Saudi-led coalition says it intercepted Houthi ballistic missile targeting Riyadh

The freezing of some $350 million in Iranian cryptocurrency and a US maritime blockade that Washington says has prevented at least $25 billion in Iranian oil exports highlight the pressure on Tehran’s finances.

“Cryptocurrency is not really a method for a central bank or for a country’s trade,” said Maleki, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and former executive at the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Maleki said cryptocurrency was better suited to relatively small transactions and transfers, while blockchain transactions could be traced.

“You can see on the blockchain where it came from and where it went,” he said.

Iran has turned to cryptocurrency as economic pressure has narrowed its options, Maleki said, adding that such transactions can be traced and the funds blocked.

Oil revenue dries up

The larger problem for Iran is the loss of oil revenue.

US Central Command commander Admiral Brad Cooper said Thursday that the maritime blockade had prevented Iran from exporting at least $25 billion worth of crude oil over 100 days.

Iran initially continued selling oil that had left the Strait of Hormuz before the blockade and remained aboard tankers in international waters.

Those floating reserves were depleted by mid-October, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing analysts at commodity-data firm Kpler.

“There’s no more oil to discharge to China anymore,” Kpler’s head of crude oil analysis Homayoun Falakshahi told the Journal.

“The economic clock of the Islamic Republic has basically stopped,” Maleki said, arguing that Tehran no longer has access to the oil income it previously used to finance imports.

Imports pose the next test

Some goods now entering Iran were paid for earlier, while other imports are continuing through land routes, Maleki said.

The greater pressure will come when Tehran has to finance new purchases and transportation costs without the oil revenue it previously relied on.

“When they can no longer pay the cost of buying and transporting the goods they are now importing over land, that is when the problems will become much more difficult for the Islamic Republic,” Maleki said.

He cautioned that it was difficult to determine how quickly that point would be reached.

“I can’t give you a number of days or weeks,” he said.

Maleki said cryptocurrency was suitable for limited transfers, while the loss of oil revenue would make it harder for Iran to pay for imports.

Maleki said it was difficult to estimate in days or weeks when the loss of revenue would translate into more severe economic pressure.

Although Washington has not declared a land blockade of Iran, the closure of crossings with Pakistan and Iraq and continued disruption to freight traffic at the Turkish border have raised alarm in Tehran.

Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, acknowledged in an interview with Drop Site published Thursday that Iran would suffer from a prolonged blockade.

“Anyone who says otherwise is not being realistic. Families will pay the price, investment will suffer, and maintaining some sectors of the economy will become more difficult,” he said.

But Rezaei argued that economic pain did not amount to strategic defeat and that Washington was wrong to believe worsening conditions would force Tehran to accept US demands.

Agence France-Presse reported Wednesday that the United States was pressing Iran’s neighbors to close border crossings, following a maritime blockade in southern Iran and air restrictions that have grounded most Iranian flights.

President Masoud Pezeshkian has said the maritime blockade has halted trade through southern sea routes, which previously accounted for 75% to 80% of Iran’s trade.

Pakistan: transit disputes

Iran has responded cautiously to Pakistan, which has been mediating between Tehran and Washington.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei attributed the suspension of operations at border crossings to “technical problems” on the Pakistani side and said the two countries were discussing reopening them.

After the US maritime blockade took effect, Iranian traders increasingly used Pakistani ports as alternative routes.

But tighter requirements for electronic bills of lading and difficulties transferring money have complicated trade, according to Peyman Sanandaji, a senior official at the Tehran Chamber of Commerce.

Pakistan closed the Rimdan–Gabd and Taftan crossings on Tuesday during a visit to Tehran by Pakistani Army Chief Asim Munir, citing security concerns and efforts to prevent smuggling.

Iranian officials said Munir ordered the crossings reopened during his visit, but the latest reports indicated Pakistan was allowing only Iranian gas tankers and perishable fruit and vegetable shipments to pass.

Fada-Hossein Maleki, head of the Iran-Pakistan parliamentary friendship group, warned Thursday that Iran could close its border if Islamabad continued preventing trucks from crossing.

Such a move could also hurt Pakistan, which uses Iranian territory to move some exports toward Turkey, Central Asia and the Caucasus and receives millions of liters of Iranian gasoline and diesel through official trade and smuggling.

