Tehran debates waiting out Trump’s economic war

For nearly half a century the Islamic Republic has reproduced the image of its leaders everywhere: on the walls of schools and government offices, in theatres, cinemas and concert halls, behind officials at podiums, on television screens. Visibility was not vanity. In a system built on the authority of one man, the leader had to be seen for the state to demonstrate that it existed.

Before the war with the United States and Israel, that was the rule. Now the same system publishes messages from its new leader without being able, or perhaps without wanting, to show him.

In the first weeks after his appointment by the Assembly of Experts, the clerical body that selects Iran's supreme leader, intelligence services and media inside and outside the country waited for one thing: his Nowruz address. The Persian new year, which falls around March 20, brings the leader's most closely watched speech of the year, and a video would have answered the essential questions at once. He would have been demonstrably alive, apparently well, and visibly in charge.

No video came. The absence stopped looking like a security precaution and started looking like a condition.

The record since has only deepened the ambiguity. There is no photograph, no audio, no film.

Written statements have appeared, attributed to his office rather than demonstrably from his hand. The absence of anything verifiable, no image, no voice, no signature, has weakened the official account of his health and strengthened the theory that he was gravely wounded.

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The effect on the state has been visible. Officials who held together in the first days of the war have since split over what comes next, and the fault line runs through the war-or-negotiation question: the state broadcaster has censored the government's own negotiators, while hardline outlets have claimed the leader opposed the process that produced the Islamabad agreement. Both camps invoke him. Neither can produce him.

So the question is whether any of this can work in the system's favor.

Absence as possibility

Consider what visibility would cost. If Mojtaba Khamenei appears and the marks of injury or incapacity are apparent, the Islamic Republic must concede that its leader is diminished. If his death is confirmed, the succession fight begins. If he turns out to be healthy and active, he must accept responsibility for the decisions of the past six months, including a war.

Absence suspends all three. He can be alive, wounded, incapacitated or dead, and the machinery of the state can go on issuing orders in his name.

Uncertainty, which ought to be the government's problem, becomes its instrument.

While the leader's status remains unresolved, no faction can settle the succession, and no official has the standing either to accept defeat or to wind the system up. Commanders and institutions can continue to say they take their orders from the center, a center that may exist but cannot be seen.

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That has a second edge, and it cuts the other way. The same fog that prevents anyone from declaring the system finished also prevents anyone from commanding it. An absent leader cannot arbitrate between the men arguing over war and diplomacy, which is very likely why they began arguing in the first place. Ambiguity buys the system time by denying it direction.

Still, on this reading, even the collapse of the state's outer structure would not necessarily be the end. A network of the Revolutionary Guards, the Basij, the intelligence services, financial channels and allied forces across the region could carry on in the name of an absent leader. What would survive, in that case, would no longer be a government. It would be an underground organization.

From state to network

The comparison that follows is about mechanics, not equivalence. The question is narrow: how does a network continue after it loses its territory or its leader disappears? On that specific question, two cases are instructive, and neither is offered as a moral parallel to a state that has governed 90 million people for nearly five decades.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the Islamic State's caliphate from a mosque in Mosul in July 2014 and did not appear on camera again for almost five years, though audio messages attributed to him continued to circulate. In that period the group lost nearly all its territory and became a network of clandestine cells. After he was killed in 2019, a US Defense Department inspector general assessment found his death had produced no immediate decisive effect on the group's operations.

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Osama bin Laden spent almost a decade in hiding while releasing video and audio messages. His evasion of capture became, for his followers, evidence of invulnerability. Killing him destroyed that impression but did not destroy a network that had already devolved into regional branches.

The Islamic Republic is far better equipped for that kind of afterlife than either. It has governed for close to half a century. It has trained personnel, security intelligence, economic resources, religious institutions and cross-border networks. Driven underground, it would not be starting from nothing.

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A familiar pattern of absence

Absence also carries a particular charge in Shia religious culture, and this is where the Islamic Republic has a vocabulary ready to hand.

