Iran seems to be indirectly involved in the Gaza ceasefire talks in Qatar, having threatened to attack Israel if a truce isn't reached to prevent its ally Hamas from facing military defeat.
Although Tehran was not attending the talks, Qatari prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, spoke with Iran’s acting foreign minister Ali Bagheri-Kani to brief him on the first day of negotiations. Talks are continuing Friday, with some observers saying that a successful outcome will not be easy.
Iranian government-controlled media was largely silent about Tehran’s stance and role in the negotiations, limiting itself to brief reporting about the talks.
More attention was focused on what former US President Donald Trump and the Republican candidate in November said about Iran at a press conference he held at a golf club on Thursday.
Trump, in his typical fashion held out both a stick and a carrot for Tehran. “I'm not looking to be bad to Iran. We're going to be friendly I hope with Iran. Maybe but maybe not. But we're going to be friendly I hope we're going to be friendly, but they can't have a nuclear weapon…and we were all set to make sure that they don't.”
Iran’s Islamic regime insiders have been visibly nervous about Trump’s return, expecting him to be tough in enforcing sanctions. Trump has insisted that under his watch Tehran would not have had the financial resources to organize the October 7 attack on Israel. After he imposed crippling oil export sanctions in 2018, Iran’s main source of revenues dried up. Following President Joe Biden’s election, China began buying large shipments of Iranian oil, boosting Tehran’s exports from around 250,000 barrels per day in 2019-2020 to around 1.5 million currently. This has provided Iran with up to $60 billion in additional revenues.
Trump made it clear on Thursday that he will try to reduce the Chinese imports of Iranian oil. “I said to China and everybody else if you buy from Iran you can't do business in the United States and I'm not looking to be bad to Iran we're going to be friendly I hope with Iran maybe but maybe not but we're going to be friendly,” he said.
He once again emphasized that his main demand is major Iranian concessions over its nuclear program. “They can't have a nuclear weapon and we were all set to make sure that they don't have a nuclear weapon because once they do it's a whole different world it's a whole different negotiation.”
Iran has acted cautiously after the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh last month in Tehran. Despite repeated threats to harshly retaliate against Israel, it has so far refrained from an escalation that could turn into a costly military conflict not only with Israel but also the United States.
Instead, it uses the threat of an attack on Israel to get concessions from the United States, which has committed itself to preventing a wider conflict. President Joe Biden has indicated that a Gaza ceasefire can prevent Iran's potential retaliation. This position appears to be a response to Iran’s repeated demands of a Gaza ceasefire, while Hamas is still holding around 100 Israeli hostages.
According to the Washington Post, Hezbollah will not launch any retaliation during the Gaza cease-fire talks to avoid being blamed for disrupting a potential agreement. 'The retaliation can wait; it is not urgent or has a time limit,' a source told the paper.
The fear of a wider war it cannot win was apparent in Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s remarks this week, when he urged his followers not to be intimidated by the perception of adversaries having superior military power. Khamenei condemned "enemy’s psychological warfare" aimed at forcing Iran to reconsider retaliation against Israel in the wake of Haniyeh’s assassination.
Sarraf’s nomination is particularly significant given the recent history of Iran’s universities as hotbeds of political dissent. The Woman, Life, Freedom uprising, sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022, reignited a wave of student activism that shook the foundations of the Islamic Republic.
Protests erupted across more than 130 universities, with students and professors standing in solidarity against the government. These acts of defiance were met with crackdowns, including arrests, judicial rulings, and the mass dismissal of dissenting faculty members.
Given this backdrop, the choice of Sarraf—a figure with years of clerical training and deep ties to Iran’s conservative establishment and a history of involvement in the system’s ideological purification of universities—sends a clear message: the Islamic Republic is doubling down on its efforts to stifle academic freedom and silence opposition.
Simayi Sarraf’s background is a testament to his alignment with the system’s hardline ideology. Born in Mashhad, he was groomed from a young age to follow in the footsteps of the clerical rulers.
