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. In Washington’s first attack on Iran in a month, U.S. forces struck two Iranian rocket launchers in the Strait of Hormuz overnight, and Iran has retaliated. Washington is moving to sever a key Iranian channel to the dollar, which keeps growing stronger against the rial. Pezeshkian admits that a big chunk of Iran’s trade has vanished, and Khamenei urges Gulf rulers to recognize Washington, not Tehran, as their real enemy.
In other news, as gas lines form across Tehran, Iran’s oil minister and central bank governor are publicly contradicting each other over whether oil exports have stopped. Ghalibaf trades barbs with a hardline editor over negotiations, and going to the theater will now cost you a quarter of your monthly income.
I’m joined by our new Iran reporter Tara Rad, who is writing under a pseudonym, for this edition of the MBN Iran Briefing. 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 Alex Grinberg, Iran expert at the Turan Center and the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, and Mehdi Yahyanejad, internet freedom activist and founder of Persian-language discussion platform Balatarin. We take up the issue of where Iran’s real online conversations actually happen now that the old public square has splintered, why the IRGC has lost its grip on the online narrative even as it holds on to power, and why most Iranians want the regime gone but may not be willing to pay the high price it would take to get that outcome now.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
We will give a decisive response to the aggressors.
—Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, this morning following the most recent exchange of U.S. and Iranian missile strikes
TOP OF THE NEWS
The war has passed its six-month mark. The cost to Iran has been incalculable. By one recent estimate, the damage to the housing and related sectors alone has run 370 trillion rials, or nearly $200 million. As I’ve been reporting in this briefing, the regime’s executions have stepped up. And the Strait of Hormuz remains essentially closed. The path forward is anything but clear.
1. Hormuz
In the first known American attack on Iran in a month, U.S. forces hit two Iranian rocket launchers just off the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas on the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran immediately retaliated by striking U.S. military facilities in Jordan and targeting an airbase in the UAE.
In the Iranian regime’s view, whether the Strait of Hormuz returns to normal shipping is up to Washington, not Tehran. Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, said that implementation of the Hormuz understanding reached with Oman will not move forward automatically, as it is contingent on agreements Tehran says Washington made under the MOU signed in June and then broke. “Iran is in no hurry to open the Strait of Hormuz,” he said.
On Saturday, Iranian state-sponsored outlet Press TV described the regime’s conditions as “the complete lifting of the U.S.’s illegal naval and economic blockade against the Islamic Republic, durable cessation of aggression on all fronts, including Lebanon, and clarification of the situation concerning the blockade of Yemen.”
As I reported in this briefing on Thursday, Iran and Oman have laid out a timetable of 30 to 60 days to work out their final agreement.
CENTCOM has said that U.S. forces have cleared the strait of Iranian sea mines. The IRGC Navy has disputed that claim, insisting that “the dominance of the warriors of Islam over this strategic waterway is absolutely decisive.”
The U.K.’s maritime security agency reports that “vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains significantly reduced.”
Prior to the war, roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply moved through the strait.
Two things to watch for: how Tehran responds to the latest American attack and whether there is any progress on the Iran-Oman plan.
People wait to withdraw money from ATMs at Banque Misr in Cairo, Egypt. Photo: Reuters.
2. Washington Squeezes Iran’s Dollar Lifeline in the UAE
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network announced on Friday that it was proposing a rule that would revoke the U.S. correspondent banking access of Banque Misr UAE. Misr (مصر) is the word for Egypt in Persian and Arabic. There is a 30-day public comment period before the rule takes effect.
Correspondent banks in the U.S. are the way foreign banks can move dollars to and from the United States, and cutting off access to them would mean Banque Misr UAE can’t touch dollars.
As the U.S. agency’s release put it, “Banque Misr UAE’s customers include apparent front companies used by Iran’s Ministry of Defense and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to evade U.S. sanctions, as well as to launder money on behalf of Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.” The Treasury Department says that Banque Misr UAE processed around $1.8 billion for 103 companies between Jan. 2024 and this past June.
The UAE Central Bank announced on the weekend that it wouldl conduct a “special and urgent examination” into the activities of Banque Misr’s branches in the country
Iranian officials, from Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, continue to dismiss and deride the U.S. economic effort against the Islamic Republic.
Watch for whether other banks are targeted by FinCEN.
3. A Third of Iran’s Trade Has Vanished
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Friday that Iran’s imports and exports have fallen by 25 to 35%.
The same day, a message attributed to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said that Iran needs to increase its domestic output and stop the dollar from “playing an important role” in Iran’s economy.
One dollar continues to trade at over two million rials. The rial has weakened by 2.9% compared to a week ago, and 25.66% over the past six months.
Watch for further dire announcements on the state of the Iranian economy.
A Chinese-flagged oil tanker moored at an oil terminal at Tsing Yi port in Hong Kong. Photo: Reuters.
4. China’s Iranian Oil Imports Are Cratering
Chinese purchases of Iranian crude oil through the Strait of Hormuz averaged about 530,000 barrels a day in July and August – 48% below prewar levels. China had been partly offsetting that loss by rerouting tankers through the Red Sea and Suez Canal instead, but those crude oil imports fell as well after the Houthis began their blockade of Saudi ships.
China still holds an estimated 1 to 1.4 billion barrels of oil in storage. Ninety percent of Iranian crude exports are destined for China.