Twelver Shia Muslims believe the twelfth imam, who vanished in the ninth century, is alive but hidden and will one day return. During the period known as the Lesser Occultation, roughly 874 to 941, his instructions are said to have reached his followers through four successive deputies who spoke on his behalf. The Greater Occultation, in which he remains hidden and has no named deputy, has continued ever since.

This is not a claim about religious rank. Mojtaba Khamenei holds no such standing for Shia believers, and the comparison is not about status. It is about the function of absence: a person who cannot be seen can still be treated as present. Intermediaries speak in his name, and waiting takes the place of proof.

The Islamic Republic itself was built on a theology of absence. Its constitution justifies the rule of a jurist explicitly as an arrangement for the era of the hidden imam, which means the state has spent 47 years governing on behalf of a leader nobody can see. Its propaganda apparatus therefore has both the language and the precedent to convert the absence of Mojtaba Khamenei into a kind of hidden presence.

That possibility is not indefinite. The longer the absence lasts, the harder it becomes to distinguish a genuine order from a manufactured one, the sharper the competition among those claiming to speak for the leader, and the more insistent the question: who is actually giving the orders in Tehran?

Mojtaba Khamenei's absence will probably not save the Islamic Republic from military defeat, economic collapse or social unrest. It may, however, allow it to go on existing after such a collapse.

As long as the fate of the absent leader remains unclear, the system's followers can treat the fall as temporary, the defeat as unfinished and the return as possible. Because sometimes governments continue not because they are still standing, but because their death has not yet been proven.

The reserves, intended to cushion severe shortages and emergencies, have been tapped at a pace in recent weeks that has prompted warnings from experts within the state about the consequences of continuing, the sources said.

Remaining fuel stocks could be depleted within several weeks if withdrawals continue at the current rate, limiting the government's ability to offset disruptions to domestic production or imports and prevent widespread supply stoppages, according to the sources.

The growing reliance on strategic stocks has also opened a dispute between the government and the Revolutionary Guards over how long withdrawals should continue, they said.

• 

  Iran keeps finding gas. Getting it out is the problem

Revolutionary Guards officials oppose unrestricted use of the reserves, while government officials want to keep drawing on them to keep filling stations operating and contain public concern over shortages and higher prices, the sources added.

Daily shortfall strains supplies

Iran produces about 120 million liters of gasoline a day but consumes around 135 million liters, leaving a daily deficit of about 15 million liters.

Ali-Akbar Saghab Esfahani, head of Iran's Energy Optimization and Strategic Management Organization, put the daily gasoline shortfall at 14 million to 15 million liters on August 15.

Before the shortage intensified, imports covered about half the gap, much of it through fuel supplies from Russia, the sources said.

A US maritime blockade, Ukrainian strikes on Russian refining infrastructure and the closure of the Caspian Sea supply route have sharply restricted Iran's ability to maintain those imports, according to the sources.

Iranian diplomatic efforts to secure alternative fuel supplies from allies and neighboring countries have yet to produce an agreement.

Britain and Qatar have meanwhile backed a new US economic campaign against the Islamic Republic, as Washington seeks to restrict its financial, shipping and energy trade routes.

Fuel moved to reopen Tehran stations

Gasoline shortages have reached Tehran, forcing some filling stations to close, according to information obtained by Iran International.

Authorities have ordered fuel transferred from neighboring provinces to reopen some stations in the capital, but dozens of others remain at risk of closure, the sources said.

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  Iran weighs gasoline rationing as fuel deficit widens

Videos and messages sent by citizens have also documented long lines, station closures and difficulties obtaining gasoline in Tehran, Alborz, South Khorasan and Razavi Khorasan provinces.

The Tehran regional manager of the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company attributed temporary closures at some stations to a sudden rise in demand and congestion along fuel transportation routes.

Reports from citizens suggest the disruption is also affecting transportation costs. Several people told Iran International that fares charged by ride-hailing services Snapp and Tapsi had risen sharply as fewer drivers accepted trips.

“Gas stations are crowded, GPS doesn't work and you can't work for Snapp. Fares have gone up, but there are no drivers to accept the trip. We're left without money and without gasoline,” a Tehran resident told Iran International.

