Iran's parliament is preparing to consider allowing a non-cleric to head the Intelligence Ministry for the first time, under a proposal that would also give the supreme leader direct appointment powers over two new bodies within the ministry.
Parliamentary presidium spokesman Abbas Goudarzi said Tuesday that an urgent bill removing the requirement of ijtihad, an advanced qualification in Islamic jurisprudence, would be placed on parliament's agenda next week, ISNA reported.
Under the proposal, two organizations responsible for "internal security" and "ideological affairs" would be established within the ministry. Their directors would be appointed by Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, while the intelligence minister would continue to be nominated by the president and approved by parliament.
Goudarzi described the two organizations as a substitute for the minister’s religious qualification.
He said the change would help resolve a vacancy lasting nearly eight months, following the killing of Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib, a clerical figure, in an Israeli strike in March. The ministry has since been run by an acting minister whose identity has not been publicly disclosed.
Four decades of clerical intelligence chiefs
Since the ministry’s establishment in 1984, every permanent intelligence minister has been a cleric, under a law passed in 1983 requiring religious education equivalent to ijtihad.
Clerical leadership has not insulated the ministry from scandals over repression. Dissidents were assassinated inside Iran and abroad during Ali Fallahian’s tenure from 1989 to 1997. His successor, Ghorbanali Dorri Najafabadi, resigned in 1999 after the ministry acknowledged its agents’ involvement in the 1998 murders of dissidents and writers.
Control of the ministry has also brought presidents into conflict with the supreme leader. In 2011, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi, but Ali Khamenei ordered his reinstatement, demonstrating the limits of presidential authority over the ministry.
A broader selection process, new appointments
The proposal follows conflicting statements from lawmakers about whether the change had received committee approval.
Amir Hayat Moghadam, deputy chairman of parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, argued Saturday that the requirement had restricted the selection of qualified intelligence professionals.
Committee spokesman Hassan Qashqavi subsequently clarified that members had discussed the issue without formally approving legislation. But Hayat Moghadam claimed committee approval.
The latest proposal would widen the pool of potential ministers while establishing two senior positions filled directly by the supreme leader.
The proposal also comes after years of competition between the ministry and the Revolutionary Guards’ separate intelligence organization.
Whether the change would benefit career intelligence officers or open the position to figures from the Guards remains unclear. No candidate has been publicly identified, and the proposal still requires parliamentary approval and clearance by the Guardian Council.
A prolonged confrontation with Washington risks eroding Iran’s economy and impoverishing its people even without a sudden collapse, an Iranian economist warned, as Washington appears intent on maintaining economic pressure without renewed major combat operations.
In an interview with Shargh newspaper published Monday, Mohammad Tabibian, a former deputy director of Iran’s Planning and Budget Organization, questioned the strategy of measuring success through the country’s capacity to endure economic suffering.
His warning came as President Donald Trump said Monday that Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other regional countries favored maintaining the “status quo,” which he described as the continuation of the US naval blockade and Operation Iron Gate, a new US task force to restrict Iran’s overland trade.
Trump also said US forces remained “locked and loaded,” keeping renewed military action an option.
Tabibian cautioned that Iran’s ability to adapt to sustained pressure did not mean an end to the damage.
“Adapting to sanctions does not mean eliminating their harm,” he said. Alternative trade routes, discounted sales, difficulties transferring money and uncertainty about the future continue to impose costs, reflected in reduced investment, declining productive capacity and weaker purchasing power.
The government’s ability to pay salaries was not, by itself, a measure of economic health, he argued. Payments could continue while their real value fell and families lost access to adequate food, healthcare, education or housing.
“A society can therefore gradually become poorer without experiencing a sudden halt to all economic activity,” he said.
“If investment declines in the meantime, human capital deteriorates and people suffer more, we cannot call the mere continuation of economic activity a success.”
Tabibian also cautioned that economic pressure would not necessarily produce Washington’s desired political outcome. Its effects would depend on decisions by both governments and the response of the economy and society, he said.
Who bears the cost of endurance?
Tabibian challenged Iranian authorities over decisions about the conflict and the economic burden imposed on society.
“My fundamental question is who bears responsibility for the decisive decisions about war and peace, and what mechanisms exist to hold them accountable? How can imposing this much pain and suffering on a nation be justified?” he said.
“People endure hardships within their homes that usually go unseen. There are families whose university-educated children remain unemployed at around age 40 and financially dependent on their parents. Many young people cannot establish independent lives. Retired parents, too, must support several people on limited incomes.”
