Iranian protesters are not backing down. Over the weekend, students staged demonstrations at major campuses in Tehran and Mashhad, the first significant campus protests since January’s crackdown, which rights groups HRANA and Amnesty International say killed thousands. Videos from BBC Persian and Iran International show students denouncing “the dictator,” the Revolutionary Guard, and the Islamic Republic itself, demanding justice for those killed and calling for political transition.
The gap is clear: while the regime’s public messaging is focused on Trump’s timeline and the nuclear file, the street is focused on the regime.
Iran’s official press is not treating Trump’s 10-to-15-day window as a binding deadline. State-aligned outlets are dismissing it as “Trump’s new rhetoric,” and the regime insists it does not recognize any formal timeline, framing the window as Washington using time as another form of pressure.
That position has been held since January. Iranian officials say the country will not start a war, will not accept what they call “humiliating” concessions, and will respond to any American military strike with force that could spread across the region. Nournews, which is close to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said Trump’s threat “smells of miscalculation” and warned that “playing with time and threats can have consequences that are neither predictable nor easily contained.”
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran has put its own proposal on the table. From Tehran’s perspective, he said, there is no American deadline, only a short window to determine whether Washington is serious about returning to Geneva.
The threat language has grown sharper. Officials have stated, more explicitly than before, that American “bases, facilities and assets” in the region would be “legitimate targets” in the event of a strike. Conservative outlet Khabar Online reported that “according to Iran’s defense plan, in the event of a U.S. attack, Iran will target hundreds of important centers and bases in the occupied Palestinian territory at the first moment.”
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not softened his tone. In a recent speech, he said, “We must have deterrent weapons. If a country does not have deterrent weapons, it will be trampled underfoot by its enemies. Deterrent weapons are one of the obligations of our nation.”
Andres Ilves
Andres Ilves is Senior Director for Strategic Initiatives at MBN. His career as a journalist and writer includes two decades at the BBC and Radio Free Europe.
