Vance rejects claims of foreign influence over Iran policy
US Vice President JD Vance rejected accusations that Qatar, other foreign governments or conservative commentator Tucker Carlson had influenced his approach to Iran.
“People said I’m influenced by Qatar, foreign governments, I take my marching orders from Tucker Carlson. There’s so much bullshit out there,” Vance said in an interview with Joe Rogan.
Vance said he was seeking to carry out President Donald Trump’s objective of reaching a settlement that would prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and ensure the free flow of oil and gas.
A screen-grab from a video published by citizen journalist Vahid Online, purporting to show the aftermath of a US strike on Iran's southeastern port city of Chabahar, July 15, 2026
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.
Iranian fans during the Team Melli match against New Zealand at Los Angeles Stadium, Inglewood, California, on June 15, 2026
Iran's national team exited the World Cup in the group stage, yet two Iranians may still command Sunday's final: an exiled violinist on the halftime stage and the referee tipped for the whistle. Neither arrives representing the Islamic Republic.
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.
Iran’s parliamentary health committee is investigating the allocation of $55 million in subsidized foreign currency to one importer of hip and knee implants, after its chairman said much of the equipment went to private hospitals and a small group of surgeons.
Hossein-Ali Shahriari told the ILNA news agency that the company, which he did not identify, imports implants made by US medical-device manufacturer Zimmer. He said it received about $37 million at the heavily subsidized rate of 42,000 rials to the dollar in the Iranian year ending March 2025, followed by another $18 million at 285,000 rials per dollar in the following year.
Both rates were far more favorable than those available on Iran’s open currency market, giving importers access to dollars at a fraction of their market cost. For comparison, the dollar trades at about 1,875,000 rials on Iran’s open market today. Average monthly income in Iran is about $150.
Shahriari said the committee had received complaints from across Iran about shortages of knee and hip implants in public hospitals. It has sought records from the Central Bank and the Food and Drug Administration to determine which companies received subsidized currency and what happened to the imported equipment.
According to figures cited by Shahriari, 73% of the implants distributed in Tehran went to private hospitals. He also reported sharply unequal distribution outside the capital, with some provinces receiving only a fraction of the supply.
Patients in several provinces were required to pay money directly before company representatives would provide an implant, he said. “Why should people have to pay hundreds of millions, which many of them cannot afford, leaving them either to die or to sell their homes and cars for treatment?” Shahriari said.
He called on the judiciary, the national inspectorate and intelligence and oversight agencies to examine the company’s previous currency allocations, arguing that the scale of the case suggested a wider network rather than the actions of one person.
Shahriari did not provide evidence establishing criminal wrongdoing, and the importer was not named in the interview. No response from the company or Iran’s Food and Drug Administration was included in the ILNA report.
The allegations point to a recurring problem in Iran’s multiple-exchange-rate system. Preferential dollars were intended to keep medicines and medical equipment affordable, but the gap between subsidized and market rates created lucrative opportunities for intermediaries. President Masoud Pezeshkian acknowledged the problem in January, saying recipients of dollars at the 285,000-rial rate had “pocketed” the benefit rather than passing it to consumers.
The dispute comes during a broader healthcare crisis. People in Iran have sent messages to Iran International about severe medicine shortages, delays in foreign-currency allocations and price increases of up to 400% for some drugs, pushing more patients toward unaffordable or illicit sources.
A man looking at the B1 Bridge linking Karaj to Tehran that was bombed by the US in April
US President Donald Trump said he would expand military strikes on Iran to power plants and bridges unless Tehran returned to negotiations, warning in a Fox News interview broadcast on Tuesday that attacks would intensify next week.
"We're going to hit them very hard tonight," Trump said. "We're going to hit them hard tomorrow night. We're gonna hit them really hard the night after."
"Next week it gets really bad for them because next week comes the power plants," he said. "Next week comes the bridges. We're gonna knock out all their power plants. We're going to knock out all their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate."
Trump said US representatives had recently spoken with Iranian negotiators but said Tehran had repeatedly broken agreements.
"They want to make a deal. But every time they make a deal, they break it," he said.
"You better make a deal. You're not going to have anybody left," Trump added, saying the United States was taking care to limit harm to civilians.
He also said Iran's military capabilities had been significantly weakened but retained some ability to fight back.
"They have some fight left, but they don't have much," he said.
Trump added that the United States could quickly strike a nuclear site outside Tehran where new activity had been reported.