Iraq: conflicting signals

Iraq has not announced a general closure of its border with Iran. But Al Jazeera reported that the Chazabeh–Al-Shaib crossing was closed Wednesday on the direct orders of Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi and that further crossings were expected to shut.

Abdul Amir Taiban, an adviser to Iraq’s prime minister, said Thursday that Chazabeh had been closed to prevent the entry of drugs and counterfeit dollars and dinars.

He accused Iran of undermining Iraq’s economy, smuggling drugs and violating Iraqi sovereignty.

Iran and Iraq have 13 official border crossings, several of them major routes for exports and commercial traffic, particularly with central and southern Iraq.

Iraq temporarily closed its crossings with Iran a month earlier after a drone attack on Saudi Arabia’s east-west pipeline from Iraqi territory was attributed to Iran-aligned groups. The crossings reopened several days later.

Iran has reacted more openly to Iraq’s latest move than to Pakistan’s restrictions.

Deputy Interior Minister Ahmad Zeynivand said Thursday Tehran had sent Baghdad an official note seeking clarification, while claiming trade in essential goods through maritime routes and northern borders continued without disruption.

Turkey: long delays

Turkey is Iran’s third-largest trading partner, with formal and informal bilateral trade estimated at between $23 billion and $30 billion.

The Bazargan crossing in West Azerbaijan province is Iran’s most important land gateway for trade with Turkey and access to European markets.

Iranian media have reported delays of as long as 20 days at Bazargan in recent months. Although Turkey has capacity to receive 1,000 Iranian trucks daily, it has reportedly allowed only 200 to 300 through, while around 600 Turkish trucks enter Iran each day.

The bottleneck threatens a crucial alternative to Iran’s restricted maritime routes even without a formal closure of the Turkish border.

Alternatives remain limited

Iran shares land borders with seven countries, but the remaining routes offer only limited alternatives to its major trade corridors.

Crossings with Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Armenia remain open, providing routes toward Central Asia, Russia and the Caucasus. Afghanistan also remains open, but inadequate infrastructure and chronic congestion limit its usefulness as an alternative transit corridor.

Iran had increasingly looked to road and rail links through Central Asia after restrictions on maritime and air transport. Further border closures would therefore leave Tehran with progressively fewer ways of moving goods.

The disruptions have prompted some hard-line government supporters to call for retaliation against neighboring countries, including restrictions on Iranian electricity exports and internet transit to Iraq.

But several land routes remain open, and there is no declared land blockade. Limited capacity and existing bottlenecks mean those routes cannot readily replace maritime trade, leaving further closures capable of intensifying pressure on an economy already struggling with the effects of the US blockade.

Speaking to Iran International, Zhao said Beijing shares Iran’s “common displeasure” with the United States and Western systems and values Iran’s geographic position for the Belt and Road Initiative.

Yet he described the partnership as driven by energy security, economic interests and longer-term geopolitical calculations rather than ideological solidarity.

“There is some long-term interest in there for sure,” Zhao said. “But it is a transactional relationship.”

China has become Iran's main economic lifeline under US sanctions, buying nearly all of its exported oil, while Tehran has increasingly looked to Beijing alongside Moscow for diplomatic support in the face of Western pressure.

Energy interests come first

Energy security has provided one of the clearest illustrations of the limits of that partnership.

In a recent meeting between Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump, both sides publicly underscored that the Strait of Hormuz should remain open without any toll system.

“China is protecting its own economic and energy interest first and foremost,” Zhao said. “We do see China’s position evolving when its own domestic calculations about energy and overall supply chain security change over time.”

The 25-year comprehensive strategic partnership signed by China and Iran in 2021 has also under-delivered. Reports at the time suggested Chinese investment of roughly $400 billion, or about $20 billion annually.

Actual flows have been “at least one order of magnitude smaller,” Zhao said, as Chinese banks and companies have sought to avoid US secondary sanctions.

Nuclear weapons, regime change

Zhao said Beijing has come to value nuclear non-proliferation more as its global influence has grown, in part because of its experience with North Korea.

“China doesn’t want Iran to have nuclear weapons, but China eventually is sympathetic to Iran’s cause,” he said. “It thinks that Iran’s need for deterrence, including nuclear deterrence, is ultimately driven by American hostile policy.”

Beijing does not see its role as changing Iran’s calculations and has been reluctant to threaten economic or military cutoffs, Zhao said. Instead, it has emphasized that the US and Israel should alter their policies to reduce Tehran’s incentives for nuclear deterrence.

