Choppers and Cups

Welcome back to the MBN Iran Briefing.

The World Cup begins today, and Iran arrives with its fans shut out and its squad barred from spending a night on American soil, while the U.S. and Iran go after one another again in a series of retaliatory attacks.

Find out more below.

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And don’t forget to check out the latest Iran Briefing podcast. In this episode, I talk to Ilan Berman, longtime analyst of Iran, Russia, and Eurasian security. Our wide-ranging discussion covers Iran’s propaganda efforts and messaging in the West, how the regime controls the flow of information in and out of the country, and even draws some wisdom from boxer Mike Tyson.

Stay tuned for the next episode, which will feature MBN Washington Bureau Chief Joe Kawly and seasoned MBN journalist Rami Al Amine and yours truly as we discuss the latest developments in Lebanon.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“From the Strait of Hormuz to Bab al-Mandab Strait and from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea is the new security belt of resistance.”

– Esmail Qaani, commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force.

TOP OF THE NEWS

The Helicopter and the Strait. The latest military actions between the U.S. and Iran remind us that the ceasefire announced on Apr. 8 has never really held. Within hours of the ceasefire announcement two months ago, Israel launched its heaviest strikes of the war on Lebanon. When the Islamabad talks collapsed, Washington imposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports, and Iranian missile, drone, and small boat attacks on shipping continued through May. On Sunday, after Israel struck Beirut’s southern suburbs, Iran fired ballistic missiles at Israel, its most serious attack on Israel since the truce. That prompted Israeli retaliation against Iran. Both sides stepped back, and less than 24 hours later, a U.S. Apache went into the sea near the Strait of Hormuz.

It was the first American helicopter lost in the current war, though hardly the first aircraft: more than 40 American planes and drones have been lost or damaged since February, including two dozen Reaper drones. The two pilots were pulled from the water by an unmanned surface vessel, the first sea rescue ever performed by a U.S. military drone.

An Apache attack helicopter of the type shot down by Iran on Tuesday morning. Photo: AFP

The Apache that went down was doing what the mission demands of helicopters in the Strait: flying low and slow, close to Iranian fast boats, coastal installations, and drone units. Whenever American helicopters have operated in this waterway, from the tanker war escorts of the 1980s to today’s blockade patrols, that proximity has produced incidents.

Under Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, Iran became Bell Helicopter’s most important foreign client and, by the late 1970s, the leading military helicopter power in the Middle East. The Shah ordered hundreds of Bell 214s, a variant named “Isfahan” in Iran’s honor, alongside Bell 212s, AH-1J SeaCobras, and Chinooks. Bell developed an entirely new aircraft, the 214ST, specifically to meet Iranian requirements for a larger military transport. Tehran funded the development, and 350 of the new helicopters were to be built under license at a Bell plant in Isfahan.

Overnight, after the revolution in 1979, Iran’s orders were canceled, and the production deal died with the Isfahan plant unbuilt. Helicopters already delivered would be kept airborne through smuggled parts and reverse engineering.

In April 1980, U.S. president Jimmy Carter authorized Operation Eagle Claw, a mission to rescue 52 American hostages in Tehran. Eight Navy helicopters launched from the USS Nimitz, but mechanical failures and a dust storm left too few to proceed. As the force prepared to leave, one helicopter crashed into a fuel-laden C-130, killing eight servicemen. Iran broadcast images of burned American helicopters to the world.

In November 2016, an Iranian Revolutionary Guard vessel pointed its weapon at a U.S. Navy MH-60 in the Strait, right after Trump won his first election. In August 2023, the IRGC claimed it forced U.S. helicopters to land back aboard their ship under threat of fire. A month later, Iranian forces repeatedly aimed a laser at a Marine Corps AH-1Z Viper flying over the Gulf.

Helicopter carrying Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi takes off, May 2024, on its final flight. Photo: Reuters

In May 2024, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a crash in fog-covered mountains. Early reports identified the aircraft as a Russian Mi-17 before state media confirmed that it had been a Bell 212, one of the U.S.-manufactured aircraft procured before the revolution and maintained through decades of sanctions with whatever parts could be found.

In the current war, Apaches have been operating unusually close to Iranian-controlled islands, tasked with deterring small boat attacks and intercepting drones. This latest mishap does not come as a great surprise.

Tehran has not claimed responsibility. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi noted on X that foreign forces near Iran “are at constant risk on account of their own human errors, plain accidents, or potentially being caught in crossfire.”

Team Iran arrives in Tijuana, Mexico for the World Cup. Photo: Reuters.

Iran at the World Cup. The 2026 World Cup, which kicks off today and is being cohosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico, will take place under the shadow of the U.S. conflict with Iran. 

Iran qualified early and comfortably, sealing its place in a fourth consecutive tournament with a 2-2 draw against Uzbekistan at Tehran’s Azadi Stadium in March 2025. It will be Iran’s seventh World Cup appearance overall. The team has never advanced beyond the group stage. Its three wins in the competition came against the United States in 1998, Morocco in 2018, and Wales in 2022.