I asked my colleague Min Mitchell, MBN’s China Editor, what the drop in Chinese oil coming from Iran means for the country. Her answer: “China was getting a pass from Iran as a friendly country and its largest buyer when the war first broke. But we’re starting to see the blockades making an impact. Half is a big drop, though China can sit on this for a while. They’ve got over a billion barrels in storage. China isn’t short of oil, it just wants cheap oil. To Beijing, Iran’s best value was always the discount, and that’s what’s gone. It reveals to the world the limit of a seemingly strong relationship between Beijing and Tehran.”
One tanker-tracking report found that no tanker laden with Iranian crude oil has successfully departed the Gulf of Oman without being intercepted or turned back since July 12.
Watch whether any tankers make it through.
5. Khamenei Tells Gulf Rulers to Recognize a Common Enemy
In a message attributed to him on the occasion of Islamic Unity Week, Supreme Leader Khamenei made an appeal to Gulf leaders. “My strong and repeated advice to the rulers of Islamic countries, especially the countries of the West Asian region and the Persian Gulf, is to recognize your real enemy, understand his plan, and confront him,” he said, referring to “the criminal rulers of America and the fake Zionist regime.”
The appeal comes weeks after Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, and not long after the UAE announced that “all trade, commercial exchanges, and financial transactions with Iran have been halted until further notice.”
Watch for reactions to the message attributed to Khamenei and any further outreach from Tehran to Gulf capitals.
IN OTHER NEWS
A tanker truck drives along the road between Bandar Abbas and Bandar Khamir, southern Iran. Photo: AFP.
Oil Minister vs. Central Bank Governor on Oil Exports
Iranian oil minister Mohsen Paknejad said a few days ago that the country’s oil sales have not stopped, contradicting a statement by central bank governor Abdolnaser Hemmati a week ago.
Hemmati had said on Iranian national television that “it is a reality that we are not exporting oil.”
The oil minister acknowledged that oil sales have decreased, but claimed that the process of delivering oil to customers in distant waters still continues. He added “I will not go into details [of selling oil], because if the information is disclosed, the enemy could exploit it.”
Iranian oil has been under sanctions, mainly from the United States, which have made it harder for Iran to sell its oil and access international markets.
Iran’s Gasoline Problem
President Pezeshkian said in an interview on Friday that “We have to accept that we are in a war situation. Now the route is closed and goods are not coming in. One of these goods is gasoline.” He was confirming an earlier statement by Iranian Vice President for Executive Affairs Mohammad-Jafar Ghaem-Panah that Iran cannot import gasoline because of the blockade, and that domestic production is not enough to meet demand.
Long lines have formed at gas stations across Tehran in recent days, with some stations reportedly closing.
Although Iran produces plenty of crude oil, its refineries aren’t built to turn enough of it into gasoline. (For more about Iran and oil, check out my previous Iran briefing “10 Things about Iran and Oil.”)
The National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company has denied reports of a gasoline shortage, saying that production, transportation, and distribution are operating at maximum capacity.
The company has asked people not to go to gas stations simply because of rumors, thereby creating kilometer-long queues.
Less than a decade ago, rising fuel prices led to a nationwide protest and several hundred protesters were killed in the ensuing government crackdown. Officials have been chary of raising gasoline prices since then.
Ghalibaf and Kayhan Editor Clash Over Negotiations
A disagreement over negotiations with the United States has been aired in the pages of Iranian newspapers. Keyhan’s conservative editor-in-chief, Hossein Shariatmadari, criticized Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament and head of the negotiating team, who responded to him in an open letter.
Negotiations, Ghalibaf said, are not automatically good or bad, and should not be considered a taboo. He stressed that negotiations can be useful when they help advance national interests, secure the rights of the people, end injustice and maintain the gains of “the resistance.”
“We must take responsibility and protect the tools of power we have, so that we can keep the gains of the war and help the country get through the serious dangers that its enemies have planned for it,” Ghalibaf wrote.
He also said that, just as he has drawn a clear line against Westernization, deviation and sedition, he also opposes extremism, indiscipline in words and actions, and what he called selective adherence to the Supreme Leader.
“I believe that revolutionary rationality is the missing element of revolutionary politics,” he wrote.
Earlier, Shariatmadari had warned Ghalibaf about the direction of his political positions. He said that a pro-Western faction and some reformists were trying to change Ghalibaf’s “social base” and move it from the large and devoted masses of the people toward reformists and pro-Western groups.
The exchange is notable because both men are part of the conservative and revolutionary establishment.
An Iranian actress performs in a scene from Shakespeare’s King Lear in a city theatre complex in Tehran. Photo: Reuters.
When Theater Becomes a Luxury
The rising cost of almost everything in Iran has also reached theater tickets. A ticket for a theatrical performance can now cost close to 50 million rials, or approx. $24, making theater a luxury for many ordinary people.
In a report last week on the high price of theater tickets, Mehr News highlighted the price of entry to the theatrical-orchestral show Arash, which will be performed at the Royal Hall of Espinas in Tehran. The show features well-known figures from Iranian cinema, theater and music.
“If watching a show is to become an experience reserved for the wealthy,” the article asks, “how can theater connect with society? How can we expect the younger generation, students, and ordinary audiences to have a continued connection with this art form when the price of a night at the theater is a significant portion of many families’ monthly income?”
The average salary of workers in Iran in 2026 is around 200 million rials, or approx. $100 a month.
Highlighting the same show, another Iranian news site, Fararu, said the price of a ticket to Arash “can turn the decision to see the show into a serious financial choice.”