Opposition to externally imposed regime change is a higher priority for Beijing than the nuclear file itself, he said.

“China’s primary security concern is its own regime security, so it doesn’t want to see the norm of allowing foreign countries interfering in other countries’ internal affairs and toppling governments that they don’t like.”

Beijing’s initial criticism of the US-Israeli war against Iran focused heavily on the killing of the supreme leader, which China viewed as a violation of international norms.

But Zhao suggested Beijing's opposition had limits and would depend in part on whether efforts to remove Iran's government violated what China regarded as established international norms.

Influence at the lowest cost

Beijing has cultivated ties with Saudi Arabia, including joint military exercises and involvement in its missile and nuclear programs, partly as a hedge against uncertainty elsewhere in the region.

China and Russia have meanwhile provided Tehran with diplomatic cover at the UN Security Council, disputing the reimposition of UN sanctions on Iran and most recently opposing efforts to restore international monitoring of their implementation.

Yet China has shown little appetite for becoming a security guarantor for Iran or other regional partners, Zhao said, including through proposals that Iran transfer enriched uranium to Chinese custody.

“China is keenly aware of the potential risks and burdens to play a greater security role,” he said. “Its approach is to develop relations, increasing Chinese influence at the lowest cost.”

That calculation could change as the conflict develops. Zhao said China and Russia could influence its trajectory by supplying air-defense systems or missile-related materials that would help Iran deter or survive future strikes.

But he declined to predict how the confrontation over Iran's nuclear program and the Strait of Hormuz would ultimately end.

“I generally don’t have good answers about how this war will end in the long run,” Zhao said.

Mostafa Sepahvand told Woolwich Crown Court that he had been asked to attack Iran International journalists Kambiz Hosseini and Mojtaba Pourmohsen, as well as two other people, Alon Farago and Jonathan Turner.

Asked by prosecutor Emlyn Jones what those behind the alleged operation wanted him to do, Sepahvand replied: “To hit them.”

“They asked me to hit Jonathan and scare him off; they asked me to break Kambiz's arms and legs; they asked me to hit Pourmohsen to stop him writing about the regime,” he said.

Sepahvand, 41, is on trial alongside Farhad Javadi Manesh, 46, and Shapoor Qalehali Khani Noori, 57. All three deny charges under Britain's National Security Act.

Prosecutors say the men gathered information for Iranian intelligence in preparation for serious violence against people critical of Tehran.

Sepahvand acknowledges conducting surveillance but says he only appeared to cooperate because of threats against him and his family and never intended to hurt anyone. Instead, he says, he deliberately tried to frustrate the operation.

“I played them,” he has repeatedly told the court.

Prosecutors challenge his account

Cross-examining Sepahvand on Thursday, Jones directly challenged that defense, suggesting his claims that he had been deceiving the Revolutionary Guards were explanations invented after his arrest.

“What I am suggesting is that every time you said ‘I was playing the IRGC,’ you were lying,” Jones said.

“No, that was not the case,” Sepahvand replied.

The prosecution questioned Sepahvand about visits he made to addresses he had been given and photographs and videos taken during the alleged surveillance.

Sepahvand acknowledged going to an address associated with Pourmohsen and taking a photograph, but denied that he was preparing an attack.

“I go there, I get a picture, I go back home,” he said. “They ask me to hit them, I play them.”

Jones argued that Sepahvand's repeated visits, searches and complaints about inadequate information showed that he was carrying out groundwork for the alleged attacks rather than trying to sabotage them.

Sepahvand insisted that he deliberately told his contacts that addresses were wrong, exaggerated the difficulty and expense of finding the targets and repeatedly delayed carrying out their instructions.

He said that had he encountered the journalists, he would have warned them. “If I saw them I'd tell them that IRGC was after them and you have to escape,” he told the court.

£150,000 demand questioned

Jones also challenged Sepahvand over his repeated demands for money, including messages in which he said he would complete the job for £150,000.

Sepahvand said the demands were another delaying tactic because money was a “weak spot” for the people directing him.

“If I wanted to accept the money, I would have accepted £30,000,” he told the court, referring to a smaller payment discussed earlier in the alleged operation.

Jones questioned why Sepahvand would have been in a position to demand payment if, as he maintains, he had agreed to cooperate only because Iranian operatives were threatening him and his family.

