Iran International
Hours after threatening to hit Iran “very hard,” President Donald Trump said a deal with Tehran was close, leaving Iranian officials to balance threats of retaliation with signals that talks over Hormuz, sanctions relief and a fragile ceasefire are still alive.
The sudden shift followed a volatile day in which US forces were reportedly hours away from launching new strikes inside Iran before Trump called off the operation and said the two sides had reached what he described as a “great deal.”
Reports by Axios, Politico and other outlets said the emerging memorandum of understanding would immediately reopen the Strait of Hormuz without tolls, lift the US blockade, extend the ceasefire for 60 days, including in Lebanon, and leave detailed nuclear negotiations for a second stage.
The agreement has not been formally signed. Axios reported that it still needed final approval, while Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Tehran had not reached a final decision. Al Arabiya reported that Iran had conveyed approval of a draft through Qatari mediators.
The latest diplomatic push came after a sharp escalation in rhetoric. Trump had earlier threatened new strikes against Iran and suggested the United States could eventually take control of Kharg Island and other parts of Iran’s oil infrastructure.
For Tehran, the public response has mixed defiance with pressure tactics.
Ali Abdollahi, commander of Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, warned that attacks on Iran’s energy infrastructure could threaten exports across the region.
“Either oil and gas exports will remain available for everyone, or they will be possible for no one,” he said, adding that Iran would respond more forcefully if US attacks continued and that “the fire of war could spread further.”
Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf also warned that US actions could destabilize the region and energy markets.
“Wrong strategies and impulsive decisions will reset the entire board for the worse, explode energy infrastructure and markets, and create an endless quagmire that you will be stuck in for years,” he wrote on X. “You will see a different Iran.”
Mohsen Rezaei, a military adviser to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, mocked Trump’s strategy and said military pressure would deepen Washington’s problems.
“The unhinged US president imagines that bombs can get him out of the quagmire he himself created,” Rezaei wrote. “But Iranian missiles will sink him even deeper into it.”
He added that Washington must choose between accepting Iran’s terms and losing what he called the last remains of its credibility.
Lawmaker Mojtaba Zarei said Iran had effectively moved beyond the ceasefire, saying Tehran was using its military power in three arenas: the Strait of Hormuz, the blockade front, and Lebanon and Bab al-Mandab. He said Iran would not relinquish control over Hormuz.
Iranian state media have also sought to portray the US strikes as ineffective and Trump’s threats as exaggerated. Outlets including Fars, IRNA and state broadcaster IRIB have described the attacks as aggression and a repeated violation of the ceasefire, while emphasizing reported damage to civilian infrastructure, including drinking-water reservoirs in southern Iran.
They have largely ridiculed Trump’s remarks about taking Kharg Island and Iranian oil infrastructure, describing them as delusion, adventurism or hollow threats.
Still, Iranian-linked actions and claims have continued around the edges of the ceasefire. Fox News reported that US forces shot down two Iranian one-way attack drones after an attempted strike on commercial ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
Iranian state media also reported that the IRGC Navy had confronted what it described as a “violating” vessel near Sirik and forced an oil tanker to comply with a traffic prohibition order.
The mixed signals have left analysts divided over whether the latest exchange marks a return to war or another stage of coercive bargaining.
Hassan Hanizadeh, a foreign policy analyst, told Fararu that the US strikes appeared aimed less at launching a full-scale campaign than at restoring Washington’s initiative.
“The United States is trying to shift the psychological balance in its favor through limited military actions,” he said.
Hanizadeh argued that the likelihood of a full-scale war in the short term remains low, and that Washington is instead pursuing a war of attrition combining military pressure with economic tools.
Others in Tehran have described the strikes as part of the negotiating process itself. Ebrahim Azizi, chairman of parliament’s National Security Committee, called the military operations “the military annex to the negotiating table.”
Political analyst Hossein Ghatib argued that Washington is trying to turn the Strait of Hormuz from a geopolitical asset for Iran into a source of military, economic and diplomatic vulnerability.
He said recent attacks on coastal radars, air-defense systems, naval command centers, drone bases and missile facilities appeared designed to weaken Iran’s ability to monitor and control the waterway.
But Shahin Shahid-Saless, an international affairs analyst, argued that military pressure is unlikely to soften Tehran’s position.
