Iran International
Iranian hardliners are demanding that Iraq take sides in Tehran's confrontation with Washington, criticizing Baghdad for restricting border crossings and flights under US pressure while seeking to keep the war out of its territory.
Iraq has closed or restricted several border crossings with Iran, including al-Sheeb-Chazabeh and Mandali-Sumar. The Mandali crossing was shut on Friday by order of the federal government and will remain closed until further notice.
Iraqi officials have described the restrictions as temporary, citing technical and security concerns and efforts to combat smuggling.
However, Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein acknowledged in a November 7 interview with Al Jazeera that Washington had formally asked Baghdad to close all but two of its land crossings with Iran. He said the United States continued to press for the closures, but warned that shutting all crossings would be difficult and would harm Iraq's economy, given the numerous official and unofficial routes along the border.
Air travel has also been affected. Iranian flights to Iraqi airports were largely suspended in late September after ground-handling companies refused to service Iranian aircraft because of the risk of exposure to U.S. secondary sanctions.
Following protests from Tehran and talks with Washington, Baghdad secured a limited exemption. From early October, Iranian airlines were permitted to operate up to 40 daily flights to Najaf International Airport, except Mahan Air, which is affiliated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Iraqi Airways also resumed flights between Najaf and several Iranian cities.
Direct Iranian flights remain largely limited to Najaf, while services to Baghdad, Erbil, Sulaymaniyah and Basra remain heavily restricted.
In a recent incident, an aircraft carrying Iran's national soccer team was reportedly denied permission to land at Basra airport, forcing the team to travel overland from Abadan.
‘A tougher response’
The restrictions have prompted criticism from Iranian commentators and hardliners, who accuse the Iraqi government of yielding to American pressure despite its economic and political ties with Tehran.
Speaking on a panel discussion broadcast on Iranian state television, Ebrahim Naddafzadeh, an analyst on Iraqi affairs, argued that Iraq had failed even to make a symbolic attempt to resist Washington's demands, despite what he described as its own interest in standing alongside Iran.
Naddafzadeh said Baghdad should stop describing itself as neutral and clarify whether it stood with Iran or the United States.
"Everyone says that Iran is the only country that benefits from Iraq's strength and stability. Well, then why don't you stand alongside Iran?" he asked.
Mehdi Azraqi, another guest on the Thursday-night program Be Vaght-e Iran, argued that American intervention in Iraq was not merely intended to counter Iranian influence. Washington's principal objective, he claimed, was to "control and set a ceiling on Iraq's development," because Iran also benefits from Iraq's economic progress.
Vahid Khazab, a political and military analyst, argued that Baghdad had demonstrated its ability to negotiate exemptions from American sanctions when its own interests were at stake.
Iraq imports electricity and natural gas from Iran to prevent serious domestic social and economic problems and has obtained U.S. waivers to continue those imports, he noted.
Khazab acknowledged that Washington has financial leverage over Baghdad through its control over arrangements for transferring Iraq's oil revenues. But he argued that this should not prevent Baghdad from negotiating exemptions, just as it had done to maintain its energy imports from Iran.
He added that Tehran could retaliate by suspending electricity exports to Iraq but was reluctant to take a measure that would shift the burden onto ordinary Iraqis.
Instead, Khazab suggested that Iran could revive its demand for compensation for the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. He argued that Iraq was obligated to pay reparations under United Nations resolutions.
"We don't want to seek compensation now, but we also have these levers," he said.
US ground operation?
Another source of concern in Tehran is the possibility that Iraqi territory could be used in a future US military operation against Iran.
Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi has said Iraq will not allow its territory to be used to attack neighboring countries. However, the Iraqi newspaper Al-Mada reported on November 9 that al-Zaidi had informed Shiite political leaders of an alleged U.S. military plan to use Iraqi territory for a ground operation in southern Iran.
The report described several possible military scenarios and suggested that Washington's planning went beyond limited airstrikes or missile attacks against Iranian nuclear and military facilities.
Iran-aligned armed groups
Iranian hardliners are also calling for an active role by the “Islamic Resistance” current in Iraq in any future confrontation between Tehran and Washington.
