem Street was one of them. For decades, it stood as a symbol of summary trials, political prosecutions and death sentences. Its destruction carried a message larger than the physical damage.
The same was true of the state broadcaster. For many Iranians, it was not just a media institution but a place associated with forced confessions and public humiliation of dissidents. Seeing it hit again mattered for that reason.
Even when buildings had been partly emptied, they still housed the tools of coercion: files, servers, records, communications systems, vehicles and equipment.
In some post-strike videos, papers and official documents could be seen scattered in the streets after blasts ripped through buildings that looked outwardly residential or commercial.
One attack in western Tehran offered a different picture: a strike on the 12,000-seat Azadi sports hall, where anti-riot personnel appear to have been moved. Iran International’s reporting estimates that between 900 and 1,200 security personnel may have been killed there.
From the capital to small towns
What happened in Tehran was echoed outside it.
On the capital’s outskirts, command centers in Rey, Karaj and Mahdasht were hit, along with Basij and police-linked sites in surrounding towns.
In the provinces, Iran International identified heavy strikes on intelligence, police, judicial and Guards facilities in cities including Isfahan, Khorramabad, Ilam, Sanandaj, Semnan, Shiraz, Urmia and Tabriz.
In small towns, local police posts carry a special weight. They are often the clearest symbol of the central government’s presence, and one of the first places where people encounter coercion directly.
That is what makes a place like Abdanan important. The town had already become known for the violence used against residents during the January uprising. Even a mourning ceremony for local victims was met with gunfire.
Days later, residents watched their police station and Guards facilities explode. For people who had just buried their dead, the collapse of those buildings was not just another wartime image. It was the visible breaking of a local order that had seemed untouchable.
What remains after the strikes stop
If the campaign ends soon, the central question will not be only what has been destroyed, but what has been exposed.
The Islamic Republic’s internal coercive machine appears weaker, less insulated and less imposing than before.
Walls around intelligence compounds have fallen. Buildings long associated with fear have been reduced to rubble. Officials who once threatened subordinates from the top of the pyramid are gone.
But the country that remains will also be poorer and angrier.
Official figures show point-to-point food inflation in the last month of the Persian year running above 113%, with some staples such as cooking oil up as much as 220% and bread up 140%, while wages rose only 20% to 30%.
Power cuts, already worsening before the war because of years of underinvestment, point to deeper structural decay that long predates the current fighting.
The war will end. What will remain for ordinary Iranians is a country already battered by record food inflation, stagnant wages and years of neglected infrastructure long before the current fighting began.
For many of those who lost relatives in the January crackdown, that larger story may be distilled into one image: not an oil turbine or a military depot, but the police station, Basij base or courthouse that once embodied fear, now lying in ruins.
Two sources close to the presidential office said a tense exchange took place on Saturday, April 4, between Pezeshkian and Hossein Taeb, a powerful figure close to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei. Those present described the conversation as unusually difficult and highly charged.
During the meeting, Pezeshkian accused IRGC chief commander Ahmad Vahidi and Ali Abdollahi, commander of Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters – the country’s armed forces' unified command, of acting unilaterally and driving escalation through attacks on regional countries, especially against their infrastructure.
According to the sources, Pezeshkian said those policies had destroyed any remaining chance of a ceasefire and were steering the Islamic Republic directly toward “a huge catastrophe.”
He also warned that, based on what he described as precise assessments, Iran’s economy would not be able to withstand a prolonged war for much longer and that full economic collapse was inevitable under current conditions.
The confrontation comes amid mounting evidence of a broader power shift inside the Islamic Republic, with military and intelligence networks increasingly displacing both the elected government and the traditional clerical order.
Ideological collapse and hidden state
A regional source familiar with internal developments told Iran International in February that the model of velayat-e faqih (guardianship of the jurist) that has defined the Islamic Republic for more than four decades is now undergoing a fundamental transformation and even an “ideological collapse.”
According to that source, the appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei to the leadership, despite lacking the traditional qualifications and legitimacy associated with the position, took place through an opaque process that in practice amounts to the sidelining of the traditional clergy and the consolidation of full control by the Guards’ military-intelligence apparatus.
The source said this process has strengthened what many insiders describe as the Islamic Republic’s “hidden state.”
Iran International has previously reported growing tensions between Pezeshkian and senior IRGC commanders, particularly Vahidi, over how the war should be managed and over its destructive impact on people’s livelihoods and the economy.
On March 28, informed sources said Pezeshkian had criticized the Guards’ approach to escalating tensions and continuing attacks on neighboring countries, warning that without a ceasefire the economy could collapse within three weeks to a month.
Subsequent reporting by Iran International showed that the president’s authority has continued to shrink.
Sources said the Guards have resisted Pezeshkian’s appointments and decisions, effectively stripped the government of executive control and erected a security barrier around the core of power.
According to those reports, Pezeshkian’s attempt to appoint a new intelligence minister collapsed under direct pressure from Vahidi, who rejected all proposed candidates, including Hossein Dehghan, and insisted that all key wartime positions must, for now, be chosen and managed directly by the Guards.
Iran International also reported that Pezeshkian was forced, under direct IRGC pressure, to appoint Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council despite his dissatisfaction with the choice.
Logistical crisis
Alongside the political infighting, fresh field reports received by Iran International point to a worsening human and logistical crisis inside the Guards and the Basij.
Sources said that over the past 72 hours, operational forces have faced acute shortages of basic supplies, including edible food, hygiene facilities and places to sleep.
Recent strikes on infrastructure and bases have left many Guards and Basij personnel sleeping in the streets, and in some areas they have had access to only one meal a day.
According to informed sources, some personnel were forced to buy food from shops and restaurants with their own money after expired rations were distributed.
At the same time, disruptions affecting Bank Sepah’s electronic systems have reportedly delayed the salaries and benefits of military personnel, fueling fresh anger and mistrust within the ranks.
Iran International had previously reported similarly dire conditions in field units, including severe shortages of ammunition, water and food, as well as growing desertions by exhausted soldiers.
Even in the Guards’ missile units, which have historically received priority treatment, sources reported serious communications failures and food shortages. They said commanders were continuing to send only technical components needed to keep missile systems operational, rather than food or basic individual supplies for personnel.
