A sharp increase in US military deployments to the Middle East has intensified uncertainty in Tehran, where analysts and officials are debating whether the buildup signals imminent conflict or a bid to gain leverage in nuclear negotiations.
Student walkouts at schools across Iran this week underscored the continuing political presence of a younger generation that has remained deeply engaged despite months of arrests and repression.
The second round of Iran–US nuclear talks was met with a muted and often critical reaction in Tehran, where official outlets questioned Washington’s commitment after American negotiators left Geneva within hours despite Iran’s offer to continue discussions.
Iranians and the government held rival ceremonies Tuesday marking the 40th day after the January 8–9 protest killings, with families staging independent memorials as officials organized a state event critics called an attempt to “appropriate” the victims.
Forty days after Iran’s deadly January crackdown, senior officials repeated claims of foreign influence while some insiders—even from the hardline camp—offered sharply different explanations.
Rising bread prices have become a growing source of concern within Iran’s political establishment, with warnings that further increases could trigger unrest as inflation erodes living standards.
Reports from Tehran by a British Muslim commentator depicting normalcy and freedom after Iran’s violent crackdown on dissent have triggered a backlash, with critics accusing authorities of using foreign voices to legitimize their narrative.
President Massoud Pezeshkian’s increasingly public confrontations with Iran’s state broadcaster have exposed the limits of his authority, underscoring how one of the country’s most powerful institutions operates beyond the reach of its elected government.
Iran’s Fajr Film Festival went ahead this year as planned. But it did so in a country still reeling from bloodshed, and the red carpets beneath its guests carried a symbolic weight that many in the film community found difficult to ignore.
During state-organized rallies marking Iran’s 1979 revolution anniversary, demonstrators in several cities burned large statues of a horned, bull-headed figure identified by organizers as “Baal,” an ancient deity referenced in biblical and Islamic tradition.
The message coming out of Tehran on the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution was that Iran is willing to negotiate with the United States, though it remains unclear how its declared “red lines” can be squared with Washington’s demands.
One month after a sweeping and deadly crackdown on nationwide protests, Islamic Republic marked its anniversary with state-organized rallies that appeared designed to project strength even as anti-government chants reverberated across neighborhoods nationwide.
Iran’s January protests were the predictable result of years of ignored economic and social warning signs, according to one of the country’s most prominent economists, who says the state failed to recognize how close society had come to the brink.
Tehran appears to be speaking in two voices about diplomacy with Washington: one calibrated for foreign capitals, the other aimed inward, shaped by fear, factionalism, and propaganda.
As Iranian and US negotiators met in Oman on Friday to discuss the framework for renewed talks, Friday prayer leaders across Iran used their sermons to dismiss the process, expressing near-uniform pessimism about the prospects for diplomacy.
State-backed celebrations of Shiite Imam Mahdi’s birthday this week have angered many Iranians mourning tens of thousands killed in recent protests, highlighting a widening divide over grief, faith and public displays of joy.
As Iran and the United States reshuffle the format and venue of their talks amid military threats, deep mistrust, and hardline red lines, skepticism over a breakthrough appears widespread.
As hopes for talks with the United States flicker and fade, Iran’s chronic factional infighting once again appears to have torpedoed a diplomatic opening—even before it properly began.
Rights groups and activists are sounding the alarm over what they describe as a widening campaign of pressure, arrests and intimidation against Iranian doctors and nurses who treated injured protesters.
A mocking segment aired on Iran’s state television about the bodies of protesters killed in January has sparked public outrage and renewed calls, including from Islamic Republic loyalists, for the removal of the head of the national broadcaster.
When Iran cuts off internet access, millions are plunged into more than digital silence. Mental health experts say the blackouts intensify anxiety, isolation, and trauma in a society already under extreme strain.
Tehran appears to have taken the US military buildup near Iran seriously, but shows no sign of softening its rhetoric or accepting Washington’s terms while it explores limited diplomatic channels.