Sanders urges end to Iran war, citing Trump’s past gas-price pledge

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Araghchi on Wednesday that Beijing was ready to play a “constructive role” in resolving international disputes and urged Iran and the United States to rebuild their negotiating mechanism and hold substantive consultations on unresolved issues.

Araghchi appeared to attach considerable weight to the talks, writing on X afterwards that decisions made in consultation with Chinese partners would “decide future strategic balance in the region, with immeasurable knock-on effects.”

His visit came ahead of Xi’s planned meeting with Trump in Washington on September 24, where the Iran war and China’s economic ties with Tehran are expected to be among the issues discussed.

China has not publicly offered to mediate directly between Tehran and Washington. But its diplomatic weight, relations with both countries and ties across the Middle East have prompted growing speculation in Iran that Beijing could assume a larger role.

China also has experience mediating between Iran and a major regional rival. In 2023, Beijing brokered an agreement that restored diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia after years of hostility.

Ahmad Bakhshayesh-Ardestani, a member of parliament’s National Security Committee, told Fararu that previous mediators such as Qatar and Pakistan had not been completely neutral and had been influenced by Washington. China, he argued, carried greater political weight and could provide stronger guarantees.

Beijing, he said, “can play a different role from previous mediators.”

Moderate daily Shargh made a similar argument, pointing to China’s position as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and its extensive economic relations with Arab states as well as close ties with Tehran.

“This multilayered network of relations allows Beijing to pursue the Hormuz issue on two levels: dialogue with Tehran on the one hand, and engagement with the United States and other powers influencing regional security on the other,” Shargh wrote. “This is the difference that separates Araghchi’s visit to Beijing from an ordinary diplomatic trip.”

Nour News, which is close to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said Tehran supported regional peace initiatives involving countries ranging from Pakistan and Qatar to China and Russia, while insisting that such diplomacy did not mean abandoning what it described as Iran’s right to defend itself.

The outlet argued that Beijing, conscious of the Strait of Hormuz’s geopolitical importance, was seeking to improve conditions for diplomacy rather than pressing Tehran to abandon its positions.

Some Iranian media and analysts have suggested China could also help bring Iran and Arab states into a broader regional arrangement rather than confining its role to US-Iran diplomacy.

Wang said Wednesday that China supported dialogue between Iran and regional countries based on respect for territorial sovereignty and national security. He also said the existing Middle East security architecture needed to be reformed and strengthened.

Farda News, which is close to parliament speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, interpreted Wang’s remarks as an attempt to link the immediate security crisis to a broader mechanism for dialogue between Iran and the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Jalal Sadatian, a former director general of the Foreign Ministry’s East Asia Department, told Khabar Online that Tehran should seek Beijing’s help in persuading Saudi Arabia and other Arab states to participate in a wider regional agreement involving the Strait of Hormuz.

International affairs analyst Sabah Zanganeh similarly told ILNA that China could broaden existing diplomatic efforts to include Iran, Iraq and GCC states, rather than limiting them to temporary arrangements between individual countries.

“Such an action is necessary and must certainly go beyond a temporary action between two countries,” he said.

Beijing’s diplomatic backing for Tehran was also visible at the United Nations on Thursday, when China and Russia vetoed a US-backed resolution that would have extended the mandate of a panel of experts monitoring sanctions on Iran. The resolution received 11 votes in favour, two against and two abstentions.

Iranian conservatives portrayed the veto as evidence of a changing international order. Rouydad24, however, cautioned against equating the end of the monitoring mechanism with the lifting of sanctions, noting that Washington retains extensive economic pressure tools outside the UN framework.

For now, Beijing’s public position remains more cautious than some of the expectations being voiced in Iran: China has offered to play a constructive role in diplomacy, but has stopped short of announcing itself as a mediator between Tehran and Washington.

Democratic lawmakers have increasingly portrayed the war not simply as a foreign-policy dispute but as a contributor to the cost-of-living pressures weighing on American households.

“There’s no plan. No strategy,” Representative Jason Crow of Colorado said. “The President started a war with Iran that he doesn’t know how to win or get us out of. Americans are paying the price every day.”

The argument comes as disruptions to oil supplies and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz have pushed energy prices sharply higher, making gasoline an increasingly prominent political issue ahead of the November elections.

Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut sought to connect those costs directly to the war, saying commuters were paying nearly $1 million more a day for gasoline than in July.

“This is a crisis that is only beginning,” she said. “We are about to enter a winter where millions of Americans will experience the disastrous effects of Trump’s illegal war in Iran.”

Public opinion suggests widespread concern over both the war and energy costs.

A Marquette Law School national poll conducted September 2-9 found that 80% of adults said gasoline prices had risen over the previous six months, including 55% who said they had risen “a lot.”