“Under military pressure, no matter how powerful, the Islamic Republic will not change its position,” he wrote on X. “I would even go further and say that heavy bombing will not soften its stance; it will make it harder and less reconcilable.”
That tension now defines the moment: Washington is using military threats and a blockade to push Tehran toward a preliminary deal, while Iranian officials are threatening Hormuz, US interests and regional energy flows to raise the cost of further pressure.
Whether the emerging agreement holds may depend less on Trump’s claim that the deal is nearly done than on whether Tehran treats the current pressure as a reason to sign – or as another reason to harden its terms.
Tehran’s unveiling of a towering statue depicting the Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling before pre-Islamic Persian King Shapur I has renewed criticism of the Islamic Republic’s appeal to nationalist sentiment following the June war with Israel.
For over forty years, the theocracy purged ancient Persian history from schoolbooks, replacing it with post-Islamic narratives. But after the 12-day conflict with Israel, officials have turned to the distant pre-Islamic past to rally a divided society.
From murals of ancient kings and soldiers to patriotic songs added to Shi’ite mourning ceremonies performed before Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Tehran now embraces imagery once deemed heretical by its own revolutionary ethos.
'Kneel before Iran' campaign
Tehran’s Revolution (Enghelab) Square was the scene of an unusual spectacle on Friday as officials unveiled a massive bronze statue depicting Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling in submission before Sassanid King Shapur I, commemorating Iran’s victory at the Battle of Edessa (260 AD).
The event was held under the slogan “Kneel before Iran,” part of what authorities describe as a campaign to project “national unity and historical pride” following the June war with Israel.
Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani, a staunch ultraconservative, said on X: “Enmity with Great Iran can only end in kneeling before this historic nation.”
Municipal official Davood Goodarzi said the installation would be accompanied by visual displays depicting “other victories of Iranians over foreign aggressors,” including the defeat of British forces by local commander Rais-Ali Delvari, Mirza Kuchak Khan’s resistance against Russian troops, and Surena’s triumph over Rome at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE.
The goal, Goodarzi said, is “strengthening concepts such as national dignity, social unity, and Iranian identity.”
The statue, he said, would remain temporarily at Revolution Square before being moved to a city gateway “where it will stand as the first emblem of Iran before diplomats and foreign visitors.”
Unveiled women were allowed to attend the unveiling ceremony—an uncommon scene at events organized by Tehran’s ultra-hardline municipality.
The turn to the pre-Islamic past
The sharp reversal also recalls remarks once made by Khamenei. In a 2011 speech, he asserted that “all the great military victories of this nation came after Islam,” dismissing pre-Islamic accounts as “things that are not documented.”
In 1987, he had said that prophets triumphed over kings such as Cyrus and that “nothing remains of these monarchs in history but names remembered with derision.”
Nevertheless, pro-government social media accounts have now gone so far as to circulate posters equating Khamenei himself with Shapur, showing him standing with a staff as Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump kneel before him. The caption reads: “You will kneel before Iran.”
'Hypocrisy'
Pro-government figures have hailed the move as a patriotic success. Conservative political reporter Hossein Saremi posted: “Today’s grand Iranian gathering showed that people and the state share one essence: Iran itself. Nothing can take our homeland away.”
Others, however, called the spectacle “hypocrisy.” Journalist Gholamhossein Pashaei wrote on X: “Every year you close Pasargadae to stop people from celebrating Cyrus Day, yet you unveil Shapur’s statue in Enghelab Square with drums and fireworks during Fatimiyya (mourning period)!”
Dissident commentator Hamid Asafi called the ceremony “a perfect snapshot of the Islamic Republic’s contradictions.”
On Telegram he wrote: “A week ago they closed Cyrus’s tomb out of fear of the crowds, and now they glorify Shapur in the same breath. The Islamic Republic fears living history but poses for selfies with its corpse.”
He added: “They know people no longer respond to rosaries and sermons. That’s why they’ve brought history back to the stage—in a controlled costume. If they can’t erase the past, they’ll try to own it.”
The irony deepened as UNESCO formally recognized Cyrus’s Charter as one of the earliest human-rights documents.
President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X: “Iran, the cradle of dialogue, justice, and coexistence, can still inspire peace today.”
Users swiftly replied, questioning how such pride could coexist with a government that blocks access to Cyrus’s tomb each year to those wishing to visit it on his birthday.