He also rejected the assumption that disrupting the Strait of Hormuz and raising energy prices would necessarily force Washington to abandon its confrontation with Tehran.
“Why should we consider the suffering of our own people a success, simply in the hope that the other side suffers more?” Tabibian asked, arguing that government policies should instead be judged by their effects on people’s security and living standards.
He distinguished household resilience, government finances, the capacity to rebuild infrastructure and society’s political tolerance, warning against treating them as a single measure of national endurance.
The United States was better equipped to absorb economic shocks because of its large, diversified economy, financial resources and capacity for innovation, he said. Betting that higher energy prices or disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz would cripple the American economy or compel Washington to change course was therefore an unreliable strategy.
Washington backs economic pressure
Tabibian’s warning coincided with statements from US leaders favoring continued economic pressure without a resumption of large-scale combat operations.
Following a meeting with Qatar’s prime minister on Monday, President Donald Trump said several Arab governments favored keeping the present arrangements in place.
“Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, and others, would prefer the status quo,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, describing that arrangement as the continuation of the US naval blockade and Operation Iron Gate, an initiative targeting weapons shipments and other illicit flows across Iran’s land borders and the Caspian Sea.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio made the economic argument more explicitly on Tuesday.
“The economic pain that is being inflicted on Iran right now is extraordinary, and it compounds. It’s growing every day,” Rubio told reporters in Paris.
“We don’t need to conduct military strikes if we’re achieving the same objective through economic means and economic pressure,” he added.
The economic campaign combines the naval blockade with sanctions against Iranian financial institutions, oil exports and businesses involved in sanctions evasion.
Reuters reported in September that three senior Iranian sources described Washington’s efforts to obstruct Iranian oil exports and access to international financial networks as increasingly difficult to withstand.
The sources warned that Tehran had fewer remaining avenues to obtain foreign currency and finance essential imports, raising concerns within the leadership about the consequences of a prolonged economic crisis.
The World Bank has also warned that the conflict, intensified sanctions and disruptions to trade are pushing Iran’s economy into a deeper contraction, with falling real incomes, weakened investment and growing poverty.
Economic grievances and the risk of renewed unrest
US intelligence officials and researchers have also examined the possible political consequences of prolonged economic pressure.
In March, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told Congress that sanctions and economic deterioration had contributed to the conditions behind Iran’s nationwide protests in January.
She said US intelligence assessed that internal tensions were likely to increase as the Iranian economy worsened, even if the Islamic Republic remained in power.
A more recent study by Eric Lob, a political scientist at Florida International University and scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, examined how economic grievances in Iran have repeatedly developed into broader political protests.
Published in October, his research argued that the war and US naval blockade had intensified the economic problems that initially drove those demonstrations, including inflation and currency depreciation.
He warned that prolonged deterioration would increase the likelihood of renewed social unrest, while the authorities’ reliance on repression could deepen the underlying grievances.
Tabibian, however, cautioned against assuming that economic suffering would automatically translate into political collapse. Political upheavals depended on the interaction of economic, institutional and social conditions, he said.
Nor could the timing, form or likelihood of protests be predicted simply from rising prices.
“Policymakers should not mistake people’s silence for satisfaction or an unlimited capacity to endure,” he said.
The limits of economic pressure
Other researchers have highlighted the risks of relying on prolonged pressure to constrain a government’s military capabilities or change its decisions.
In a November 2 assessment, Benjamin Jensen, director of the Futures Lab at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, examined possible US options ranging from continued pressure to attacks on military installations or sensitive nuclear facilities.
His assessment assumed that the existing sanctions and blockade would remain in place. Jensen described continued pressure as the lowest-risk option, but warned that Tehran could use the time to rearm, seek to divide Washington from its allies or launch attacks of its own.
He also cautioned that military gains did not guarantee sustained political results.
Tabibian said Iran might find ways to reduce the effects of some restrictions over time, but questioned the cost of doing so if investment declined and people endured further hardship.
He called for efforts to resolve disputes and reduce the risk of war, while cautioning that negotiations alone would not guarantee a solution. The outcome would depend on the decisions, conditions and actions of both sides.
“At the end of the tunnel of war and attrition, no clear light is visible for Iran or the United States,” he said.
Four Iranian reformist intellectuals have urged Tehran to seize an opportunity for diplomacy following Donald Trump's midterm election defeat, while warning that the US president could respond to his political setback by escalating rather than ending the war.
Writing in three articles published in the reformist newspaper Etemad on Sunday, November 8, Mohammad-Javad Haghshenas, sociologist Mahmoud Sadri, international relations analyst Alireza Ghandriz and political analyst Alireza Rajaei offered differing assessments of what Democratic control of Congress could mean for negotiations.
