Iran International
President Masoud Pezeshkian has come under mounting attack from Iran’s hardline factions after publicly defending negotiations with the United States and warning that war and sanctions are inflicting serious economic damage on the country.
Pezeshkian questioned opponents of diplomacy in a speech that quickly triggered a fierce backlash from hardline media and politicians.
“If we do not negotiate, then what should we do? Fight forever?” the president said Monday, adding that any talks with Washington would be conducted “with dignity.” He also argued that authorities must speak honestly to the public in order to maintain trust.
The reformist newspaper Sazandegi turned the president’s question into its front-page headline, framing it as a direct challenge to hardline rhetoric.
The reaction from hardline outlets close to the Paydari (Steadfastness) Party was swift.
Raja News described Pezeshkian’s remarks as “deviational” and accused him of becoming “a platform for the pro-Western current.”
In an editorial published Tuesday, the outlet wrote that insistence on negotiations with an enemy that “understands nothing but force” showed that “even the warnings of missiles are not enough to awaken simplistic minds that are comforted by the lullaby of negotiations.”
Hardline lawmaker Hamid Rasaei also attacked the administration during a speech at a pro-government gathering, arguing that negotiations with the United States had repeatedly failed and would bring no benefit to Iran.
Diplomacy continued amid such voices on Wednesday as Pezeshkian met Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, who is in Tehran to help exchange messages between Iran and Washington.
Pezeshkian said afterward that Iran had “consistently honored its commitments and explored every avenue to avert war,” adding that “all paths remain open from our side.”
The debate quickly spread across Persian-language social media, where hardline activists accused the president of weakness while supporters praised his candor and argued that acknowledging economic strain was necessary to maintain public trust during wartime.
The controversy also expanded beyond diplomacy into a broader dispute over whether Iranian officials should openly acknowledge the country’s economic and wartime difficulties.
In recent speeches, Pezeshkian warned against presenting an unrealistic image of Iran by pretending enemies were collapsing while Iran itself faced no economic strain. He spoke openly about oil export problems, gasoline shortages and the pressure created by sanctions and war.
Raja News accused the president of “displaying misery and backwardness” and “painting a bleak picture during wartime.”
The outlet mocked what it called his “latest masterpieces,” including remarks such as: “They blocked our path and we are not exporting oil,” “our gasoline production capacity has declined,” and “do we even have dollars at all?”
The backlash also exposed widening tensions within conservative circles, particularly between the ultrahardline Paydari camp and allies of parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.
Raja News criticized media outlets close to Ghalibaf for failing to sufficiently challenge the president’s comments, while some hardline activists accused the speaker of enabling Pezeshkian’s approach.
Following the criticism, Ghalibaf issued an audio message defending the government against what he described as politically motivated attacks.
Ghalibaf warned that some critics were speaking “as if no war had happened,” accusing politically motivated figures of blaming the government while ignoring broader realities.
Supporters of the president meanwhile defended his unusually candid tone.
Lawyer Yazdollah Taherinasab wrote on X that Pezeshkian’s willingness to speak openly about both the country’s strengths and weaknesses had increased public trust during wartime conditions.
Iran’s streets and comment sections increasingly project the same official mood: unity, defiance and loyalty. Nighttime rallies supply the images – flags, portraits, organized crowds. Online, many Iran-related posts draw a parallel chorus of praise for the Islamic Republic, celebration of its military posture and attacks on critics, often alongside tributes to slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his still-unseen successor, Mojtaba Khamenei.
What the screen does not show is the pool of people removed before the argument even begins.
As Iran’s internet blackout pushes deeper into its third month, the question is no longer only what people are saying online.
It is who still has the connection, the permission, the protection or the incentive to say it.
The latest crisis did not begin with one switch. During the January uprising, internet access was cut on January 8 and remained fully restricted until January 28. After US-Israeli strikes began on February 28, authorities imposed a new shutdown that has now moved toward its third month.
A normal comment section, however flawed, allows some collision between competing voices. A blackout changes the sample.
Many ordinary users are pushed onto restricted domestic services. Others ration expensive workarounds. Some businesses cannot reach customers. Students lose access to material. Families abroad struggle to maintain daily contact. At the same time, state-aligned users, approved institutions and privileged accounts remain visible on global platforms.
