Iran hardline media warns reformists risk 'Gorbachev moment'

Bloomberg said the Israeli strikes killed many senior commanders in what was described as the most damaging conflict in the Guard’s history, forcing a restructuring of Iran’s security decision-making. Yet the confrontation has also reinforced the IRGC’s role at the heart of the Islamic Republic.

The Guard, founded after the 1979 revolution, has grown into a sprawling organization with land, naval, aerospace and intelligence arms, as well as the Quds Force for operations abroad and the Basij volunteer paramilitary.

Its influence extends into universities, hospitals, media outlets and large business conglomerates such as Khatam al-Anbiya, which is involved in oil pipelines, infrastructure, and housing projects. Estimates of its direct personnel run as high as 200,000, Bloomberg said.

“The war affirmed just how important the IRGC is,” Abdolrasool Divsallar, an Iran military analyst at Universita Cattolica in Milan, was quoted as saying.

A newly announced National Defense Council, headed by President Masoud Pezeshkian and dominated by IRGC veterans, underscores that expanded role, according to state media cited by Bloomberg.

The Guard is criticized at home and abroad. Rights groups and Western governments have accused its security branches of human rights abuses and crackdowns on dissent, while critics inside Iran link it to corruption and political repression. Supporters see it as a bulwark against Israel and the United States and as central to defending Iran’s sovereignty.

Narges Bajoghli, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, told Bloomberg: “People are angry at them, but they also realize that there is no other force in the country. What they’re committed to today is about sovereign independence and the idea of resistance.”

The IRGC’s overseas networks — Hezbollah in Lebanon, militias in Syria, and Hamas in Gaza — have been badly weakened by Israeli action, Bloomberg said. That may push the organization to focus more on nuclear deterrence, analysts said.

Ali Alfoneh, a senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute, told Bloomberg: “The 12-day war exposed the IRGC’s counterintelligence failures. However, the IRGC’s loss of prestige is unlikely to lead to its capitulation.”

The report said the IRGC’s future remains closely tied to that of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, now 86, around whom the organization’s management is centralized.

It would take a US ground invasion or a sustained bombardment by both the US and Israel to change the metrics for the IRGC, Alfoneh said.

“One of the perpetrators of the brutal murder of four members of a family in Beyram, in Fars province, was hanged in public on Tuesday,” Mizan said.

Earlier in February this year, Iranian authorities hanged a man from a bridge in the northeastern city of Esfarayen, in the country’s first public execution of the year.

Iran remains one of the few countries to conduct public executions, a practice widely condemned by human rights groups.

Public hangings were halted in 2021 due to COVID-19 restrictions but resumed in 2022. That year, two people were hanged in public, increasing to seven in 2023 and four in 2024, according to Oslo-based rights group Iran Human Rights.

Iran has executed 800 people in less than eight months since the start of the year, including 30 political prisoners, according to Norway-based rights group Hengaw reported on Monday.

In June, Amnesty International warned that following the Iran-Israel conflict, Iranian authorities have called for expedited trials and executions, raising concerns over arbitrary use of the death penalty.

Last year, at least 975 people were executed in Iran, marking a 17% increase from the 834 executions recorded the previous year.

“In my meeting with the prime minister of Armenia, I emphasized that the Islamic Republic of Iran firmly believes in preserving Armenia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and maintaining warm, continuing relations between our two countries,” Pezeshkian said in a post on X.

“Our concerns regarding the presence of third-party forces near our shared borders must be fully addressed.”

At a joint press conference with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Pezeshkian expanded on those remarks. “Outsourcing the resolution of Caucasus issues to extra-regional forces will only complicate the situation in the region,” he said.

Pezeshkian also stressed that “Iran supports the peace talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia” and added that “both the government and the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic believe relations with Armenia should be expanded in all areas.”

The remarks come after a US-brokered peace deal last week between Armenia and Azerbaijan granted Washington leasing rights to develop the Zangezur transit corridor, now renamed the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP).

The deal allows a US company to build and manage the route connecting Azerbaijan with its exclave Nakhchivan, a project Tehran has repeatedly described as a geopolitical risk.

State media said Iran and Armenia signed several cooperation memoranda on diplomacy, tourism, mining, health, infrastructure and environmental issues during Pezeshkian’s trip. The two leaders also attended an official welcoming ceremony in Yerevan earlier in the day.

Customs and transport cooperation

Additionally, Iran’s Ministry of Roads and Urban Development announced an agreement with Armenia to expand transport infrastructure and revise customs charges on vehicles entering Iran.

Road Minister Farzaneh Sadegh, who accompanied Pezeshkian, said there was an “imbalance of about $330” in vehicle fees charged by the two countries, and that Yerevan had agreed to set up a joint working group to review the matter.