Their shared premise is that the elections have raised the domestic cost of the war for Trump without removing his authority to wage it. Trump himself acknowledged that “part of it was Iran,” while defending his decision to attack.
Haghshenas, a former leader of the National Trust Party, offered the most optimistic assessment, arguing that Tehran should move quickly rather than wait for uncertain political developments in Washington.
Citing reports of a purported letter from Vice President JD Vance proposing direct talks, Haghshenas argued that Vance, a potential contender for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination, had a political interest in ending a war that has damaged his party.
Echoing Qatar's prime minister, he urged both sides to accept a workable agreement rather than hold out for an ideal one.
Making a deal politically possible
Sadri and Ghandriz, writing jointly, argued that any agreement must be politically defensible in both Tehran and Washington.
They warned that Democratic opposition to Trump's handling of the war should not be mistaken for opposition to pressure on Iran.
President George W. Bush, they wrote, responded to the Republican defeat in the 2006 midterm elections by ordering a military surge in Iraq rather than withdrawing.
Citing the gradual normalisation of US-Vietnam relations in 1995 as a model, they proposed starting with limited humanitarian and maritime cooperation before expanding civil, academic and business ties.
Above all, they warned that presenting an agreement in Iran as an American surrender would undermine the very figures in Washington whose support would be needed to sustain it.
The danger of a wounded Trump
Rajaei offered the most guarded assessment, comparing Trump to a political gambler who might raise the stakes rather than accept a visible defeat. He stressed that he was describing political behaviour, not making a psychological judgment.
He outlined three possible scenarios: a limited agreement, continued pressure through sanctions and military threats, or renewed escalation triggered by failed negotiations, Israeli pressure or miscalculation.
Rather than trying to predict Trump's next move, Rajaei urged Tehran to strengthen crisis management, civilian resilience and transparent public communication.
His warning comes as Washington continues to combine diplomatic signals with military and economic pressure.
On the eve of the midterms, Trump said a deal with Iran “could happen,” and Tehran has since conveyed proposals through Qatari mediators. Meanwhile, the US naval blockade and sanctions remain in place.
Reports of preparations for a larger US offensive and the expected arrival of an aircraft carrier group in the region have added to uncertainty.
The conflicting signals make it difficult for Tehran to distinguish genuine negotiating opportunities from attempts to extract concessions under pressure.
Trump's record of abrupt changes in negotiating positions, including his public rejection of Iran's account of the Islamabad memorandum in June, adds to the risks of relying on a sweeping agreement rather than limited, reciprocal steps.
Each reversal could also strengthen Iranian hardliners who argue that Washington cannot be trusted, echoing Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei's November 4 warning against expecting changes in US policy simply because political control shifts between parties.
The three articles offer a snapshot of reformist thinking at a moment when Tehran faces competing pressures to negotiate and maintain its confrontational posture.
Haghshenas sees an opportunity that should be seized quickly. Sadri and Ghandriz argue that any agreement must withstand political opposition on both sides. Rajaei warns that Trump's electoral defeat could encourage escalation rather than compromise.
What unites them is a warning that Trump's electoral defeat is neither an Iranian victory nor a guarantee of American restraint.
I was at a gathering of about a dozen friends in Tehran on Thursday night. It was hilariously tragic to watch a bunch of slightly tipsy people at each other's throats over an election in which none of us had a vote but whose outcome could profoundly affect our lives.
We spent much of the evening arguing about Democrats and Republicans, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, and whether the election of Muslim politicians in America was something to celebrate or fear.
“Imagine being told ten years ago that a man with a name like Abdul El-Sayed would become a United States senator,” one friend said. “You’d ask them what drug they were on.”
“Oh, come on,” another protested. “You think America is turning into another Iran because they've elected a progressive senator or mayor who happens to be a Muslim?”
The greatest strength of American democracy, he argued, was that voters could throw out leaders who made a mess of things, or at least take away some of their power.
Quite a few shook their heads. “The trouble is,” one said, “once political Islam gets into power, you can't necessarily get rid of it with another election.”
It was an argument familiar to anyone who has spent time around politically engaged Iranians, but there was something almost comical about hearing it unfold in a Tehran living room.
We were worrying about whether American democracy could survive the election of a Muslim politician while living in a country where our own ability to choose those who govern us has been contested for decades.
The conversation grew louder when someone admitted she was disappointed by the Democratic gains. She had been hoping that Trump and Netanyahu might finally bring about the end of the Islamic Republic.