His father’s close ties to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his own military involvement in the Iran-Iraq war set the stage for his rise within the government. After two decades of seminary education, Sarraf transitioned into the academic sphere, where he pursued studies in Islamic jurisprudence and law. His work, steeped in conservative Shia thought, has produced over 50 publications advocating for the integration of Islamic principles into Iran’s legal system.
His tenure in various governmental roles, including his time as Director General of the Legal Office of the Ministry of Science and as Deputy for Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, has been marked by his efforts to align the country’s academic institutions with the system’s ideology.
During Rouhani’s administration, he played a key role in the purge of universities, targeting faculty members who dared to challenge the status quo.
The appointment of such a figure to the ministry of science is an indication that the system intends to continue its assault on academic freedom. The ministry, under Simayi Sarraf’s leadership, is likely to intensify efforts to Islamize universities further, pushing out any remaining voices of dissent and reinforcing the control over Iran’s educational institutions.
The revelation comes after the early exit of Mohammad Javad Zarif, a key figure in Pezeshkian’s circle, an event that continues to make waves. Scrutiny has intensified over the cabinet nominees in which candidates, some holdovers from Ebrahim Raisi’s administration and others relatively obscure figures, seem unlikely to bring the meaningful change that Iran’s sectors, particularly its universities.
Instead, the list of nominees reflects a continuation of the status quo rather than the progressive change that many had anticipated.
It is particularly alarming in light of the recent purges that began under President Ebrahim Raisi’s administration. Following the widespread protests that erupted after Mahsa Amini’s death, the government launched an aggressive campaign to root out opposition within universities.
Observers believe that the appointment of Simayi Sarraf signals a renewed commitment to silencing dissent and erasing any remnants of academic freedom in Iran and that its academic purges are far from over.
Mohammad Moghimi, President of the University of Tehran, announced Thursday that these students do not receive military training at the university and instead study management though it is widely known that Iraqi militias are trained in Iran.
The Hashd al-Shaabi, or Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), was established in 2014 following a religious decree to combat ISIS, which at the time had taken control of four Iraqi governorates and threatened Baghdad.
While the Iraqi state-sponsored umbrella organization is largely composed of Shia Muslim groups, it also includes Sunni Muslim, Christian, and Yazidi factions with an estimated 128,000 fighters across 67 different armed factions.
The University of Tehran's decision to welcome the militia members without standard academic requirements signals a concerning trend. Official reports last year highlighted a "cooperation and agreement" between the Hashd al-Shaabi and the University of Tehran to facilitate the education of these fighters.
Moghimi disclosed in his Thursday interview with the IRNA news agency that Iraqi officials have expressed dissatisfaction with the "insufficient quality" and low standards of some Iranian universities educating PMF students. To address the concerns, Iraqi authorities have requested the University of Tehran step in and help "repair this reputational damage."
He said the influx of the Hashd al-Shaabi members into Iranian universities, particularly the University of Tehran where admission for Iraqis has doubled, is part of a broader plan.
These students, according to Moghimi, many of whom are relatives of active, deceased, or wounded militia from the so-called "resistance front," are being groomed with the help of substantial Iraqi government funding to assume leadership roles back home.
Moghimi paints a rosy picture of the Hashd al-Shaabi members, describing them as deserving individuals committed to "advancing Islamic ideals."
Moghimi claims that there are also economic benefits behind admitting the Hashd al-Shaabi members, stating that they pay almost 1,200 euros per semester for undergraduate studies, compared to 80 to 90 million rials (130-150 $) for Iranian students.
In late July of last year, a group of student activists at the University of Tehran issued a statement condemning the presence of the Hashd al-Shaabi forces and similar individuals at Iranian universities as a "military invasion of the university."
They vowed to resist such admissions, emphasizing that the university has already been emptied of genuine students through "dismissals, suspensions, and repression," and turned into a stronghold for "so-called affiliated professors and Basij militia members."
Last year, Moghimi dismissed protests against the admission of the Hashd al-Shaabi members as "the anger of traitors." Now, he tries to justify these admissions by pointing out that "the education of individuals, managers, and regional officials" has always been a practice at the university, citing Nechirvan Barzani, the Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region and an alumnus of the University of Tehran, as an example.