She also said that “new routes must not come at the expense of geopolitical changes.”

The ministry said Armenia would soon tender contracts for the completion of the North-South transport corridor linking Russia, Iran and India via the Caucasus.

Iran’s red lines

Iran’s foreign ministry has repeatedly expressed its opposition to a foreign presence in the South Caucasus.

Also on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said, "Armenia will never allow its territory to be used as a threat against Iran,” adding that Yerevan had assured Tehran it is aware of Iran’s red lines regarding the Zangezur corridor.

Araghchi said last week, “Armenian officials have told us they have respected and paid attention to all of Iran’s red lines in this matter,” he said.

Foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Baghaei said on Monday, “We have been very clear that we are sensitive to the presence of extra-regional actors."

“For us, the unblocking of routes must not harm internationally recognized borders or contradict Armenia’s national sovereignty,” Baghaei said.

“The summer camp in rural Hertfordshire is just the latest example of how Iran abuses Britain’s charity sector, exploiting our commendable history of philanthropy to spread its tentacles and influence across our land, while sowing discord in our communities,” Blackman wrote for UK-based political website ConservativeHome on Tuesday.

The summer school camp known as Camp Wilayah, run by the Ahlulbayt Islamic Mission (AIM), was cancelled last week due to what its organizer described as safety threats, following accusations by a right-wing political party that it has ties to the Islamic Republic.

Blackman criticized other London-based groups including the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), and the Islamic Center of England, alleging that they have ties to Iran’s leadership and spread Tehran-backed narratives through UK-registered charities.

"Two other London charities with links to Iran, Dar Al Hekma Trust and Abrar Islamic Foundation, are currently being probed by the national terrorist financial investigation unit," he added.

Pointing to the government’s new foreign-influence registration rules, Blackman urged tougher action against “pro-Iranian regime activists” and questioned whether the IRGC would be proscribed by the United Kingdom.

“A start would be ridding our charity sector of extremists,” he said.

On June 30, a report by The Telegraph accused Iran of conducting a “shadow war” inside the United Kingdom that extends beyond sanctions violations and includes propaganda, financial networks, and digital disinformation campaigns aimed at dividing society

In July, John Woodcock, Baron Walney, the UK government’s former extremism adviser, said: “We cannot allow propaganda and influence from this theocratic dictatorship to be spread to children in the UK.”

The dispute was set off on August 15 when former foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif published an essay in Foreign Policy titled “The Time for a Paradigm Shift Is Now.”

Zarif urged Iran to embrace “a new approach rooted in domestic reform,” warning that “warmongers benefit from closing every window to democracy.”

He called for a shift to a “possibilities paradigm” based on negotiation rather than confrontation.

Hardliners reacted with fury.

‘Delusional’

Outlets close to the Supreme Leader and the Revolutionary Guards — including Kayhan, Javan, and Vatan Emrooz — denounced the proposals as treasonous, delusional, and "capitulation" to the West.

Zarif was labeled an “anti-resistance liberal” who welcomed US and Israeli aggression as “blessings in disguise.”

Hardline commentator Abdollah Ganji accused moderates of “prioritizing personal power over national interests,” while Kayhan’s chief and supreme leader appointee Hossein Shariatmadari charged they were “ignoring global power dynamics.”

The clash comes as economic strain, political discontent, and renewed external pressure after the war with Israel sharpen the stakes for both camps.

‘Will of the people’

In recent weeks, former prime minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi and allies have issued open letters demanding democracy, while the Reform Front — an umbrella group of moderate and reformist figures — called for measures including suspension of uranium enrichment.

Former president Hassan Rouhani has also weighed in, advocating a “national strategy based on the will of the people.”

Beyond politicians, 180 economists urged a reordering of “Iran’s economic and political paradigms,” and 78 former diplomats pressed for a foreign policy more in tune with public sentiment.

The apparently concerted effort has been met by increasingly harsh reactions from the opposite camp.

In parliament, ultraconservatives such as Amir Hossein Sabeti and Hamid Rasai insisted the Islamic Republic must rely on resistance, not diplomacy, to survive.

Ganji also went after Rouhani personally, reminding readers that he once called for executing monarchy-era army officers in 1979, and warning he could “ultimately betray the revolution” like some of the Prophet’s disciples.

The battle is likely to intensify as pressure mounts, with the looming prospect of UN sanctions snapping back into place, the shadow of another war with Israel, and growing public frustration at home.

But as the reformist outlet Rouydad24 concluded, the exchanges have left “conservatives enraged, reformists uncertain, and the idea of national reconciliation in a state of lull.”