Azraqi said Iraqi resistance groups had the capacity to enter a future conflict in support of Iran and take action within their capabilities against “certain targets in the region and American interests.”
The issue is particularly sensitive for al-Zaidi's government, which is seeking to bring Iran-aligned armed factions under state control. Several groups have resisted demands to surrender their weapons.
In his Al Jazeera interview, Hussein confirmed that Baghdad was negotiating with Iran-aligned factions to bring their weapons under government control and was also discussing the matter with Tehran.
He said al-Zaidi had reached understandings with four Iraqi armed groups on the issue, while emphasizing that the process should proceed through dialogue rather than force.
The Emirati outlet Eram News has also reported that al-Zaidi warned Shiite armed-group leaders against taking unilateral action that could draw Iraq into a confrontation between Iran and the United States.
According to the outlet, he warned that any group using Iraqi territory to attack American forces or interests and giving Washington a pretext for military action against Iran could face immediate legal prosecution. The government could also arrest the groups' leaders and declare a state of emergency.
Iraq seeks to mediate
While facing growing US pressure to curb its economic and security ties with Iran, Baghdad has also pursued diplomatic efforts to mediate between Tehran and Washington.
On Thursday, Hussein told France 24 that a US special envoy had asked Iraq to mediate in negotiations with Iran, adding that al-Zaidi's visit to Tehran had also been part of that effort.
Al-Zaidi made an unannounced visit to Tehran late last week, apparently on Friday, following discussions with US President Donald Trump and his special envoy for West Asian affairs, Tom Barrack.
Iraq's ambassador to Tehran and Iranian sources confirmed the visit and described it as part of Baghdad's diplomatic efforts to reduce regional tensions.
According to Iranian reports, al-Zaidi met with Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, who heads Iran's negotiating team, and President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Iran's Tasnim news agency reported on November 9, citing informed sources, that al-Zaidi had failed to secure any outcome during the visit that would satisfy the Americans.
The visit was reportedly also seen as an opportunity for Baghdad to explain its position on restrictions along the Iranian border and allay Tehran's concerns.
Tehran Governor Mohammad Sadegh Motamedian, a former intelligence official accused of overseeing deadly repression of protesters, has emerged as a potential intelligence minister as Iran considers opening the position to non-clerics.
Fars News has identified him as a leading candidate if lawmakers remove the religious qualification for the post.
Motamedian previously headed Intelligence Ministry offices in West Azerbaijan and Ilam provinces, according to a 2021 profile by the Tasnim news agency. Born in Kermanshah in 1970, he holds a master's degree in management and has no clerical background.
He became governor of South Khorasan in November 2018, moved to Razavi Khorasan in October 2020 and took charge of West Azerbaijan in October 2021.
President Masoud Pezeshkian's cabinet appointed him Tehran governor in October 2024. His successive appointments under Hassan Rouhani, Ebrahim Raisi and Pezeshkian demonstrate his ability to retain senior office across administrations with different political identities.
What is his record on repression?
The most detailed public allegations against Motamedian concern his tenure in West Azerbaijan during the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom uprising.
Justice for Iran's Faces of Crime database holds him responsible, in his capacity as governor and chairman of the provincial security council, for mass arrests and the use of lethal force against protesters.
The organization documented at least 56 protester deaths in the province and reported violence in cities including Urmia, Bukan, Mahabad, Piranshahr and Takab.
Why would the law need to change?
The existing qualification requires the intelligence minister to have religious education at the level of ijtihad, the ability to independently interpret Islamic law.
Established in legislation rather than the constitution, the requirement has kept the ministry's leadership in clerical hands. Motamedian's non-clerical background makes its removal central to his prospects.
Supporters of changing the rule argue that intelligence expertise and managerial competence should take precedence.
Former culture minister Ezzatollah Zarghami publicly backed reconsidering the requirement, while parliamentary national security committee deputy Amir Hayat-Moqaddam said its removal would allow non-clerical intelligence specialists to be considered.