Only 20% approved of Trump’s handling of gasoline prices, while 80% disapproved. On Iran, 26% approved of his handling of the conflict and 73% disapproved, while 79% said the war had not been worth its cost.

Trump has continued to defend his approach while suggesting an end to the conflict may be approaching. He said this week that Iran wanted an agreement and that “hopefully we're toward the end of the war,” though negotiations remain stalled.

Vice President JD Vance has argued that ending US involvement could itself carry severe economic consequences, saying this week that leaving the region while Iran continued attacking shipping would risk a worldwide energy crisis.

Democrats, however, are increasingly trying to make the economic consequences of the war part of their argument to voters.

Representative Ro Khanna of California on Friday introduced what he called the Illegal War Refund Act, proposing $1,700 payments to taxpayers funded from the Defense Department budget.

“Trump’s illegal war in Iran has cost Americans in food and gas prices an estimated $230 billion,” Khanna said. “Today, I introduced the Illegal War Refund Act to put that money back in the pockets of Americans.”

The conflict continues more than six months after US and Israeli strikes on Iran began on February 28. The US naval blockade has sharply restricted Iranian oil exports, while attacks on shipping and disruption around the Strait of Hormuz have added pressure to global energy markets.

For Democrats, the prolonged war abroad and higher prices at home are increasingly becoming a single argument as the midterms approach.

“We are ashamed that the public’s income does not cover their expenses, especially for wage earners,” First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref said Thursday. “You cannot increase salaries by 20% when inflation is running above 60–70%.”

Government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani has disclosed a roughly 310-trillion-toman shortfall in expected tax revenues during the first half of the current year, while the head of the Food and Drug Administration says medicine prices have risen roughly 103% this year.

President Masoud Pezeshkian has offered an equally stark assessment of the public mood, invoking the 2019 fuel-price protests as a warning against imposing further economic pressure.

“People are now on the edge; if I impose another pressure, they may fall off,” he said.

The warning has not prevented the government from doubling the gasoline price for high-volume consumers, highlighting the difficult choices facing Tehran as it tries to contain household pressure while confronting the economic costs of war.

The household squeeze

The free-market dollar has traded at around 2.30–2.33 million rials this week, with the Iranian currency losing roughly 44% of its value against the dollar over the past six months.

Food and beverage inflation has officially exceeded 127% year on year, contributing to a sharp contraction in consumption of protein, dairy products and legumes among urban working-class households.

State-run ILNA has published unusually blunt reports on the cost of living, including unofficial bread-price increases in Tehran, families cutting meat from their diets and rents doubling.

The financial daily Donya-ye Eghtesad has warned of signs of a “new inflationary regime” in which persistent price rises are shaping contracts, expectations and everyday economic decisions, making confidence in the rial increasingly difficult to restore.

The approaching academic year provides another measure of the squeeze.

According to Donya-ye Eghtesad, equipping a single primary or secondary-school student with basic uniforms, a schoolbag, shoes and stationery now costs between 150 million and 200 million rials.

A basic pack of notebooks that cost around 3.5 million rials last year now costs approximately 15 million, forcing some lower-income families to reuse old school supplies.

War adds to the strain

Iranian oil exports have reportedly fallen from around 2 million barrels per day before the war to approximately 220,000–255,000 barrels per day in August, sharply reducing one of Tehran’s principal sources of foreign currency.

The Economy Ministry has established an “Economic War Headquarters” as officials increasingly frame the economic crisis as part of the broader confrontation with Washington. But falling oil revenues leave the government with fewer resources to cushion households against rising prices and a weakening currency.

Oil-industry workers have staged weekly Monday protests over pay and taxes at offshore platforms and in Assaluyeh, while nurses demonstrated in Kermanshah on September 8 over unpaid wages.

Accounts in Iranian media offer a more immediate picture of the pressure behind such discontent: street vendors struggling with higher rents, households going months without eating meat and parents weighing school expenses against basic food costs.

The combination of high inflation, declining purchasing power and sharply reduced oil revenues leaves Tehran with increasingly limited room to ask households to absorb further economic costs from the war.

The event, named Janfadayan-e Iran, roughly "those ready to give their lives for Iran," began in the morning on the order of Hassan Hassanzadeh, commander of the Guards' Tehran corps, with the password "Labbaik ya Khamenei," at your service, Khamenei.

State media put the number on the streets at more than 300,000 and said 600,000 had registered for military training. None of the figures could be independently verified. State television had spent several days urging Iranians to sign up.

The organizers billed it as a 313,000-strong parade, a number with religious rather than statistical meaning. Shiite tradition holds that 313 companions will rise alongside the Hidden Imam, the twelfth imam of Shiite Islam, who is believed to have vanished in the ninth century and to be destined to return.

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Hassanzadeh said the purpose of the exercise was to counter "the propaganda and media operations of the enemies of the Islamic Republic."