"We can hit that one very easily," he said. "It only takes a matter of minutes for us to do it and do major damage."
Ground campaign and Kharg Island
Trump declined to say whether the United States could launch a ground campaign in Iran but suggested he would not rule out the option entirely.
"I don't want to say that either, but I would say no," he said when asked by Fox News whether he was ruling out a limited ground campaign. "Sometimes you need a ground campaign, but we have other people that will do the ground campaign for us."
Trump said US forces had already struck Iran's Kharg Island three times but had deliberately avoided its oil facilities.
"I said, 'Hit everything but the oil,'" he said. "Leave that little area. Don't touch the oil because I don't want that in terms of the world economy."
Asked whether the United States could seize the island, Trump said: "If we degrade them far enough and deep enough back, I would do that."
Hormuz policy
Trump said he had abandoned plans to impose a 20% fee on cargo transiting the Strait of Hormuz, saying countries in the region had instead agreed to make major investments in the United States.
"I was going to charge a fee, but instead they'd rather spend a lot of money in the United States," he said.
He said the United States had reinstated a naval blockade on Iranian shipping and that its objectives, including keeping the Strait of Hormuz open, had largely been achieved, although commercial traffic through the waterway has fallen sharply.
"I think they're completed now, honestly," Trump said of the military campaign. "If we left right now, it would take them 20 years to rebuild what they have."
Iranian retaliation vows
Trump's remarks came as Iranian officials and lawmakers stepped up calls for retaliation following US strikes and the killing of former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
About 180 lawmakers said on Tuesday that Iran should treat its memorandum of understanding with the United States as terminated after Trump declared the agreement over.
They pledged to pursue retaliation for Khamenei's killing and called for a special parliamentary committee to review negotiations with Washington.
The lawmakers also backed legislation on the management of the Strait of Hormuz and voiced support for Iran's armed forces.
Iran's army said on Wednesday it would deliver a "decisive response" after a US strike on a barracks in Bampur near Iranshahr killed seven military personnel.
"The retaliation for the blood of the martyrs of this crime is certain and imminent," the army said.
Calls for military action
Manouchehr Mottaki, a former Iranian foreign minister who is now a member of parliament, called for a ground assault on a US military base in the region.
"My proposal is that we launch a ground attack on one of the US bases in the region, capture 100 Americans and bring them to Iran," Mottaki said.
Another lawmaker, Shahrokh Ramin, criticized a parliamentary proposal titled "Revenge against Trump," saying genuine retaliation would not come through legislation.
"Someone who wants to take revenge does not turn it into a law," Ramin said. "If we are truly seeking revenge, we take revenge, and the way to do it is not through legislation."
Craig and Lindsay Foreman pose for a selfie in an unknown location in this undated handout photograph taken in 2024 and obtained by Reuters on February 19, 2026.
A British man jailed in Iran on espionage charges was given an additional two-year prison term after authorities accused him of speaking to the media from prison, his family said.
Craig Foreman and his wife, Lindsay, were arrested in January last year while traveling through Iran by motorcycle on a journey from Europe to Australia. Both deny the espionage charges. They were each sentenced to 10 years in prison in February.
Joe Bennett, Lindsay Foreman's son and the family's spokesperson, said Craig Foreman was told he was being taken to see his lawyer but was instead brought before a judge and informed of the additional sentence.
“He was allowed no lawyer, no translator and no opportunity to defend himself,” Bennett said, adding that the family was “absolutely flabbergasted” by the decision.
The couple have been on hunger strike since May after prison authorities prevented them from calling their families. HRANA, a US-based human rights group, said last week that Craig Foreman had lost about 16 kilograms while Lindsay Foreman was suffering from dizziness and body tremors.
“My mum and Craig are 18 months into an ordeal they should never have known,” Bennett said. “They are weak, they are hungry, and now Craig is being punished simply for being heard. To add two more years to an innocent man's sentence, in secret and with no chance to defend himself, is a flagrant abuse of the most basic rights any person is owed.”
Last month, UN special rapporteurs Alice Edwards and Mai Sato called for the couple's release, saying they appeared to have been wrongfully detained and sentenced after proceedings that “failed to meet basic fair trial guarantees.”
Britain has advised against all travel to Iran since 2022, warning that British nationals may be detained because of their nationality or links to the UK. The Foreign Office has said it is working to secure the couple's release and that their welfare remains a priority. The family also welcomed the appointment this week of former Middle East minister Alistair Burt as Britain's first envoy for nationals detained abroad in complex cases.
