The World Waits

Welcome back to MBN’s weekly deep dive into Iran from the premier Arabic-first American news and commentary platform on the Middle East.

In this edition, we’ll look at the new faceoff between Tehran and the West. We’ll also take a close look at how Tehran shapes its message for Arab audiences – a key target for the Islamic Republic’s “soft power” war for hearts and minds in the region.

Share your thoughts, analysis and predictions with me at ailves@mbn-news.com. If you were forwarded the newsletter, please subscribe. Read me in Arabic here, or on the flagship Alhurra Arabic-language and English-language news sites.

Quote of the day

“We shed blood. What negotiation?”

— Anonymous graffiti from Parand City, near Tehran

TOP OF THE NEWS

In the past few weeks, President Trump’s statements on Iran have evolved from threatening retaliation for a crackdown on Iranian protesters to warning of military action if the Islamic Republic’s leaders refuse nuclear concessions. As the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier group and other assets reached the region, the White House assumed a two‑track posture: keep the naval buildup visible as leverage, while dispatching special envoy Steve Witkoff to negotiate with Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi over a solution to the nuclear impasse.

The headlines tend to gloss over an underlying shift in policy. Trump originally promised to blend his nuclear demands with pressure over Iran’s regional network and human‑rights abuses. But now the emphasis has shifted towards a narrower goal: get the nuclear issue off the table, manage the risk of war, and leave the rest for later.

For Iranians watching from the streets and from exile, that shift is the real story of the week. Tehran is negotiating even as it ramps up its machinery of repression, while Washington is now focused on uranium levels and sanctions relief.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaking in Tehran. Photo: Reuters.

Iran’s leaders have been walking their own two‑track line, mixing threats with conditional openness. In a speech in Tehran on Sunday, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei warned that “the Americans should know that if they start a war, this time it will be a regional war,” and vowed that Iran would “respond decisively to anyone who assaults or provokes” the country. On Tuesday, Iranian President Pezeshkian wrote on X that he had instructed his foreign minister to pursue “fair and equitable negotiations” with the United States in an atmosphere “free from threats and unreasonable expectations.” The wording let Tehran explore a deal while insisting it has not bowed to the U.S. president.

At the same time, the ground rules around Iran have shifted. EU governments have finally agreed to put the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on their terrorist list, a step Iran had long treated as anathema. Tehran has responded with symbolic counter‑designations of European militaries and fresh threats of retaliation.

How and where the West and Tehran will talk, and about what, is still up in the air. Format, venue, participants, and agenda remain open: will this be a broader Istanbul meeting, including regional states, versus a discussion in Oman only between the U.S. and Iran? Will the subjects open for discussion only include the nuclear issue, or will Iran’s missiles and regional militias be a topic as well? The world waits with bated breath.

The USS Abraham Lincoln. Photo: Reuters

Meanwhile, amidst all the uncertainty and tension, a U.S. F‑35 launched from the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln shot down an Iranian Shahed‑139 drone over the Arabian Sea on Tuesday after it “aggressively” approached the ship with “unclear intent,” according to U.S. Central Command. The carrier was operating about 500 miles off Iran’s southern coast, and CENTCOM says the drone kept closing in despite “de‑escalation” measures, so the jet downed it in self‑defense.

Washington and Tehran’s positions are still far apart on three core issues. The U.S. wants Iran to ship out or neutralize its stock of highly enriched uranium, to accept tighter caps and inspections on any enrichment that continues inside the country, and to ensure that at least part of Iran’s missile program and some of its activities with armed groups around the region are also covered and limited in whatever agreement is eventually reached. Tehran, on the other hand, says its enrichment on Iranian soil is a sovereign right, that its missile program is “defensive” and “not up for negotiation,” and that it will not discuss support for regional allies under military pressure.

Since the mid‑January massacres, the shape of the crackdown has shifted from open killing to suffocation. Amnesty describes a “suffocating militarization” of major cities. The mass arrests and enforced disappearances are accompanied by heavily-armed patrols, curfews, and bans on gatherings. Rights groups report tens of thousands detained during the uprising. Many are still held without access to lawyers or families and with their whereabouts undisclosed.

The risk of further death sentences is high even though the streets are quieter. UN and Western diplomats describe executions as a standing tool of intimidation rather than a one‑off spike. They point to late‑January reports that dozens of prisoners were hanged in the days after the shootings, including some linked to the protests and many others whose cases were rushed through the courts. One former detainee described threats of sexual violence: “They blindfolded me and ordered me to take off my clothes, saying I was ‘permissible’ to the guards. I felt someone touching me. They placed a noose around my neck and said, ‘Since you won’t write [a confession], we will execute you without trial.’”