The debate has gained urgency since Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib was killed in an Israeli attack in March. The ministry has since operated under an acting head.
Would a non-cleric have greater independence?
The proposed changes would create two bodies inside the ministry: an intelligence protection organization and an ideological-political organization, both headed by appointees of the supreme leader.
Parliamentary spokesman Abbas Goudarzi said on November 10 that the expedited proposal would reach the chamber the following week. The president would still nominate the minister for parliamentary approval.
The proposal would therefore broaden eligibility for the minister's job while formalizing direct oversight by the supreme leader through the two new bodies.
For Motamedian, it could remove a barrier to promotion without necessarily giving the next intelligence minister greater independence from the supreme leader.
Armenia’s parliamentary approval of the Trump Route, a US-run transit corridor running along Iran’s northern border, has set off alarm in Tehran, with officials and state media warning that it would bring a US presence to the frontier.
Armenia’s parliament approved the agreement on October 28. Since then, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader has threatened Yerevan, and state-run media have urged Tehran to stop the project.
The Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) is designed to link Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhchivan through Armenia’s southern Syunik province. Syunik borders Iran’s East Azarbaijan province and carries Iran’s only direct land connection to Armenia, and through it to the rest of the Caucasus.
The route was announced at the White House in August 2025, when President Donald Trump hosted Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev and Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to sign a framework for peace between the two countries after decades of conflict.
Azerbaijan had long called the route the Zangezur corridor, and Tehran had opposed it for years, warning that it could cut Iran off from Armenia.
Under the agreement, Washington and Yerevan will set up a joint company, TRIPP Development, with the US side holding 74 percent and Armenia 26 percent. The initial term is 49 years, with an option to extend it by 50 years, during which Armenia’s stake would rise to 49 percent.
Iranian officials and analysts say TRIPP could cut Iran’s transit revenue and weaken its position as a regional transport hub. They also see a US presence near Iran’s northern border as a serious security threat.
The state-run Mehr News Agency, in a November 9 article titled “The Caucasus on the Path to US Influence: Tehran Must Prevent Implementation of the TRIPP Corridor,” said Iran should rethink its approach to the Caucasus in light of what it called the country’s “new position in regional equations” after the war with the United States and Israel.
“A different approach centered on power,” Mehr said, could stop activities that threaten Iran’s national security from spreading in the South Caucasus.
Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader on international affairs and a former foreign minister, attacked Pashinyan over the agreement in an article in the Ettela’at newspaper on November 5.
Velayati said he had told Armenia’s deputy foreign minister and its ambassador in Tehran that Russia’s preoccupation with the war in Ukraine should not lead Armenia into a “miscalculation.” Iran, he said, considered itself responsible for security in the South Caucasus, “with or without Russia.”
Iranian military commanders later traveled to the region and held a large exercise to show Iran’s “power and determination,” Velayati said. He said he had warned Armenia’s ambassador directly: “If Trump and his allies seek to cross this red line of Iran, we will break their legs.”
Armenia’s Security Council secretary, Armen Grigoryan, said in response that the project did not involve the presence of a single armed soldier, and that none of Armenia’s neighbors, Iran included, should see an economic project as a threat.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Esmaeil Baghaei, said on Monday that Tehran had raised its concerns with Armenia immediately after Armenia, Azerbaijan and the United States issued their joint statement on the project.
Armenia had assured Iran that the route would not change international borders or the region’s geopolitical arrangements, and that no US military forces would be stationed there, he said.
Hardline media have kept up their attacks despite Armenia’s assurances.
On November 9, Jam-e Jam, a newspaper published by the state broadcaster, ran an article titled “Yerevan’s Gamble with Trump’s Card.”
“From the perspective of Iran’s national security doctrine, the emergence of an economic and administrative structure under US control in Syunik province, even if initially presented under the guise of transit and trade, is unacceptable,” the paper wrote.
Security threats do not have to begin with military bases, Jam-e Jam said. Strategic infrastructure and networks tied to hostile powers can lay the ground for long-term influence.
