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.
Soleimani Ardestani, a religious scholar, former Mofid University professor and member of a reformist association of Qom seminary teachers and researchers, is being held in Qom’s prison.
According to Mojtaba Lotfi, an official from the office of the late dissident cleric Hossein Ali Montazeri, the court convicted him on all eight charges brought against him.
Lotfi said Soleimani Ardestani does not plan to appeal unless the court agrees to hold a public hearing.
In a letter from prison, Soleimani Ardestani said the charges against him included disturbing public opinion, insulting sacred values, insulting the leadership in relation to Ali Khamenei and his son Mojtaba, taking part in a gathering over the house arrest of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, and assembly and collusion against domestic security.
Mousavi, a former prime minister, has been under house arrest since 2011 after rejecting the official result of Iran’s disputed 2009 presidential election and becoming one of the symbols of the Green Movement protests.
Soleimani Ardestani also listed accusations such as propaganda against the system, spreading falsehoods online, insulting senior religious authorities, damaging the dignity of the clergy and “mind control and psychological suggestion” – a striking charge even by the standards of Iran’s broad political indictments.
He has called the indictment weak and baseless, criticized his arrest and solitary confinement, and said he wrote his defense not to seek acquittal but to leave a record for history.
The case began with remarks in a debate with pro-government cleric Hamed Kashani. Soleimani Ardestani questioned long-promoted Shiite accounts about the death of Fatemeh Zahra, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammed and wife of Ali, the first Shiite Imam.
In Iran, the story of Fatemeh’s martyrdom is not only a religious narrative but part of a vast state-backed culture of mourning, ritual and political identity.
Soleimani Ardestani argued that if Ali had merely watched his wife being attacked and had not intervened, then the traditional account would raise questions about his justice. He later said he had not insulted Fatemeh and was challenging what he called the “stories told by religious singers or eulogists (maddahs).”
He also questioned mourning ceremonies for Muhammad Taqi, the ninth Shiite Imam, saying his death was linked to jealousy by his wife after he remarried and that mourning the event 1,300 years later was meaningless.
The backlash was immediate. Pro-government eulogists, who play an influential role in mobilizing religious crowds, attacked him with vulgar and sexist language. Reports also emerged of a group attack on his home.
Hardline figures called for prosecution and defrocking, while some religious voices went further, suggesting that denial of Fatemeh’s martyrdom could amount to leaving Shiite doctrine.
The controversy also split parts of the political middle ground. Reformist figures criticized Soleimani Ardestani’s tone and timing, while others warned that violent threats, home attacks and denunciations violated freedom of belief.
The sentence is significant because it shows how quickly the Islamic Republic can convert a dispute over religious history into a security case.
Soleimani Ardestani was not an outside critic of clerical rule. He was a cleric from inside the seminary world, which makes his challenge more sensitive.
By sentencing him to prison and stripping him of clerical status, the system is not only punishing one man. It is policing the boundaries of who is allowed to interpret religion, how far internal debate can go, and what happens when religious scholarship collides with the political theology of the state.
The performance took place on Thursday during Eid al-Ghadir celebrations at Imam Hossein Square in central Tehran. The event, which received extensive coverage from official and semi-official media outlets, featured Binesh Bolour, known professionally as Gheysar, who has lived outside Iran for nearly four decades.
In recent years, the Islamic Republic has sought to transform Eid al-Ghadir into a broader national celebration through large-scale public events held in city streets and squares.
The festival included speeches by clerics, performances by government-approved pop singers and religious vocalists closely associated with hardline political groups. Gheysar took the stage as some members of the crowd chanted “Long Live Iran” and “Death to America.”
Official and semi-official media outlets, including state broadcaster IRIB, widely circulated videos of his appearance. In a caption accompanying one of the videos, IRIB wrote that Gheysar had “shouted out his patriotism and returned to Iran” after the outbreak of the recent war involving Iran, the United States, and Israel.