The asymmetry has not been hidden. In March, Iran’s government said it was providing special internet access to select users capable of promoting its messaging online. A government spokeswoman did not use the term “white SIM cards,” but said connectivity was being offered to “those who can better deliver the message.”
That is the controlled sample: not a country speaking freely, but a narrower population still able to speak outward.
The most revealing development is not only who receives access. It is what some people are asked to do to regain it.
Some Iranians whose SIM cards or internet access had been blocked over alleged online activity against the Islamic Republic said they were told to submit handwritten pledges, provide guarantors and publish pro-government content to restore access.
The notices asked for home and work addresses, bank account information, images of bank cards and links to social media accounts. They also instructed recipients not to publish content deemed harmful to the country’s “psychological, social or political security.”
Some were told to publish at least 20 posts supporting the Islamic Republic and send screenshots as proof.
The posts were not to be uploaded all at once. They had to be spaced out so the activity would appear natural.
Others were ordered to attend nighttime government rallies, photograph themselves carrying flags or images of the Supreme Leader, and provide identification documents from guarantors who would accept responsibility for any future “criminal activity.”
The detail about timing is small, but it carries the whole design. The aim is not merely loyalty. It is loyalty made to look organic.
This is where the street and the screen meet. Organized rallies produce images of public unity. Selective internet access and coerced posting can carry the same choreography into comment sections, reply chains and social platforms.
The state does not need every supportive post to be fake. It needs a system in which supportive voices are easier to see, dissenting voices are harder to hear, and some frightened users learn that getting back online may require a public performance of loyalty.
Iran’s internet is no longer simply available or unavailable. It has been sorted.
At the top are so-called white SIM cards, widely understood as privileged lines that allow largely unrestricted access for trusted insiders and state-aligned users. Below them are paid and limited services such as “Internet Pro,” presented by officials as a business necessity but described by many Iranians as a class-based system of digital inequality.
Reporting on material circulating among users described a four-level structure: white SIM cards, paid Internet Pro, costly VPN access and, for the majority, a restricted domestic network.
The economic filter is severe. Average monthly income in Iran is at around $100 to $200, while the minimum wage is typically below $100. Even official Internet Pro packages and VPN routes can be unaffordable, and black-market access has reportedly pushed prices far higher.
Access also carries political exposure. For those who can afford a connection, the risk is not only cost but traceability. A user may be able to post, but with the knowledge that the same system can block a SIM card, summon a guarantor, demand a pledge or turn an online comment into a legal file.
Iranian state-linked online influence operations long predate the current blackout. Microsoft has reported that Iranian cyber-enabled influence activity has been a consistent feature of at least the last three US election cycles.
In January, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies identified what it described as a likely regime-linked influence operation on X during protests, using coordinated accounts to delegitimize dissent, intimidate protesters and reinforce official narratives.
The report said the network included at least 289 accounts posting identical Persian-language content, with behavior suggesting a hybrid of automation and human operation.
But the current phase adds a more intimate layer. Foreign influence operations impersonate a public from a distance. Domestic coercion can pressure the public itself.
The old shorthand of “bots” misses the range of actors now shaping the visible online picture: automated accounts, organized cyber operators, loyalists with privileged access, state-linked media networks, paid voices, and users pushed to perform approval to recover ordinary tools of daily life.
The missing side of Iran’s online debate is not abstract.
It is the online seller without customers, the student without class materials, the programmer without contracts, the family unable to make a routine call abroad, and the person with disabilities cut off from services or communities that made daily life more manageable.
Against that background, pro-government comment floods do not prove a national mood. They show that some people still have access, some have protection, some have instructions, and many others have been priced out, cut off or made cautious by fear.
There are genuine supporters of the Islamic Republic. But a system that restricts millions, grants selective access, monitors users, blocks SIM cards and tells some people to space out loyalty posts cannot produce a clean reading of public opinion.
When a government cuts off the people and leaves the microphone to loyalists, the comment section stops being a public square.
It becomes part of the stage.
The real story is not only in the roar under the post. It is in the conditions that made so many others unable to answer back – and in the citizens told that to return to the internet, they must first praise the power that cut them off.