Sepahvand said he had told them he would need a team and money to carry out the attacks but maintained that he never intended to do so.

“They wanted to force me and I didn't do it,” he said.

Sepahvand became increasingly agitated during the cross-examination, repeatedly raising the case of Navid Imami, a man he says was connected to the Iranian embassy in London and had supplied information about the targets.

The judge called a break after Sepahvand repeatedly interrupted Jones and later warned him that if he continued shouting or repeating his defense rather than answering questions, the jury could conclude that he did not have answers to the prosecution's case.

Sepahvand testified Wednesday that he had met Imami at the Iranian embassy in February 2025 while the alleged operation was under way.

He maintains that pressure on members of his family in Iran forced him to maintain contact with the people directing the operation and that his apparent cooperation was intended to protect others without carrying out the attacks.

The prosecution's cross-examination of Sepahvand is due to continue when the trial resumes Monday.

Sara, a 40-year-old graphic designer, says she was satisfied with her personal life and optimistic about the future until a year or two ago. But losing her job after the 12-day war in June 2025, followed by January crackdown and another round of war have left her deeply pessimistic.

“Thinking about the future and planning for it causes severe anxiety not only for me but also for many people I know,” she said. “There is no hope because everything is extremely unstable, and any good news can be denied moments later.”

The sense of despair is also reflected in public commentary. Sociologist Amin Parvin wrote on X that repeatedly seeing expectations go unmet had replaced “the pleasure of being hopeful” with “living in despair.”

Economic uncertainty has become a persistent feature of everyday life. People with savings or assets worry about losing their value, while others struggle with the rising cost of food, rent and services.

Foreign currency exchange rates, gold and car prices—cars being widely regarded as investment assets in Iran—frequently rank among the most-read topics on Iranian news websites, sometimes attracting more attention than reports about war and negotiations.

Food prices, which fluctuate alongside exchange rates, are another major focus.

Inequality grows

At a recent seminar on social hope in Iran, Mehdi Malmir, a sociology professor at Shahid Beheshti University, presented figures indicating a substantial decline in public satisfaction over the past two decades.

According to Malmir, social satisfaction stood at about 76% in 2000, while 15% expressed absolute dissatisfaction. By 2023, satisfaction had fallen to 49.8%, while dissatisfaction had risen to nearly 40%.

Indicators relating to welfare, the economy and what he described as the moral condition of society had also declined, he said.

Malmir warned that growing poverty and inequality could further undermine hope. People need to see their circumstances improving and believe upward mobility remains possible, he said, adding that available statistics offered little evidence this was happening.

At the same meeting, sociologist Ensieh Jalalvand pointed to repeated protests, declining electoral participation and the spread of emigration across increasingly broad sections of society.

People need to see that their concerns are heard and can lead to tangible change, she said. “The issue is establishing a genuine mechanism through which people can be heard and acknowledged.”

The reformist newspaper Shargh similarly argued that hope depends on people seeing the future as at least partly predictable, believing rules apply equally and trusting that their efforts today can improve their lives tomorrow.

Official figures

The 2025 National Social Capital Report, prepared by the Interior Ministry's Social Affairs Organization and published in June, found that Iran's social capital index fell from 43.5% in 2015 to 36.6% in 2025.

The report found that 75% of respondents were dissatisfied with what they perceived as a lack of justice in society. Three-quarters felt they lived amid discrimination, inequality and the preferential distribution of opportunities through patronage.

The survey covered the period from early 2025 until the outbreak of the 12-day war in June of that year.

Sixty percent of respondents said they had no hope that conditions would improve, while the same proportion said they could no longer tolerate additional economic pressure, according to the findings cited by the Rouydad24 news website.

Rouydad24 said the consequences included the mass emigration of skilled workers, capital flight and a shift from productive activity toward short-term speculation.

The report also pointed to widespread dissatisfaction with the country's political direction. Seventy percent of respondents said changes to the country's overarching policies were necessary to improve their satisfaction.

Mohammad Bat’haei, a deputy interior minister and head of the Social Affairs Organization, described the findings as a serious warning.

The decline in social capital at the national level, reflecting citizens' trust in the country's governing system and institutions, was more pronounced than declines at intermediate and local levels, Bat’haei said.

For Sara, such questions are less abstract. Having once expected her life to improve, she now finds planning for the future itself a source of anxiety.