Economically, nothing in recent days has eased the pressure cooker. The rial continues to slide, inflation expectations remain elevated, and analysts still forecast 2026 as a year of grinding sanctions and rising prices, which is what pushed people into the streets in the first place.

A presenter on Iran’s Arabic-language Al-Alam TV channel.

What is Tehran Saying to the Arab World?

For the Islamic Republic, the Arab world is where it tries to push its defensive perimeter outwards with the help of allies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. It needs at least pockets of sympathy to offset deep hostility from Arab governments – and publics.

Arab public opinion has long shaped Iran’s regional story. The Islamic Republic built its early soft power by backing Palestine and castigating the U.S. and Israel, only to find that its direct interventions in Syria and Yemen have left large majorities in countries like Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon viewing Iranian leadership negatively.

A 2022 Gallup World Poll across thirteen Muslim‑majority countries found very high disapproval of the Iranian leadership. As Gallup reported, “countries where Iran has had the greatest influence give Tehran some of its lowest marks. Large majorities disapprove of Iranian leadership in Iraq (86%), Yemen (80%) and Lebanon (73%).”

The Arab Opinion Index, in 2022–2024 surveys conducted by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, likewise reported that majorities in most surveyed countries described Iran as a source of regional instability and cited its backing for armed non‑state actors and sectarian policies as key reasons for their negative view. Earlier sympathy for Iran’s anti‑U.S. and pro‑Palestine posture has eroded.

So it’s no surprise that Tehran invests heavily in Arabic‑language media, religious networks and social services in places like Beirut, Najaf and Sanaa, even as its appeal has faded. Without some foothold in the Arab information space, its whole “axis of resistance” narrative risks looking like a foreign occupation rather than a shared cause.

The state broadcaster, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), which runs the Arabic‑language Al‑Alam satellite news channel alongside other foreign‑language outlets, is by far the biggest single propaganda vehicle. Recent budget bills and independent analyses put IRIB’s annual state allocation in the 200- to 260-million dollar range. Beyond IRIB, Tehran channels hundreds of millions of dollars more into religious and cultural networks that operate across Arab countries, from shrine‑reconstruction projects in Iraq and Syria to foundations and seminaries linked to Hezbollah and other partners. Besides its Arabic-language programming, Iran also broadcasts television in Spanish and Urdu, and has content in over two dozen other languages, including Assyrian, Hebrew, and Japanese.

What is Tehran’s message to Arab audiences, especially now that Tehran appears once again to be standing in direct confrontation with Washington? I asked my MBN colleague Randa Jebai, who follows Iran closely, to give me her read on the Islamic Republic’s messaging in the Arab world. “Senior Iranian officials,” she told me, “are now articulating a unified narrative: any future conflict in the region will be inherently expansive, multi-theater, and impossible to contain.”

She notes that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei emphasized precisely that message in a statement on Feb. 1, when he warned that any new war in the region would inevitably become “regional in scope.” Randa pointed out that Ali Shamkhani warned that any hostile action would be met with a “proportional, effective, and deterrent response,” explicitly including strikes extending “deep inside Israel.” Crucially, Shamkhani framed the expansion of conflict as a shared regional risk rather than a unilateral Iranian threat.

“At the same time,” Jebai says,” Iranian officials have made a point of acknowledging more cautious positions taken by some Arab states.” Tehran has welcomed calls for de-escalation from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Oman, presenting them as evidence of growing regional awareness that security cannot be outsourced to external powers.

In summary, Jebai says, “Tehran is not presenting itself as seeking war, but as asserting that any conflict imposed on the region will expand horizontally and vertically, drawing in multiple actors and arenas” – a message endlessly reinforced by Iranian media at all levels.

CLOSER

As I noted in the most recent editions of the MBN Iran Briefing, behind the figures of thousands killed by the regime, there are names and lives. I’ll continue to profile some of them here.

There’s Rubina Aminian, a 23-year-old fashion student who, according to her family, was shot at close range in the back of the head. Her mother wasn’t allowed in the morgue but was able to force her way in, steal her daughter’s corpse, and carry it out.

And Mohammad Saleh Zarif Moghadam, 28, who was shot by members of the Basij, the volunteer paramilitaries overseen by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Apparently, he fell to the ground, wounded, and the Basijis then shot him in the head.

They stand for countless others. The Human Rights Activists News Agency, a U.S.-based advocacy organization, now estimates the number of those killed at 6,800 — but says that they expect the number to go even higher.