ANALYSIS

Iran’s new “Internet Pro” rollout may tighten state control in the short term, but experts who spoke to Iran International question whether the Islamic Republic can sustain a class-based internet in one of the Middle East’s most connected societies.

Pink missiles, pink drones and pink firearms. Women with uncovered hair—braids, ponytails, short bobs—stood beside weapons, waved flags and smiled for cameras in scenes broadcast across Iranian media. Tehran appears willing to try almost anything to preserve power.

One hundred days after protests erupted across Iran in January 2026, the events continue to reveal something fundamental about Iranian society: many people now fear silence more than they fear protest.

Despite deep political turmoil, economic distress, militant violence, and a fraying security landscape at home, Pakistan has unexpectedly emerged as the publicly acknowledged central mediator between Washington and Tehran.

The US naval blockade of Iran is entering an opaque phase, with early signs of impact emerging through both buyer hesitation and deceptive shipping practices, rather than direct naval confrontations.

The idea that Iran could generate tens of billions of dollars annually by charging ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz has gained traction in media commentary, but the claim does not withstand scrutiny.

The United States moved to impose a naval blockade on Iran just as the country’s oil exports were surging to their highest levels in years, underscoring Washington’s effort to halt a wartime boom in Tehran’s energy revenues.

Iran has sent a negotiating team to the Islamabad talks with the United States spanning an unusually broad political spectrum—suggesting a possibly calculated effort to pre-empt future hardline backlash while pursuing negotiations.

As US and Iranian envoys prepare to meet in Pakistan this weekend, the truce between the two sides appears less a step toward peace than a fragile intermission in a war whose central disputes remain unresolved.

As US and Iranian envoys prepare to meet in Pakistan to explore a path out of the war, China is watching from further east—an influential but cautious actor that helped move diplomacy forward but is unlikely to become the guarantor Tehran would like.

The ceasefire in the US-Israeli war on Iran eased global oil markets and may finally reopen the Strait of Hormuz. But for Iran, the truce exposes an economic crisis the war had temporarily masked, with weaker fundamentals and fewer tools to respond.

In 2019, while working on the energy desk at Reuters, I began reporting on a question that has shadowed global oil markets for decades: what would happen if the Strait of Hormuz were closed?

Iran’s petrochemical sector is now openly under threat, marking a significant escalation in the conflict and raising the prospect of far-reaching economic consequences for the country and potentially the wider region.

The mission to rescue an American pilot downed in Iran showed how a tactical success can open wider strategic possibilities, sharpening debate over how far the United States may expand its footprint inside Iran.

President Donald Trump’s threat to strike Iran’s power plants, if carried out, could trigger widespread economic disruption inside Iran while sending shockwaves through global energy markets.

In these fateful weeks, strikes thunder against steel plants at Mobarakeh and Khuzestan, sites tied to the Pasteur Institute, vital transport arteries, and facilities of Shahid Beheshti University—formerly Melli University.

Iran and the United States may prefer an end to the war, but the gap between the minimum terms each side could accept is so wide that a deal remains unlikely for now.

The war pitting the United States and Israel against Iran is being fought across airspace and shipping lanes, but one of its most consequential economic effects may be unfolding elsewhere: the fragile commercial relationship between Tehran and the United Arab Emirates.