Iran’s current troubles began in late Nov. 2025, when the U.S. denied visas to several members of the Iranian delegation due to attend the Dec. 5 draw in Washington, including federation president Mehdi Taj, a vice president of the Asian Football Confederation and a member of two FIFA committees. Iran boycotted the draw entirely, with federation spokesman Amir-Mahdi Alavi telling the Iranian press that the US decision was “unsportsmanlike.”

In the draw, Iran landed in Group G with Belgium, Egypt, and New Zealand, with all three of its matches on American soil, and FIFA’s game allocation assigned the Iran-Egypt game to Seattle on June 26. Seattle’s organizing committee had earmarked that date months earlier as a “Pride Match” to coincide with the city’s LGBTQ+ Pride weekend, linking its celebration to a competition between two countries that criminalize same-sex relations (in Iran’s case with punishments up to death). Both federations protested to FIFA, with Egypt “categorically rejecting any activities related to supporting homosexuality during the match.” Taj said Iran and Egypt had lodged written protests with FIFA and called Seattle’s move “unreasonable and illogical.” The celebrations remain on track. Seattle Pride says it has no authority over FIFA decisions and that its focus is a weekend “where everyone feels seen, respected, and safe.”

After the war began in March, Iranian sports minister Ahmad Donyamali told state television that “under no circumstances can we participate in the World Cup” following the strikes that killed the supreme leader. The next day, President Trump wrote that the team would be “welcome” at the tournament but that he did not believe it “appropriate that they be there, for their own life and safety.” The national team pushed back on its social media accounts, saying Iran’s place in the World Cup is not anyone’s to take away, and that the country that should be questioned is one that “merely carries the title of ‘host’ yet lacks the ability to provide security” — in other words, the U.S.

Taj declared that Iran would “certainly not travel to America” and opened negotiations with FIFA to move the matches to Mexico. Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum said her country would have no problem hosting them, but FIFA rejected the request and the games stayed in Los Angeles and Seattle. Iran instead won approval to move its base camp across the border to Tijuana, playing in America and sleeping in Mexico.

The arrangement was forced by Washington, which refused to let the delegation stay overnight on U.S. soil, requiring it to leave the country the same day as each match. All 26 players received U.S. visas, with clearance coming through only last Friday, but more than ten support staff and federation officials, including Taj, did not.

Then on Tuesday, two days before the start of the tournament, Iran’s football federation announced that its entire fan ticket allocation had been revoked. Each participating nation is entitled to roughly eight percent of stadium capacity for its matches to distribute to supporters, an allocation Taj had put at around 5,700 tickets per game. The statement said Iranian officials could no longer provide “even a single ticket” and called the move “contrary to the spirit of international competitions and the principle of equality among participating nations,” accusing the United States of obstructing the presence of Iranian supporters. FIFA, which controls all World Cup ticketing, had not commented at the time of writing.

A final dispute surrounds the pre-revolutionary Lion and Sun flag, carried by Iran’s diaspora as a symbol of opposition to the Islamic Republic. RFE/RL’s Radio Farda writes that FIFA’s venue guidance will reportedly prohibit the emblem from World Cup stadiums, a blanket version of the rule inconsistently enforced in Qatar in 2022, when some fans carrying it were turned away. Taj has said Iran’s participation is conditional on prohibiting non-official flags, including the Lion and Sun. The Institute for Voices of Liberty, a U.S.-based Iranian opposition advocacy group that lobbies for the dismantling of the Islamic Republic, has sent FIFA a legal demand letter and threatened court action in California if the ban is enforced. Iranian-born Belgian MP Darya Safai, who has carried the flag into stadiums around the world since 2014, says the ban will not stop diaspora fans: “If you insist, if you sit on your seat and take it up, they cannot do anything.”

Iran v North Korea in the World Cup Asian Qualifiers. Photo: Reuters

ESSENTIAL READING: IRAN AND THE WORLD CUP

“An Oral History of USA-Iran at the 1998 World Cup: Political Tension, Teammate Betrayal and Humiliation” – ESPN, November 2022. The players and officials who lived through the only previous U.S.-Iran World Cup match tell the story of that night in Lyon, from Tehran’s order that its team would not walk over to shake American hands to the 2-1 defeat that ended the U.S. campaign.

“FIFA World Cup: Iran Players Refuse to Sing National Anthem Prior to Match Against England” – CBS Sports, November 2022. At the height of the Woman, Life, Freedom protests, Iran’s starting team in Qatar stood silent through the anthem while fans in the stands booed it and chanted Mahsa Amini’s name.

“Seats of Resistance: When Women Filled Iran’s Stadium” – IranWire, December 2024. Tells the story of the decades-long fight by Iranian women to get into football stadiums, including the death of Sahar Khodayari, who set herself on fire after learning she faced prison for trying to watch her team play.

“Iran Faces Trump’s World Cup Gauntlet” – Axios, June 2026. Why a wartime World Cup on American soil is unlike anything Iran’s team has faced before, with visa fights, security monitoring, and the prospect of protests from the large Iranian community in Los Angeles.