Iran's internet shutdown, which began in late February, is inflicting tens of millions of dollars in daily losses on the country’s economy, according to the head of the Knowledge-Based Economy Commission at Iran’s Chamber of Commerce.
Afshin Kolahi estimated the direct cost of internet outages at between $30 million and $40 million per day.
Including indirect losses, he said, the total impact rises to roughly $70 million to $80 million daily.
He compared the scale of the losses to major infrastructure projects, noting that building a bridge such as the B1 bridge which was hit in an airstrike during the war costs around $15 million to $20 million.
The cost of constructing each megawatt of power plant capacity, he added, ranges from $1 million to $3 million.
Based on these comparisons, Kolahi said the economic impact of internet shutdowns is effectively equivalent to losing multiple infrastructure projects every day.
“In practice, internet shutdowns mean losing the equivalent of four B1 bridges and two medium-sized power plants every day,” he said.
Trump administration officials are internally discussing plans for a potential second in-person meeting with Iranian officials before a ceasefire between Washington and Tehran expires next week, CNN reported, citing sources familiar with the talks.
The discussions remain preliminary, with officials considering possible dates and locations should ongoing negotiations with Iran and regional mediators progress in the coming days, according to the report.
“We need to be prepared to stand something up quickly should things head in that direction,” CNN quoted a source familiar with the talks as saying.
A regional source cited by CNN said that another round of negotiations could take place, with Turkey working to bridge gaps between the two sides.
Geneva and Islamabad are under consideration as potential venues for a future round, the report said.
US officials remain hopeful that a diplomatic off-ramp is achievable, CNN cited sources familiar with the talks as saying.
Depending on the pace of negotiations, Washington and Tehran could also extend the ceasefire deadline to allow more time for diplomacy, the report added.
US Senator Lindsey Graham opposed a reported proposal for a 20-year moratorium on Iran’s uranium enrichment under a potential deal, reacting to an Axios report that the United States made the offer during negotiations in Islamabad.
“I appreciate President Donald Trump’s resolve to end the Iranian conflict peacefully and through diplomacy. However, we have to remember who we’re dealing with in Iran: terrorists, liars and cheaters,” Graham wrote in a post on X.
“If this reporting is accurate, the idea that we would agree to a moratorium on enrichment rather than a ban on enrichment would be a mistake in my view,” he said.
“Would we agree to a moratorium for al Qaeda to enrich? No.”
“The only difference between al Qaeda and the Iranian regime is that one is a Sunni terrorist organization and the other is a Shia terrorist state,” he added. “They both have the same goal when it comes to the United States, Israel and the civilized world.”
Graham reiterated his call for a permanent ban on Iran’s uranium enrichment.
“No enrichment means no enrichment. Over 20 nations have peaceful nuclear power programs without enrichment capability. You can have peaceful nuclear power without enrichment, but you cannot make a bomb without enrichment,” he said.
“Again, no enrichment for Iran. They want a bomb and they cheat.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel and the United States had acted against Iran’s nuclear, missile, and military targets over the past year, warning that they could otherwise have been remembered with eternal dread like Nazi death camps.
“We have dealt a crushing blow to the evil regime in Iran in our two joint operations in the past year,” he said in a pre-recorded address marking Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“If we hadn’t acted, the names Natanz, Fordow, Isfahan and Parchin would likely have been remembered with eternal dread, precisely like Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek, and Sobibor,” he added.
“But we did act, and how, with the historically unprecedented partnership with President Trump and the United States. On this Holocaust Remembrance Day, we will remember that.”
Arab states hit hardest by Iran’s strikes may be emerging from the US-Iran ceasefire feeling sidelined, a shift that could push them closer to Israel as they rethink who can truly guarantee their security, Middle East scholar Dalia Ziada told Eye for Iran.
The pause in fighting has forced capitals across the Persian Gulf into a difficult reassessment.
For years, governments in cities like Doha, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Manama believed their wealth, diplomacy and security ties with Washington insulated them from the region’s wars.
The latest conflict shattered that assumption.
Now, Persian Gulf Arab countries are facing damaged infrastructure, economic uncertainty, renewed fears over the Strait of Hormuz and a deeper strategic question: whether the United States remains enough.
The current arrangement is better understood as a tactical break than a durable ceasefire, one that gave both Washington and Tehran space to regroup while allowing each side to project strength at home and abroad, Ziada said.
More significantly, the countries most directly affected by Iranian strikes were largely left outside the diplomatic frame.
“They are very concerned especially [Persian] Gulf Arab countries who are thinking that they have been sidelined from this agreement for this short break or so-called ceasefire although they have been the ones most affected by this war," Ziada told the Eye for Iran podcast.
That sense of exclusion may accelerate a quiet but significant regional shift already underway.
Getting closer to Israel
“Ironically, all the signs tell us that Arab states are getting closer and closer to Israel,” she said.
The logic is increasingly practical. For many Persian Gulf Arab countries, the war exposed the limits of relying solely on American military guarantees while hosting US assets that can themselves become targets.
At the same time, Israel’s military posture and its willingness to directly confront Iran and its regional network is increasingly being viewed in some Persian Gulf capitals as a more immediate deterrent.
Many Arab states now appear to align more closely with Israel’s long-term regional objective: not destroying Iran as a nation but weakening the Islamic Republic and creating conditions for a future Iran capable of peaceful coexistence with its neighbors, Ziada said.
That growing overlap in strategic vision comes as frustration builds with other traditional regional actors.
In September 2025, Saudi Arabia signed the Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement (SMDA) with Pakistan, a comprehensive security pact that mandates that any aggression against one country is considered an attack on both, enabling joint defense, intelligence sharing, and military cooperation.
However, the pact did not prevent Iran's airstrikes targeting Saudi energy facilities during the war.
Disappointment with Pakistan and also Egypt, both long viewed by some Persian Gulf Arab countries as fallback security partners, has deepened the sense among Arab leaders that they may need to diversify security relationships after both failed to meet expectations during the conflict, Ziada said.
The result could be a gradual move by more Arab states toward Israel not only diplomatically, but in intelligence-sharing, missile defense and broader regional deterrence.
The implications extend well beyond the ceasefire itself.
Iran’s leverage can no longer be measured only by what happens inside Tehran. Its real regional power now lies in the network it has built through Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and aligned political and militia structures in Iraq, Ziada said.
That means Persian Gulf security calculations are no longer centered solely on the Islamic Republic’s territory, but on its ability to project force through multiple Arab fronts.
Rather than lowering tensions, the ceasefire may harden Arab states views that Iran remains the region’s central long-term threat even in a weakened state.
For Persian Gulf Arab countries, that raises urgent questions about how to protect shipping lanes, desalination infrastructure, airports, energy exports and financial hubs if conflict resumes.
The answer may increasingly point toward a broader regional security architecture in which Israel plays a larger role, one of the most consequential geopolitical outcomes of the war so far, she said.
“We are really seeing a huge change in the Middle East right now. The Middle East will not be the same anymore.”