Iran International
A week of heavy fighting has left parts of Iran’s southern coast looking unmistakably like a war zone. Yet in Tehran, many still struggle to believe the country is at war.
Watching explosions on television and social media from hundreds of kilometers away, many see the confrontation with the United States as another familiar cycle of pressure that may yet give way to negotiations.
Fatemeh Rajabi, the news anchor who first reported the U.S. strikes on ports and military sites in southern Iran on the YouTube program Hasht-e Shab, says many in the capital find it difficult to grasp that a war is unfolding along the northern shores of the Persian Gulf — the region they casually refer to as “down under.”
Reporter Ali Pakzad, who visited the area during the strikes, says missiles hit targets from Abadan near the Iraqi border to Chabahar and Saravan near Pakistan.
He described damaged fishing vessels, battered ports and communities whose livelihoods have been shattered by attacks documented in the program’s footage.
That contrast lies at the heart of an investigative report by journalist Mira Ghorbanifar in Toseh Irani, titled The South in the Fire of War and Ashes of Ceasefire.
Ghorbanifar writes that explosions now puncture the dawn along Iran’s southern coast. Smoke rises from damaged docks, charred dhows lie abandoned, and fish markets once full of noise now speak only of “a war for which no one has yet chosen a definite name.”
While officials speak of “understandings,” “ceasefires” and “crisis management,” she argues, people in Iran’s south are grappling with damaged infrastructure and disrupted shipping, trying to adapt to what increasingly resembles a war of attrition.
She also asks whether the so-called Islamabad Understanding still exists. Is the fighting along Iran’s southern coast part of the same hundred-day conflict, or the start of a new phase of controlled escalation? And can both sides return to negotiations before crossing a point of no return?
The concerns extend well beyond independent journalists.
Government-aligned newspapers have increasingly questioned whether Iran can sustain a prolonged confrontation while struggling to protect civilians and critical infrastructure.
Moderate daily Sharq describes the country’s predicament as “structural and accumulated,” arguing that damaged infrastructure, naval disruption and collapsing logistics have left even minor shocks capable of triggering major crises.
Centrist Etemad warns that public trust has eroded while the state remains unprepared for cascading emergencies.
Economic newspapers have echoed those warnings.
Jahan Sanat argues that Iran’s deterrence is steadily weakening under sustained pressure, while Donya-ye Eghtesad says military decisions are increasingly driven by political necessity rather than strategic advantage, leaving the country more vulnerable in a prolonged conflict.
Washington-based analysts Mohammad Ghaedi and Farzin Nadimi have voiced similar concerns in interviews with Persian-language media abroad.
Ghaedi argues that Iran’s governing system “has repeatedly refused to learn from past mistakes,” pointing to what he sees as a widening disconnect between insulated decision-makers and citizens bearing the costs of conflict.
Nadimi says Iran is confronting the United States at “a moment of maximum structural fragility,” with deterrence eroding and escalation driven more by political necessity than strategic advantage.
“Iran is not in a position to manage a prolonged conflict,” he warns, adding that every new attack “burns away another part of Iran’s deterrent capability.”
Even hardline media have shown hints of concern. Resalat recently urged Iran to “rebuild its defensive capacity” after recent military losses — a rare acknowledgement from a conservative newspaper that the country’s deterrence has been weakened.
For now, the divide remains striking. In Tehran, politicians and commentators continue to debate negotiations, ceasefires and diplomatic understandings.
Along the southern coast, many residents have already stopped asking what to call the conflict. They are simply living through it.
When the whistle blows for halftime at MetLife Stadium on Sunday, July 19, football's first-ever World Cup halftime show will begin – an 11-minute spectacle curated by Coldplay's Chris Martin, headlined by Madonna, Shakira, Justin Bieber, BTS and Burna Boy, with conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the PS22 Chorus.
And if the past week's frenzy in the Persian-speaking world is to be believed, somewhere in that lineup will stand Bijan Mortazavi, the Iranian violin virtuoso, with his famous white violin.
The story first surfaced through Persian-language music outlets, which reported that FIFA had selected Mortazavi for a live performance during the final's interval.
Skepticism followed almost immediately. FIFA's official announcements listed the marquee names but made no mention of the 68-year-old Iranian, and veteran music journalists would only call it the closest rumor to reality.
Then Mortazavi himself all but ended the debate. He posted a photograph alongside Chris Martin and Gustavo Dudamel, describing an "excellent and fruitful" first rehearsal with the New York Philharmonic, an image Coldplay fan accounts quickly carried around the world.
FIFA has yet to publish his name. But artists do not rehearse with the show's musical director and its conductor by accident, and reports say he will perform one of his instrumental works, with a solo passage on the white violin that has been his visual signature for three decades.
The news set Persian social media alight. Posts declaring "It's confirmed" drew hundreds of thousands of views within hours, and the pride quickly turned pointed.
Users contrasted an artist whose albums are still denied release permits inside Iran standing on the world's biggest stage, while the officials who ban his music watch from a country at war and in crisis. Others noted the bitter symmetry: Iran's team went home; Iran's music reached the final.
That symmetry stings because the national team's bond with its own public has frayed. After the side's elimination – three draws in three games – many Iranians described the failure less as a sporting loss than as a verdict on players seen as siding with the government during the nationwide protests, with defender Ramin Rezaeian's name recurring most often.
Unlike past tournaments, the matches drew few public gatherings inside Iran, and some openly welcomed the exit. When Shoja Khalilzadeh's late goal against Egypt was ruled offside by five centimeters, users linked it mockingly to his past pledge to dedicate goals to the Supreme Leader.
For millions of Iranians, representation has quietly migrated from the federation's badge to individuals in the diaspora, and Mortazavi embodies that shift.
Born in Sari in 1957, he began violin at three, trained in Tehran under masters including Parviz Yahaghi, and – in a fitting twist – played as a youth goalkeeper, part of Iran's junior national football setup, before music won out.
He left Iran after high school, studied in England, moved to the United States in 1979 and settled in California, where his blend of Persian melody and Western pop made him the best-known Iranian violinist in the world. In 1994 he became the first Iranian artist to headline Los Angeles' Greek Theatre.
He may not be the only Iranian at MetLife on Sunday. Alireza Faghani – born in Kashmar and the first man to referee at four men's World Cups – is widely reported as FIFA's leading candidate to take charge of the final itself.
Faghani left Iran for Australia in 2019, a move linked to his support for the protest movement, and now officiates under the Australian flag. State media in Tehran has attacked him – even censoring footage of him receiving his 2025 Club World Cup final medal – while many Iranians claim him proudly as their own.
No World Cup has ever had a halftime show. Shakira's "Waka Waka" in 2010, Ricky Martin's "La Copa de la Vida" in 1998 and Jung Kook's Qatar 2022 performance all belonged to the ceremonies, never to the final's interval.
Which means that if Mortazavi walks out on Sunday, he will not just be the first Iranian on a World Cup final stage. He will be part of the first such stage ever built.
If FIFA's final appointments hold, Sunday could end with an Iranian raising a violin at halftime and another raising the whistle for kickoff – two men who left, on the one stage the country's team could not reach.
Millions inside Iran will likely watch them the way they watch most things now: on any screen but state television's.