Another citizen said the cost of a regular Snapp journey had risen from 1,000,000 rials last month to 3,200,000 rials, while a resident of Shiraz described steep increases in ride-hailing fares despite no gasoline shortage there.

A Snapp driver said fuel consumption from running air conditioning for passengers required him to refill about every two days, but his quota had been exhausted and purchases outside the quota were limited to 25 liters.

Other messages sent to Iran International accused authorities of deliberately restricting supplies before a possible price increase.

“When they want to raise the price of cooking oil, they say there isn't any. When they want to raise the price of rice, they say there isn't any. But after the price goes up, everything is available,” a resident of Mashhad said. “Now it's gasoline's turn.”

The Mashhad resident said filling stations were not receiving enough gasoline but predicted supplies would become readily available if authorities raised prices.

Another citizen questioned why a gasoline deficit of 10% to 20% was causing such widespread disruption and accused authorities of deliberately making fuel scarce to make consumers more willing to accept higher prices.

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“Many gas stations are either closed or have no gasoline to distribute,” a Tehran resident said, also accusing the government of diverting fuel for foreign currency earnings.

Another message accused authorities of using the shortage as justification for a gasoline price increase and manipulating distribution to create congestion at filling stations and reduce resistance to higher prices.

“Half of Pakdasht's gas stations have no gasoline and the rest are extremely crowded,” a resident said. “They are trying to force people to accept higher gasoline prices.”

Government weighs three options

The government is considering three responses to the shortage: limiting gasoline supply to domestic production levels, reducing subsidized quotas and selling additional consumption at the unrestricted price, or shifting fuel quotas from vehicles to individuals.

Concern that higher gasoline prices could trigger protests has encouraged the government to use strategic reserves to buy time, the sources said.

Fuel price increases have been politically sensitive in Iran. A sudden rise in gasoline prices in November 2019 triggered nationwide protests followed by a deadly state crackdown.

The attempt to delay harder choices by drawing on emergency stocks is now creating another problem, according to Iran International's sources: the buffer intended to protect Iran during severe supply disruptions may itself be only weeks away from exhaustion.

Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) and the Supreme Leader’s representative on the body, said Sunday that Tehran would consider any country participating in or supporting the US economic campaign against Iran to have committed an act of war.

“If the economic war continues, not a single drop of oil will be exported, neither through the Strait of Hormuz nor from anywhere in the Persian Gulf,” he wrote on X.

But the sweeping statements have raised a more fundamental question: Is Rezaei articulating Iran’s security policy, the Supreme Leader’s position or his own?

The question has become particularly significant because Rezaei’s increasingly confrontational rhetoric comes as President Masoud Pezeshkian and Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf have struck a markedly different tone.

Pezeshkian said Friday it would be better to end the war while Iran remains in a position of “power and dignity,” while Ghalibaf warned that “no matter how much military power we have, we won't survive if people are hungry.”

‘Secretary or president’?

Hardliners have seized on the contrast.

The hardline Hamshahri newspaper praised Rezaei on Monday for offering an alternative to what it called the language of “weakness and surrender” from other officials.

His approach, it said, was “neither a denial of economic pressure nor merely an attempt to neutralize sanctions, but to make the siege costly for its designers and supporters.”

“From this perspective, with Rezaei’s remarks, Iran’s economic doctrine has become militarized,” Hamshahri said.

Reformists, however, have questioned whether the SNSC secretary has the authority to articulate such policies without a formal council decision.

They argue that the secretary administers and communicates the council’s decisions rather than independently determining them, while Pezeshkian serves as president of the SNSC.

Former reformist lawmaker Mahmoud Sadeghi addressed Rezaei directly on X: “The seat you are sitting on is the secretaryship of the Supreme National Security Council, not the presidency.”

The nuclear question

The disagreement is particularly consequential because Rezaei has gone beyond the immediate economic confrontation to raise the possibility of reconsidering Iran’s longstanding rejection of nuclear weapons.