“The Democrats will make a deal with the mullahs, and we'll be stuck with this lot for another 50 years,” she said.
Her brother was having none of it: “You seriously think Trump and Netanyahu went to war because they care about you and me? All they ever wanted was to force the regime to give them what they came for. Then they’ll walk away. And it’ll be us and the mullahs all over again.”
I have heard versions of this disagreement many times. Some people still hope that outside pressure might accomplish what years of protest have failed to achieve. Others find that hope almost unbearable, particularly after seeing what war has done to the country and how little it has changed the lives of those who survived it.
What struck me, though, was how easily everyone moved between these positions, sometimes contradicting themselves, sometimes laughing at arguments they had made quite seriously only minutes earlier. Nobody seemed especially interested in convincing anyone else.
“I don't even know why you're burning calories over this,” said one of the two friends who had barely spoken until then. “We don't even know if we'll have enough money to pay next month's rent. To hell with the American elections.”
That took some of the energy out of the argument. We could disagree all night about American politics, but there was rather less to disagree about when it came to paying the rent.
And what was the point of discussing that anyway, one friend said bitterly, as though talking about our problems might somehow make them go away.
Perhaps that is what a year of protests, crackdowns, war and unrelenting financial anxiety have done to us. We do talk about politics all the time. But most of us have stopped expecting much from it.
There was a time when conversations like this came with confident predictions. The regime would fall, a deal would be reached, sanctions would be lifted, or another protest would finally change everything. But we’ve stopped making promises about the future, even to ourselves.
None of us in that room had an answer to the question of how we would afford another month, let alone what the American elections might mean for us. But at least we could argue about the latter without having to check our bank balances.
“Avoid the pain if you can” seems to be how we hang on these days. “Take it one breath at a time.”
More than 78,500 people have died in road accidents in Iran over four years, yet the government is seeking to delay new vehicle safety standards despite repeated warnings about the quality of domestically manufactured cars.
Road accidents killed 10,357 people in the first six months of the current Iranian calendar year, ILNA news agency reported on Sunday, November 8, citing figures released a day earlier by Iran's Forensic Medicine Organization.
The figure was down just 0.4 percent from 10,401 deaths during the same period last year.
Another 224,220 people injured in road accidents were referred to forensic medical centers during the six-month period, an increase of 10.8 percent from a year earlier.
Industry minister seeks delay in safety standards
Poor-quality vehicles, unsafe roads and ineffective public education are among the main causes of Iran's road safety crisis, according to critics who say authorities have failed to address the underlying problems.
Traffic police chief Teymour Hosseini has previously urged the Ministry of Industry and the National Standards Organization to improve vehicle safety, arguing that higher traffic fines alone cannot reduce fatalities without safer roads, better-equipped cars and stronger enforcement.
However, Industry Minister Mohammad Atabak asked First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref in a letter dated November 6 to postpone the implementation of new vehicle safety standards by at least one year.
Atabak cited foreign currency shortages, the country's emergency conditions and automakers' inability to invest in developing and redesigning vehicle platforms as reasons for the request.
If approved, the postponement would allow manufacturers to continue production under existing regulations, delaying an increase in mandatory vehicle standards from 85 to 122 requirements, along with new fuel consumption rules.
The proposed delay comes despite repeated warnings about vehicle safety and the country's persistently high road death toll.
"People die in road accidents because of their poor driving, and it has nothing to do with the quality of domestically manufactured cars," Mostafa Mirsalim, a member of Iran's Expediency Council, said on November 8.
Mirsalim also described criticism linking domestic vehicle quality to road fatalities as unfair accusations against automakers.
Road accidents kill 78,510 in four years
Annual figures from Iran's Forensic Medicine Organization show that road deaths rose from 16,778 in the year ending March 2022 to 19,490 in the year ending March 2023.
Fatalities reached 20,045 in the year ending March 2024, the highest figure in the five-year period, before falling to 19,435 in the year ending March 2025 and rising again to 19,540 in the year ending March 2026.
Together, road accidents killed 78,510 people between March 2022 and March 2026, with annual deaths exceeding 19,000 throughout the four-year period.
Iran launched a national "No to Accidents" campaign in 2025 to reduce traffic fatalities, but ILNA questioned whether short-term initiatives could address the scale of the problem.
"It is unrealistic to expect that short-term campaigns and general recommendations can contain a crisis rooted in a combination of human, technical, infrastructural and managerial factors," ILNA wrote.
The news agency called for measurable targets and deadlines for the institutions responsible for road safety, including the Ministry of Roads, the Road Maintenance and Transportation Organization, municipalities and emergency medical services.
