Welcome back to the MBN Iran Briefing. You can read it in Arabic here, and check out MBN’s flagship Arabic-language Alhurra news platform (also in English). If you were forwarded the MBN Iran Briefing, please subscribe.
Here is what you need to know this week:
Iran is hardening its terms for reopening the Strait of Hormuz just as it hands enforcement of those terms to a new, hardline IRGC-linked security chief. Five months after taking power, Mojtaba Khamenei still hasn’t shown Iranians he’s alive and functioning, but we’re being promised footage soon. A missile strike on an Emirati tanker draws a sharp rebuke from Gulf allies. The war at sea keeps running on its own track even as Washington keeps pursuing engagement.
And in other news: A Ponzi-style auto fraud trial with nearly 3,000 plaintiffs lays bare the deep economic desperation in Iran, and a new survey shows just how dependent, and exposed, ordinary Iranians now are on an internet the state has already shown it will switch off at will.
Find out more below, and share your thoughts, analysis, and predictions with me at ailves@mbn-news.com.
And don’t forget to check out the latest Iran Briefing podcast. In this edition I’m joined by author and scholar Dr. Mehrzad Boroujerdi, author of an article in last Sunday’s New York Times entitled “This Is What My Father’s Assassination Taught Me About the War in Iran.” We discuss how the revolution’s assassins are now running the country and how desperate they are to cling to power at all costs.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
Communication with him is very difficult now.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, referring to supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei in a televised interview
TOP OF THE NEWS
1. Tehran Raises the Price of Reopening Hormuz
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said Saturday that the Strait of Hormuz will not reopen until Washington:
- stops threatening Iran or “insulting what it holds sacred”;
- ends the war against Iran and its allies in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen and Iraq;
- lifts its naval blockade and withdraws its naval and air forces from around Iran;
- fully compensates Iran for damage from the last two wars;
- lifts what Iran calls unjust and illegal sanctions; and
- unconditionally releases Iran’s frozen and “stolen” assets
The secretary of the Iranian NSC stressed that Tehran will never back down. In a separate statement, the IRGC spokesman reiterated that Tehran’s strategy is “to maintain this strait until the enemy accepts all our conditions.”
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said negotiations with Oman on a temporary shipping route have nearly concluded. He also cautioned, however, that the Oman arrangement alone will not reopen the strait, since that still depends on the U.S. making good on what Iran calls its violations of the Islamabad memorandum. The White House, for its part, says Iran has told it that oil and gas flows through the strait will return to prewar levels, though Vice President JD Vance summed up the U.S. posture thus on Fox News: “We don’t trust, we verify.”
Three things to watch for: whether the Oman-Iran talks yield a result, whether anything changes with Zolghadr’s departure from the national security council (see below), and if there is any movement in U.S.-Iran talks.
Mohsen Rezaei, new secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. Photo: Reuters
2. New Boss for Iran’s Security Council
Mohsen Rezaei, a former Revolutionary Guard commander, was named yesterday as the new secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and as Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s personal representative on the body. He replaces Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, who was reassigned the same day to be a political advisor to Khamenei..
Rezaei, whom I’ve frequently written about in previous issues of this newsletter, is the third person to hold the post since the war began Feb. 28. Zolghadr himself got the job in March after his predecessor, Ali Larijani, was killed in an Israeli strike.
Rezaei, 71, is a hardline conservative who ran for president three times and sits on the Expediency Council, the senior body that advises the supreme leader and settles disputes between parliament and the Guardian Council. He was IRGC commander-in-chief for most of the brutal 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and then stayed on for another nine years as head. He remains the IRGC’s longest-serving chief.
The reshuffle places Rezaei, one of Iran’s most prominent IRGC-linked political figures, directly inside the Supreme Leader’s office. This happens just as Tehran is weighing how far to bend on the strait and on talks with Washington. He inherits the six-point list of conditions laid out above as his first real test.
Zolghadr was chosen under emergency circumstances and is more of a security bureaucrat. It’s not clear whether replacing him with Rezaei will lead to a change in Tehran’s negotiating stance, but no matter what happens, there will be a direct line to the supreme leader every step of the way.
Watch whether Rezaei changes or maintains the security council’s position on Hormuz and on negotiations with the U.S.
A delivery person rides a motorcycle near an old image of Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei at Valiasr Square in central Tehran on Saturday. Photo: AFP.
3. More Mojtaba Mysteries
Mojtaba Khamenei has not appeared in public or delivered a speech since Iran’s Assembly of Experts named him supreme leader five months ago.