In an interview broadcast on state television, he argued that US attacks had demonstrated that neither membership in the Non-Proliferation Treaty nor cooperation with international nuclear inspectors could protect a country from military attack.

“When America is waging such a war, people naturally ask: Why shouldn’t we pursue nuclear weapons ourselves?” Rezaei said.

He went further, arguing that a nuclear weapon could be “cheaper and more effective than having hundreds of F-35s and spending enormous amounts of money on other military capabilities.”

Rezaei stopped short of saying Iran had decided to pursue a bomb. But some hardliners interpreted his remarks as an invitation to reconsider Iran’s nuclear doctrine.

“I hope this accurate and correct analysis by General Rezaei will be a prelude to Iran’s withdrawal from the NPT and a change in Iran’s nuclear doctrine,” hardline journalist Nezameddin Mousavi wrote.

Hamshahri similarly said Rezaei had raised the question of an atomic bomb without explicitly presenting it as Iran’s official position.

‘Solution out of reach’

Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, spokesman for former reformist President Mohammad Khatami, countered that the responsibilities of the SNSC chairman, secretary, members and Supreme Leader’s representatives are separately defined.

The secretary’s job, he argued, is to prepare meetings and communicate decisions under the chairman’s supervision.

Hardliners reject that interpretation, pointing to Rezaei’s second position as the Supreme Leader’s representative on the council.

Rezaei served as the Leader’s military adviser during the war before being appointed his representative on the SNSC, alongside his appointment as secretary by Pezeshkian.

His supporters argue that the dual role gives his statements greater political weight than those of an ordinary council secretary. Some have gone further, portraying criticism of Rezaei as an attack on the Supreme Leader himself.

Conservative journalist Ehsan Salehi, meanwhile, portrayed Rezaei’s statements as part of a deliberate escalation strategy in which each new stage of US pressure produces a tougher Iranian response.

“Each new stage of pressure and tension makes Iran’s behavior more complicated and tougher and puts a solution further out of reach,” Salehi wrote.

The dispute comes as Iran confronts increasingly severe economic pressure and an unresolved military standoff with the United States—and is no longer simply over tactics.

With Rezaei threatening oil exports across the Persian Gulf and openly questioning the logic of remaining non-nuclear, it has become an argument over who has the authority to signal how far Iran is prepared to go.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has described the campaign as the “endgame,” while Iran’s Central Bank Governor Abdolnasser Hemmati insisted it would have “no impact on Iran.”

Other senior officials have warned regional and European states against helping Washington enforce its measures.

But Abdolrahman Fathollahi, an analyst writing in Shargh, cautioned against assuming that decades of experience circumventing sanctions mean Tehran can simply weather the latest campaign.

Iran, he said, is now more economically fragile after the recent conflicts known as the 12-day and 40-day wars. The new measures are designed not simply to add restrictions but to close Iran’s remaining economic lifelines—and test how far China is prepared to go to keep them open.

That could prove crucial.

Hamed Vafaei, an associate professor of Chinese studies at the University of Tehran, argues that Beijing is likely to maintain enough oil purchases and trade to prevent Iran’s complete economic isolation, but will not sacrifice its own interests to rescue Tehran.

China’s economic relationships with the United States, Western markets and Persian Gulf Arab states dwarf its trade with Iran. Vafaei said Tehran should therefore view Beijing as a pragmatic strategic partner rather than an unconditional ally.

International affairs analyst Esmail Beshari similarly told Shargh that tougher US sanctions would create additional obstacles but were unlikely to sever Iran-China trade altogether.

Some Iranian analysts have urged Tehran to move beyond what they describe as a “North Korea model” of relying on China for basic economic survival toward a “Pakistan model” based on deeper, mutually beneficial trade and investment.

The warnings come as pressure on Iran’s domestic economy is already mounting. Annual inflation reached 66 percent in July and food prices were 128 percent higher than a year earlier, according to official data, while gasoline supplies have also come under strain.

Iranian economic newspapers have cautioned against complacency. Donya-ye Eghtesad warned that relying on methods used to circumvent previous sanctions could prove a mistake, arguing that Tehran must also address its domestic vulnerabilities.