Young adults account for largest share of deaths
People aged 18 to 24 accounted for the largest share of road fatalities during the first six months of the current Iranian year, with 1,868 deaths, representing 18 percent of the total.
Another 1,555 victims were aged 30 to 39, while 1,514 were between 40 and 49 years old.
The fatalities also included 455 children aged 10 or younger.
Health Minister Mohammad Reza Zafarghandi described the roughly 20,000 annual road deaths as one of Iran's demographic challenges on June 16. Zafarghandi had previously said that 26 percent of road accident deaths were preventable.
The high number of young victims also raises questions about the government's population policies, which emphasize increasing birth rates and supporting infertility treatment.
"Population growth policies cannot be limited to encouraging childbirth and supporting infertility treatment. Preserving the lives of people already living in the country is equally important," ILNA wrote.
A group of hardline women wearing white burial shrouds rallied outside the Revolutionary Guards headquarters in Tehran, accusing the armed forces of defying Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei amid demands for retaliation over threats against him.
The protest drew a sharp rebuke from Tabnak, a news website linked to Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Mohsen Rezaei, which published commentary accusing the demonstrators of turning against state institutions and warning that action against their movement had begun.
Protesters carried placards warning of threats to Khamenei’s life. “The Imam’s life is in danger. Act now. Tomorrow will be too late,” read one handwritten sign.
A yellow banner addressed military commanders, saying Khamenei’s October 31 order for an “immediate, effective strike without geographical limits” in response to threats remained unfulfilled. “They have threatened the Imam again!” it declared. “Obey before it is too late.”
A speaker over a loudspeaker cited Khamenei’s statement before protesters chanted: “Beware, O armed forces, of defying the leader! Shame on us [if we stand by]!”
An IRGC representative came out to address the protesters, delivering what he said was a message from the Guards commander. He said conditions prevented commanders from meeting them in person and urged them to leave: “This area is not safe. The enemy could exploit the situation at any moment. Please clear the area.”
A woman leading the protest then issued an ultimatum: “If the threat against the Imam’s life is not avenged within 24 hours, we sisters will turn this place into Fatima’s House of Sorrows,” invoking a Shiite symbol of mourning associated with the Prophet Muhammad’s daughter.
The hardliners previously held a similar rally outside the headquarters of Iran’s Armed Forces General Staff, where they described their sit-in protest as an “affectionate reprimand.”
They said they were tired of “empty boasts.” Their statement also equated calls for sustainable development and lasting peace with disarmament, arguing that such ideas were preventing military retaliation against the enemy, according to Ensaf News.
Journalist Masoud Kazemi told Iran International the group, known as Toueh, viewed itself as representing Mojtaba Khamenei’s positions and demanded full implementation of statements attributed to him.
Its demands included dissolving the Supreme National Security Council, and returning its powers to the supreme leader, Kazemi said. The protesters opposed negotiations and regarded those conducting them as traitors, he added.
The rally held on November 5 follows months of pressure from hardliners demanding revenge for Ali Khamenei’s killing in a February 28 airstrike. His son and successor pledged in July that retaliation would be carried out, intensifying pressure on officials pursuing diplomacy with Washington.
Tabnak quoted Hossein Soleimani, editor-in-chief of the IRGC-affiliated Mashregh News, identifying the protesters as the same group that previously occupied Ravagh-e Keshvardoust, a Tehran mourning site near where the former leader was killed.
In June, the site closed after the shroud-wearing hardliners staged a three-day sit-in demanding vengeance. The protesters had also called for the execution of officials involved in negotiations with the United States.
Soleimani accused the group’s leaders of convincing followers that virtually the entire establishment had betrayed the leader, nation and country. Their confrontation, he wrote, targeted state institutions rather than Israel or the United States.
He said the group had been monitored and repeatedly warned but had mistaken the Islamic Republic’s tolerance for permission to continue. Describing the movement as a worsening “cancerous tumor” requiring “surgery,” he added: “That surgery has already begun.”
The conservative newspaper Khorasan also criticized the rally, suggesting the women had either come to believe repeated accusations of betrayal against officials or were being deliberately fed selective information by a political faction exploiting their emotions to pressure commanders.
The hardliners’ ability to rally outside military headquarters stands in stark contrast to the treatment of anti-government protesters. Security forces have repeatedly used lethal force to suppress demonstrations across Iran, including during January’s protests and earlier waves of unrest, while loyalist demonstrators have been able to gather outside some of the country’s most sensitive military sites.