ANALYSIS

Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz appears to have dealt far greater damage to its own trade with China than to Beijing's commerce with the rest of the Persian Gulf, according to newly released Chinese customs data.

Russia’s turn to imported gasoline after Ukrainian attacks damaged its refineries is adding demand to a tight Asian fuel market, creating a potential new complication for Iran as it struggles to cover a daily shortfall of about 30 million liters.

President Donald Trump vowed Tuesday to strike Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain, but experts say the deeply buried nuclear facility, potentially central to Tehran’s efforts to restore enrichment, may be far harder to disable than his warning suggests.

Pakistan and Qatar are pressing ahead with efforts to revive Iran-US diplomacy, but Tehran has yet to publicly endorse the initiative as fighting continues over the Strait of Hormuz and resistance to renewed negotiations grows within sections of the Iranian establishment.

Foreign intelligence penetration of Iran is hardly a secret. But Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has now suggested the operation goes beyond locating officials or stealing information and seeks to influence decision-making inside the Islamic Republic itself.

An Iranian plane landing in Houthi-controlled Yemen looked like an oddly minor victory for Tehran. But it may have been the opening move in an effort to rebuild the allied force capable of threatening a second global maritime chokepoint alongside the Strait of Hormuz.

The alleged recruitment of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by Mossad reads like a spy thriller and has been denied by his office. But it has renewed interest in Iran's most controversial president—and the ruthless infighting that turned a Leader’s darling into a political outcast.

Barely 37 percent of working-age Iranians have a job. Yet the government's official unemployment rate is only 7.5 percent. The gap between those two figures reveals less about Iran's labour market than about the way it is measured.

A reported US strike on a railway bridge in northern Iran has drawn attention to a lesser-known front in the widening conflict: the battle over the transport corridors linking Iran to Central Asia, Russia and China.

Hamas says it is stepping away from governing Gaza. But is it actually giving up power or turning away from its longtime backers in Tehran?

The looming end of Payman Jebelli’s term as head of Iran’s state broadcaster has become a political test of whether the country’s new leadership is prepared to rein in hardliners accused of hijacking public media.

As Iran adjusts to life after Ali Khamenei, a question once considered unthinkable is moving into the open: is the role of Supreme Leader itself being redefined?

As Iran holds week-long funeral ceremonies for Ali Khamenei, the political dynamics unfolding behind the scenes point to a striking reality: the succession question that dominated elite politics for more than a decade did not end with his death.

As Ali Khamenei’s coffin is carried through days of state-orchestrated mourning, the Islamic Republic is trying to recast a humiliating wartime death as martyrdom, continuity and power, and repair a system wounded by war and public distrust.

Since becoming Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei has repeatedly used ba’sat, a term rooted in divine mission, to cast Iranians not just as citizens but as a force tasked with carrying forward the Islamic Republic’s project at home and beyond.

Comments by an establishment pundit suggesting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) could be dismantled from within have raised an extraordinary question: is Tehran preparing to reinvent one of the pillars of the Islamic Republic?

Global oil prices have fallen back to around where they stood before the Iran war. But the decline reflects not a recovery in supply but a combination of emergency measures including strategic reserve releases, alternative export routes and, above all, weakening global demand.

Direct-to-cell satellite technology could one day help Iranians bypass part of the Islamic Republic’s digital blockade, but it is not yet a practical solution to the country’s internet shutdown despite widespread hopes.