Mehdi Seif-Tabrizi, an analyst of Russian affairs, made a similar case in the Farhikhtegan newspaper on November 7.
“Tehran’s concern is fundamentally not limited to the possible deployment of US military forces. The issue is the formation of permanent infrastructure for influence in the vicinity of Iran’s borders, which could serve purposes beyond its initial economic objectives in times of crisis,” he wrote.
Iran’s concerns had grown more serious since its war with the United States, he added.
A proposal to merge Iran's Intelligence Ministry with the Revolutionary Guards' powerful intelligence organisation is gaining traction, reviving debate over the rivalry between the two agencies and the future of the country's security apparatus.
The issue has drawn renewed attention in the reformist newspaper Etemad, which is close to President Masoud Pezeshkian's administration.
In an article published Thursday, the newspaper examined proposals reportedly discussed in senior state consultations to consolidate the two agencies into a more unified and accountable intelligence structure.
Iran's Intelligence Ministry remains without a permanent chief nearly eight months after Esmail Khatib was killed in an Israeli strike in March, while parliament considers separate legislation to overhaul the ministry's leadership.
The two agencies have long operated alongside one another, with overlapping responsibilities and competing centres of authority.
A history of rivalry
Iran's intelligence apparatus encompasses several organisations, but the Intelligence Ministry and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Intelligence Organisation are its two most prominent institutions.
The ministry operates within the government, with its chief nominated by the president and approved by parliament. The IRGC's intelligence arm belongs to a military organisation operating under the supreme leader's command.
Their competing authority has occasionally produced disagreements over investigations and the treatment of detainees.
During the late 2010s, one prominent dispute involved environmental activists arrested by the IRGC Intelligence Organisation on espionage charges. Another concerned more than 50 people reportedly accused of spying for Israel.
In both cases, the Intelligence Ministry publicly challenged allegations advanced by the IRGC Intelligence Organisation.
Some former detainees subsequently told Iranian and Persian-language media outside the country that the ministry had apologised for their detention and offered compensation.
A sensitive debate
Writing in Etemad, journalist Mehdi Beik-Oghli examined longstanding concerns about overlapping mandates, institutional rivalries and legal accountability within Iran's intelligence system.
His analysis also explored the qualifications required for senior intelligence officials and the difficulties of maintaining separate security institutions with overlapping responsibilities.
Etemad is widely regarded as one of the newspapers closest to Pezeshkian's administration. Its proprietor, Elias Hazrati, serves as a senior government media adviser.
The article does not establish whether a merger has been formally proposed by the government or endorsed by senior decision-makers, but its publication brings a sensitive question about Iran's intelligence establishment into a prominent government-aligned newspaper.
Leadership vacuum
Iran's parliament is preparing to consider separate legislation that could fundamentally change the leadership structure of the Intelligence Ministry.
Parliamentary presidium spokesman Abbas Goudarzi said Tuesday that an urgent bill would remove the longstanding requirement for the intelligence minister to possess ijtihad, an advanced qualification in Islamic jurisprudence.
Since the ministry's establishment in 1984, all its permanent ministers have been clerics.
The proposed legislation would allow a non-cleric to take the position while establishing two new organisations within the ministry, responsible for internal security and ideological affairs.
Their directors would be appointed directly by Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, while the intelligence minister would continue to be nominated by the president and approved by parliament.
Goudarzi said the changes would help resolve the leadership vacancy following Khatib's death. The ministry has been run by an acting minister whose identity has not been publicly disclosed.
The proposed legislation has yet to receive parliamentary approval, and it remains unclear whether the eventual selection of a new minister would favour career intelligence officials or figures associated with the Revolutionary Guards.
While the parliamentary proposal would retain the ministry and alter its leadership arrangements, the merger discussion goes further, raising the possibility of consolidating institutions that have operated as competing centres of security authority for decades.
Neither proposal has been adopted, and no decision to merge the intelligence agencies has been announced.
Iran's Assembly of Experts, a body of Islamic jurists tasked with choosing the supreme leader, has become the first governing institution to call for a review of the country's defense doctrine, potentially paving the way for a reversal of the religious ban on nuclear weapons.