Concern about those vulnerabilities is increasingly visible within the security establishment.

Police chief Ahmadreza Radan said foreign powers were preparing to exploit economic hardship to foment unrest. President Masoud Pezeshkian has said it would be better to end the war while Iran remains in a position of “power and dignity.”

Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf was blunter.

“No matter how much military power we have, we won't survive if people are hungry and we don't have financial turnover, economic growth and national production,” he said.

Such warnings sit uneasily alongside Tehran’s public insistence that Washington’s latest campaign will fail.

Iran has survived decades of sanctions and analysts do not expect the new measures to completely sever its economic links with China. But keeping some trade and oil exports flowing is not the same as insulating an economy already weakened by war from further pressure.

The question for Tehran may therefore be not whether “Economic D-Day” can completely isolate Iran, but how much additional pressure the country can absorb.

President Masoud Pezeshkian said Friday that it would be better to end the war now, while Iran remains in what he called a position of “power and dignity.” Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf was more blunt about the stakes of a deteriorating economy.

“No matter how much military power we have, we won't survive if people are hungry and we don't have financial turnover, economic growth and national production,” Ghalibaf said, according to Iran’s official news agency IRNA.

Raz Zimmt, director of the Iran and Shiite Axis Research Program at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, believes the statements reflect growing recognition in Tehran that the current situation is unsustainable.

But he says there is a potentially dangerous gap between recognizing that reality and deciding to compromise.

“If they have to make a choice between taking the risk for a new round of war with the United States or making concessions which they consider to be full capitulation to the United States... I think it’s very clear that they are not going to give up,” Zimmt told Iran International’s Eye for Iran podcast.

The dilemma comes as Washington prepares to intensify the pressure. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has promised the “toughest sanctions in history,” alongside a naval blockade already squeezing Iranian trade.

Iran entered the war with high inflation and a weakened currency. By July, annual inflation had reached 66 percent and food prices were 128 percent higher than a year earlier, according to official data.

‘Reasons to resist’

Zimmt says Iran’s ability to use Hormuz as leverage could also erode as the United States makes military gains in opening a corridor through the strait. But he sees no evidence yet of a consensus in Tehran for a change of course.

Iran’s calculation, he argues, is shaped by what happens after any agreement as much as by what happens now. Its leaders do not appear convinced that concessions would guarantee a permanent end to the war.

Instead, they may fear reopening Hormuz and surrendering leverage in exchange for a ceasefire that Washington could abandon after the US midterm elections in November.

Washington’s own messaging may be reinforcing that distrust.

Bessent said Thursday that the combination of the blockade and new sanctions could “collapse this regime,” even as he argued that successful economic pressure could reduce the likelihood of another large-scale military campaign.

From Tehran’s perspective, Zimmt argues, such statements can strengthen those who ask why Iran should make concessions to an administration that is simultaneously talking about its collapse.

The war itself may have given Tehran another reason to resist concessions.

“The conclusion in Iran is that the United States and Israel don’t have the capability to force Iran into major concessions,” Zimmt said.

‘Escalation before negotiations’

Hormuz provides Tehran with another source of leverage. After decades of threatening to close the strategic waterway, Iran has demonstrated its ability to severely disrupt it. Only seven commodity vessels passed through on Thursday, compared with more than 130 a day before the war, according to Kpler data.

Zimmt believes Iran’s leadership may therefore calculate that it can inflict enough economic pain on its Persian Gulf neighbors and the global economy to improve its position before negotiating.

He points to Iran’s behavior after Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal during his first presidency. Tehran initially responded to maximum pressure with what it called “strategic patience” but escalated as the economic damage mounted, including through attacks on Persian Gulf shipping and the downing of a US drone.

He sees the possibility of the same logic asserting itself again.

“If the Iranians reach the conclusion that they can’t resist or they can’t handle the growing economic pressure,” Zimmt said, “their decision would actually be to escalate things even further before returning to negotiations.”

The pressure may be working. The unanswered question is what Tehran chooses to do because of it.

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