A Basij deputy commander on Sunday said that images of Khamenei among the public and in meetings with military commanders would be released soon. Last week, referring to the supreme leader, President Masoud Pezeshkian said in a televised interview that “communication with him is very difficult now” — without specifying why.
On Saturday, Iran’s Mehr News Agency released what it called new footage of Mojtaba teaching a religious studies class, calling it “a rarely seen video.” The video has been dismissed by observers, who point out that similar footage was aired in March shortly after his accession. Social media users online quickly began tagging the new clip as AI-generated. As far as religious studies classes go, it is worth noting that Mojtaba announced two years ago that he was suspending those sessions.
Three things to watch for: whether the promised new footage of the supreme leader actually appears and is independently verifiable, whether Pezeshkian or other officials say more about his condition, and whether mounting speculation forces Tehran into a more direct public statement.
4. Gulf Allies Condemn a Tanker Strike
The UAE said an Iranian missile struck an oil tanker owned by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company as it transited the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday. The Gulf state called it a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2817 and an act of piracy. The Gulf Cooperation Council’s secretary general condemned the attack “in the strongest and harshest terms.”
It’s a reminder that Gulf states remain exposed to Iranian military action in the strait regardless of whatever diplomatic progress there is elsewhere. We don’t know to what extent the UAE and its neighbors will keep tolerating such attacks on their own shipping while Washington pursues broader engagement with Tehran. The UAE’s own public response has so far remained limited to condemnation, but Gulf restraint isn’t absolute. Saudi Arabia expelled Iran’s military attaché after repeated missile and drone strikes on the kingdom earlier in the war, and there have been reports that Riyadh covertly struck Iranian launch sites and Iran-backed militias in Iraq in retaliation. Bahrain and Kuwait went further still. They secretly sent fighter jets to strike Iranian drone and missile sites
Two things to watch for: whether Gulf states scale back diplomatic engagement with Tehran in response to attacks and whether further strikes on shipping follow.
Cars on the production line in Iran. Photo: AFP
IN OTHER NEWS – by MBN Contributor Tara Rad
Iran’s Auto Fraud Epidemic and a Trial with 3,000 Plaintiffs
The trial of Taat Motor Tak has opened in Takestan in northwest Iran. Prosecutors say the company defrauded nearly 3,000 people out of 15 trillion rials (about $25 million at current rates) since 2020, pulling in roughly 4,500 investors across a dozen provinces. Taat Motor did so with promises of factory-fresh cars below official prices through advance registration in a scheme its dealership permit never covered. Prosecutors call it a Ponzi scheme, in which new deposits allegedly funded payouts to earlier buyers until the cash ran out.
It’s the latest entry in an auto fraud epidemic that has run through Iranian courts for years: Negin Khodro (2018, 3,500 plaintiffs), Alborz’s Azin Khodro Aramis network (2023, over 30 trillion rials from 5,200 buyers), and the Rezayat Khodro Taravat Novin case in Qazvin, involving 40,000 investors, 28,000 complaints, roughly 80 trillion tomans (about $160 million at 2023 rates) missing. The “Sultan of Auto” scandal, involving nearly 17,000 pre-sold vehicles, implicated sitting MPs.
The schemes exploit the gap between state-set factory prices and the free market. With the rial collapsing, Iranians treat cars as a hard asset, not as transport. As domestic production stalls and imports are locked out, buyers stuck in factory lotteries keep gambling on discount pre-sales, guaranteeing a fresh supply of victims for the next scheme.
Survey: 89 Percent of Iranians Use Internet, Over Half Rely on It for Livelihood
A new survey by the Iranian Students Polling Agency published by IRNA finds internet penetration among Iranians 15 and older at 89.3 percent, with more than half of users’ livelihoods now directly or indirectly dependent on cyberspace. Over 58 percent call internet-based businesses the top driver of job creation; 57.1 percent rely on online shopping and 55.5 percent on ride-hailing apps like Snapp and Tapsi.
That dependency explains the fallout from this year’s state-imposed internet blackout during the war. Data published in May by JobVision showed job postings down 53 percent from the two-year average. Digital marketing fell 83 percent, graphic design 82 percent, content production 79 percent, while resume submissions spiked to 318,000 in a single day, a record. The Labor Ministry says the war and connectivity collapse together have left over a million people unemployed. A July report found that even traditional industries relying on digital tools for marketing and communication were hit hard.
Even when connected, service is poor: a 2024 Majlis Research Center report found only 22.2 percent of users highly satisfied with speeds, and 80.8 percent abandon complicated online processes for in-person visits.