In a statement released on Thursday, the assembly called for reviewing Iran's membership in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and its defense doctrine to establish adequate deterrence, describing the move as an “unavoidable necessity” and a “public and national demand.”
The intervention carries particular religious significance because the assembly comprises senior clerics, some of whom are qualified to exercise independent Islamic legal reasoning. Their support for reconsidering the doctrine could help weaken the religious justification for Iran's longstanding prohibition on nuclear weapons, based on a decree by the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
The assembly is constitutionally responsible for appointing and overseeing Iran's supreme leader. It has no direct authority over nuclear policy, but its statement gives institutional weight to demands previously voiced largely by hardline lawmakers and commentators.
Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful, citing Khamenei's religious ruling against weapons of mass destruction.
Iran's security chief Mohsen Rezaei said last month that changing the nuclear doctrine was under discussion but that neither the government nor the broader establishment had made a new decision.
Earlier this week, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Tehran remained committed to the NPT.
Hardliners press for nuclear policy shift
Tehran's interim Friday prayer leader, Mohammad-Javad Haj Ali-Akbari, described revising the nuclear doctrine as a national demand on October 30. Lawmaker Ahmad Naderi has openly advocated acquiring an atomic bomb.
Hardliners have also urged Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei to overturn his father Ali Khamenei's religious decree prohibiting the production of nuclear weapons. Others have proposed enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels while stopping short of manufacturing a bomb.
Reformist figures have challenged claims that developing nuclear weapons enjoys broad public support. Separately, Nour News, a website close to the Supreme National Security Council, warned against allowing crowd slogans to substitute for expert assessment of nuclear policy.
Warning of retaliation
The assembly also warned that another attack on Iran would trigger an “immediate and effective response without geographical limits” from the armed forces.
Its language echoed instructions attributed to Mojtaba Khamenei in an account published by the Revolutionary Guards-affiliated Tasnim news agency on October 31. That account did not announce an order to develop nuclear weapons.
Beyond military policy, the assembly called for establishing a “war economy headquarters” involving different branches of government and operating under the supreme leader's oversight.
It also urged action against what it described as the enemy's “cultural assault,” particularly concerning chastity and hijab.
Iran’s leaders say no talks can begin until Washington accepts seven conditions. But Tehran has never published them, its own officials list them differently, and several are demands no US president could meet, while the one issue Washington cares most about is ruled out.
The conditions are back at the center of the war’s diplomacy this week. On Thursday Hossein Taeb, a cleric who ran the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence organization until 2022 and now heads the Basij paramilitary force, gave the most detailed account yet of how messages are moving between the two sides.
Days before the US midterm elections, he said, a Trump representative went to Vladimir Putin, and a Russian envoy then flew to Tehran with a written message for Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei. The envoy waited for a reply. Khamenei, Taeb said, calmly ordered that it be sent “at a suitable time.”
Then came a phone call between Putin and Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, and Rezaei’s trip to Moscow, where he handed Putin a letter from Khamenei on November 5.
“Our position is that Iran’s seven conditions must first be met and accepted by the other side,” Taeb said. Only then would Iran decide how, and about what, to negotiate.
His account sits awkwardly beside his colleagues’. Rezaei told Al Mayadeen this week that there are no negotiations of any kind and that reports of talks are “lies.” On X he told Washington to stop “manufacturing FAKE NEWS about imaginary talks” and wrote that it was “time to SURRENDER to the seven conditions.”
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who formally leads Iran’s negotiating team, told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that Tehran had given Washington “a clear and transparent response” and was waiting for an official reply.
The US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Putin in the Kremlin on Thursday, mainly to discuss Ukraine after talks in Abu Dhabi. Neither side has said whether Iran came up.
Rezaei announced the seven conditions on September 23, after a meeting with President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, and said they had been put in writing and handed to Pakistan and Qatar. Iran later offered to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if they were met, then within two.
Iran has never officially released the text. Officials say the conditions grew out of the Islamabad understanding of June, which Hassan Ghashghavi, spokesman of parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, says the presidents of both countries signed. Trump has disowned it.