The newspaper Haft-e Sobh described Gheysar’s participation in an official event as both “surprising” and “taboo-breaking,” noting that it was unprecedented since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The newspaper wrote: “Gheysar’s presence in Tehran and his performance should be regarded as an important development with dimensions beyond an artistic event. This form of participation in an official ceremony could symbolize the breaking of one of the cultural boundaries of the past four decades.”
Anti-western statements during the war
During the recent conflict involving Iran, the United States and Israel, Gheysar repeatedly criticized US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on social media. He also strongly attacked Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi and opposition groups that advocated foreign support for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.
In one video, he said the Iranian nation had broken the “hegemony of the West” and that he was proud of being Iranian. Following the military confrontation, he published additional videos praising Iran’s military capabilities and said: “We shattered the West’s grandeur, and I am proud of that.”
Mixed reactions online
The singer’s appearance has generated sharply divided reactions on social media. Some users described the government’s decision to allow him to perform as hypocrisy, arguing that the authorities embrace nationalism only when they need public support.
One user, Mehrdad Raha, wrote: “Whenever you see a veteran Iranian singer abroad becoming softer in tone toward the Islamic Republic, know that the government has probably been in contact with them for some time, using intermediaries, with promises of money, sponsorship, travel opportunities to Iran, or other incentives to win them over.”
Gheysar rejected such accusations in a video circulated online. He said this was not his first visit to Iran and insisted that he had not returned for money or to obtain a permanent license to work in the country.
He said he had participated in the ceremony because, like many Shiites, he holds a deep respect for Imam Ali, whom Shiites believe was designated by the Prophet Muhammad as his successor at Ghadir.
The legacy of the “Los Angeles singer”
The controversy also revived discussion about the long-standing phenomenon of the so-called “Los Angeles singer.”
Following the 1979 revolution, many Iranian pop stars and actors left the country, particularly female performers whose singing careers were effectively prohibited under the new political order. Many settled in the United States, especially in Southern California.
For years, recordings by exiled singers circulated inside Iran through cassette tapes and videotapes that were copied and distributed despite official restrictions. Possession or distribution of such material could expose people to legal penalties.
The style of dance-oriented Persian pop music associated with Los Angeles was often portrayed in official discourse as morally corrupt, and the term “Los Angeles singer” frequently carried a derogatory connotation in state media.
Several Iranian outlets referred to Gheysar, who has also performed in Israel, a destination Iranian citizens are generally prohibited from visiting, in exactly those terms while reporting on his recent appearance.
Yet the two songs he performed in Tehran differed markedly from the repertoire that made him famous.
One song was dedicated to his hometown, Tehran. The second, titled “The Children of Minab,” was inspired by damage to a school in the southern city of Minab during the first day of the recent conflict. Iranian media reported that 120 schoolchildren and nearly 40 teachers, staff members and parents were killed in the attack.
Could other exile artists return?
Gheysar’s official appearance has renewed speculation about whether other prominent exile artists might be allowed to return.
Haft-e Sobh asked: “Now we must wait and see whether Gheysar’s return is an exception or whether this path will be opened for other artists as well. Will this remain limited to one person, or could it become a model for the future?”
In recent months, several well-known Los Angeles-based Iranian singers have publicly expressed a desire to spend their final years in Iran.
Among those expressing a desire to return is veteran singer Shahram Shabpareh, who has said he would like to spend the final years of his life and career in Iran.
The possibility of a return by singer Moein has also been the subject of recurring speculation, although reports about potential concerts in Iran have repeatedly been denied by him or those close to him.
For supporters, Gheysar’s appearance may signal a gradual easing of long-standing cultural restrictions surrounding exiled performers.
Skeptics, however, point to the experience of singer Habib, who returned to Iran in 2009 but was repeatedly denied permits to perform, arguing that official approval can be fleeting and does not necessarily translate into lasting artistic freedom.