Hossein Taeb, the former Revolutionary Guards intelligence chief who now heads the Basij, described the marchers as "resistance battalions" ready for "full-fledged defense" and called the campaign "the biggest popular movement in the history of the world's wars."

Similar parades would follow in every province, he said, and the United States would soon be defeated and leave the region.

President Masoud Pezeshkian attended and described the display as "a magnificent manifestation of solidarity, cohesion and national loyalty."

Footage from the event showed, alongside Basij units and supporters organized by the Guards, children and teenagers marshalled by the Basij, and members of Iran-backed groups from the region, including Houthis.

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Women from the Guards carried rifles beneath a banner showing Donald Trump in crosshairs above the words "We will kill." Participants trampled US and Israeli flags. Anti-aircraft batteries, truck-mounted machine guns and the drones used against shipping in the Strait of Hormuz were put on display.

The parade closed a week in which the rial fell past 2.3 million to the dollar under a US naval blockade and new sanctions, and came two days after the fourth anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini in morality police custody, which set off the 2022 protests.

Police and the Guards had increased patrols in Tehran and Isfahan ahead of the date.

Iranian officials say attacks have knocked out about 230 million cubic metres a day of gas-production capacity, compared with pre-war output of roughly 650 million cubic metres a day. That is just over a third of pre-war production.

Tehran has begun trying to claw some of that capacity back. Officials have said roughly 100 million cubic metres a day could be restored in the coming months, still less than half the capacity reported lost.

But restoring production is only part of the problem. Rystad Energy estimated in April that repairing damage to Iran’s energy infrastructure could cost as much as $19 billion, affecting gas processing, refining and export facilities.

That figure covers physical repairs rather than the wider economic consequences of lost production, disrupted exports and industrial shutdowns. Rystad has also identified shortages of critical equipment and workers as major obstacles to recovery.

Winter could provide the first major test of whether Iran can repair enough of its energy system quickly enough to prevent wartime damage from developing into a broader economic crisis.

A system already under pressure

Iran entered the war with an energy system already struggling to match supply with demand.

The US Energy Information Administration has said sanctions slowed development of the country’s natural-gas infrastructure and that limited storage capacity left Iran poorly equipped to manage seasonal swings in consumption.

In 2022, residential and commercial consumers accounted for 33% of Iran’s gas consumption, industry including petrochemicals for 27%, and electricity generation for another 28%, according to the EIA.

Household and commercial gas consumption rises during winter, while demand from the electricity sector is highest during summer.

The loss of production capacity therefore leaves Tehran having to allocate a reduced supply among households, power stations, petrochemical plants and other industrial users.

The problem is not simply how much gas Iran has underground. Gas reserves alone do not guarantee reliable supply: the country also needs functioning processing plants, pipelines and storage facilities, as well as electricity, maintenance, equipment and skilled workers to keep the system operating.

Damage beyond gas

Reduced gas supplies to power plants could constrain electricity generation, while restrictions on industrial users could hit petrochemicals and energy-intensive sectors such as steel, aluminium and cement.

That means the eventual cost of the damage cannot be measured solely by the reconstruction bill. Lower production can also translate into weaker industrial output and exports at a time when Tehran needs resources to finance repairs.

Iran's broader energy sector is already under severe financial pressure. The war and US naval blockade have sharply curtailed Iranian oil exports, leaving tens of millions of barrels stranded in storage and depriving Tehran of crude export revenue.

The combination creates the risk of a cycle in which energy shortages constrain economic activity while reduced revenues make restoring the energy system more difficult.

A longer-term problem

The war has also magnified structural weaknesses that predate the conflict.

South Pars, which Iran shares with Qatar, is the country's largest non-associated natural-gas field and the centre of its gas industry. But the EIA had already warned before the war that without additional investment Iran could struggle to satisfy domestic demand while meeting its export commitments.

Sanctions have restricted access to foreign investment, technology and specialised equipment, leaving Tehran with an existing infrastructure challenge before US and Israeli attacks added an urgent reconstruction burden.

Rystad said delays in procuring critical equipment were likely to determine how quickly damaged energy infrastructure could be restored, while shortages of workers were another major obstacle.

The winter test

For Tehran, the immediate question is how much of the reported 230 million cubic metres a day of lost gas capacity can be restored before colder weather drives household demand higher. How severe the remaining deficit becomes will depend on demand, further repairs and whether additional infrastructure is damaged.

Tehran may have to balance household heating against industrial production and electricity generation while trying to rebuild infrastructure under sanctions.

Rystad's $19 billion estimate gives a sense of the potential physical repair bill. The larger test is whether Iran can restore enough of the system to prevent damaged gas infrastructure from feeding through into electricity shortages, industrial disruption and further economic pressure.

The coming winter should provide the clearest indication yet.