No official list exists. Pieced together from what officials have said, it usually runs: an end to the war on all fronts, especially in Lebanon, the lifting of sanctions, the release of frozen assets, an end to the US naval blockade, compensation for war damage, guarantees against future attacks, and Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz.
But the list moves. Vahid Ahmadi, a member of the same committee, includes “the management of the Strait of Hormuz” by Iran under a new route agreed with Oman. Ghalibaf, listing them on Wednesday, added guaranteed waivers for Iranian oil sales. The armed forces chief, Ali Abdollahi, has set out five conditions of his own, including recognition of Iranian authority over Hormuz and a new regional security framework. Some reports include a reduction of US forces in the region. “Sometimes we may mention some conditions,” Rezaei said in September, “but Iran has seven.”
On October 11 Rezaei said Washington had “agreed to some” of them. This week he said there was no response at all.
An end to war “on all fronts.” This asks Washington to stop wars that Iran’s allies are fighting. Ahmadi says the condition now covers not only Lebanon but “the other resistance fronts,” meaning Hezbollah, the Houthis and militias in Iraq. Lebanon already has its own track. A US-brokered framework between the United States, Israel and Lebanon in June led to direct talks between Israel and Lebanon. Tehran is tying its own deal to a war fought by a group it arms and funds.
Lifting sanctions. No US president can do this alone. Many US sanctions on Iran are written into law by Congress. United Nations sanctions returned in late September 2025 under the nuclear deal’s snapback mechanism. The European Union and Britain impose their own. Lifting sanctions under the 2015 nuclear deal took two years of negotiation. Iran is asking for it as a condition for starting to talk.
Frozen assets. Iran’s own figures do not agree with anyone else’s. Tasnim and the central bank put the total at about $24 billion; other estimates run past $100 billion. Some of the money is tied up in US court judgments won by victims of attacks blamed on Iran, and the $6 billion moved to Qatar in 2023 was frozen again after the Hamas attack on Israel that October.
Ending the blockade. The US blockade of Iranian ports began on April 13, after Iran choked traffic through Hormuz. The condition asks Washington to lift its response while Iran keeps the closure that caused it. Iran’s only offer in return is to reopen a waterway it closed.
Reparations. The government spokeswoman has put Iran’s losses at $270 billion without a breakdown. Trump has rejected paying anything. Tehran is demanding compensation while its own missiles and drones struck its neighbors. The UAE alone absorbed close to 3,000 attacks in the first months of the war, the Financial Times has reported.
Guarantees against attack. No US president can bind his successor, which is the lesson Iranian officials themselves draw from Trump’s exit from the 2015 deal. The same officials who say Washington cannot be trusted are demanding a promise from it.
Iranian control of Hormuz. The strait is an international waterway. A condition that Iran “manage” it, approve routes or collect tolls is not a term for ending a war. It is a claim to a power Iran did not have before the war began.
The issue Washington says the war was about is missing. Rezaei said this week that the nuclear file “is not under discussion,” and that “not even a particle” of Iran’s enriched uranium would leave the country.
The result is a list that asks Washington to give up every lever it holds, sanctions, the blockade, its forces and the money, before talks begin, while Iran keeps the two things the other side wants most: the closure of Hormuz until the end, and its nuclear material for good.
Officials have sold the conditions at home as the terms of a victory. Rezaei told Washington it was “time to SURRENDER to the seven conditions Iran has repeatedly set out.” Taeb told his audience that the 40-day war decided the elections in Israel and the United States, and that Trump would have to withdraw his forces or face “a wider social movement” at home.
Ghalibaf said on Wednesday that Tehran wants to end the state of “neither war nor peace,” but that this might come through “sustainable deterrence” rather than talks.
The cost of the stalemate falls on Iranians. Ghalibaf himself complained that the blockade has cut access to food and medicine. Taeb said gasoline output fell to about 102 million liters a day during the war against consumption of about 135 million, and that Iran still imports some seven million liters a day. Inflation reached about 77 percent in October.
