Iranian diplomats ferrying millions in cash to Hezbollah

In an op-ed published this week in one of Iran’s leading economic newspapers, Donya-ye Eghtesad, the economist Massoud Nili described the country’s current predicament as a failure of governance that left mounting problems and public grievances unaddressed.

“The current situation marks one of the saddest and most critical junctures in Iran’s history,” Nili wrote, “a moment in which thousands of Iranians — mainly young people — lost their lives in less than 48 hours.”

He argued that “a combination of poverty, unemployment, inequality, inflation, psychological insecurity under the looming shadow of war, and cultural conflict placed young Iranians at the center of the crisis.”

The unrest began in Tehran’s historic Grand Bazaar in late 2025, initially driven by slogans reflecting economic hardship. Over the following week, they broadened into nationwide demonstrations calling for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.

Protests peaked on January 8 and 9, following a call for coordinated actions by exiled prince Reza Pahlavi.

As many as 36,500 people were killed during the crackdown on those two days, according to an internal assessment leaked to and reviewed by Iran International.

Among the clearest warning signs, Nili noted, was the existence of nearly 12 million young Iranians who are neither employed nor enrolled in education.

Iran’s labor market, he wrote, has been effectively stagnant since 2009. While the working-age population increased by 4.4 million, the economy created only about 200,000 jobs, even as roughly 700,000 people lost employment.

Official figures suggest that net job creation has approached zero in recent years.

Other economists have echoed Nili’s assessment in the weeks since the protests and their violent suppression.

Speaking at Tejarat Farda’s economic forum in late January, Mohammad Mehdi Behkish described the protests as the product of “forty years of flawed governance and policymaking,” arguing that rigid political and economic structures had pushed society toward a breaking point.

Another prominent economist, Mousa Ghaninejad, pointed to the scale of the deterioration. In 2011, he said, fewer than 20 percent of Iranians lived below the poverty line. Today, that figure has risen to roughly 40 percent.

Declining oil revenues have further constrained the state’s ability to provide social support, while access to adequate nutrition and medical care has sharply declined.

Official data show inflation has exceeded 40 percent for at least two years, eroding purchasing power even among government employees and military personnel.

High inflation has enriched groups with preferential access to state-linked resources, widening inequality and deepening social resentment.

Nili concluded that a convergence of poverty, unemployment, inequality, psychological insecurity under the shadow of war, and cultural conflict had placed young Iranians at the center of the crisis.

Writing from inside Iran, Nili confined his analysis to economic and social indicators and avoided the political roots of the crisis—the deepening rupture between the state and a society that has come to resent the worldview and governing vision of its rulers.

He did mention “realities”, however, that if ignored, would steer the country toward “an extremely dangerous future.”

Originally scheduled for February 18, the visit was brought forward by a week following fresh indirect talks in Oman that both sides have indicated could resume in the coming days.

Netanyahu is expected to press President Donald Trump to impose firm constraints on Iran’s ballistic-missile program and its support for armed groups in the region. But the urgency of the meeting appears to reflect more than immediate tactical concerns, pointing to a blunter effort by Israel to shape US policy rather than simply align with it.

Trump has repeatedly signaled his preference for a "deal with Iran." But Netanyahu remains wary that negotiations might focus narrowly on the nuclear file and leave unaddressed what he sees as Tehran broader threat ecosystem.

That gap was evident during the previous round of US–Iran talks in the spring of 2025.

While Trump conveyed optimism about diplomatic openings and outlined prospective nuclear proposals, reporting suggested Netanyahu remained unconvinced, ultimately awaiting the expiration of Washington’s 60-day deadline before launching strikes that became the 12-Day War.

Even after US bombers joined strikes on Iran’s Natanz and Fordow nuclear sites, Washington reportedly urged Israel to scale back operations as Israeli forces moved closer to senior figures following the killing of top Revolutionary Guards commanders.

Israeli and Western officials say Iran has since moved to restore damaged ballistic-missile infrastructure, in some cases prioritising missile sites over nuclear facilities. Iranian officials have also publicly pointed to renewed—even enhanced—missile capabilities, reinforcing Israeli concerns about Tehran’s readiness to deploy them in a future confrontation.

It is against that backdrop that Israel has watched recent diplomatic signals from Tehran and Washington with growing unease.

Iran has reintroduced senior figures into the diplomatic arena, including Ali Larijani, a longtime adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has held consultations alongside the Muscat talks. His reappearance has been read in Israel as a sign that Tehran is seeking to project flexibility while resisting constraints on missiles and regional networks.

Those moves have coincided with messaging from within Trump’s political orbit emphasizing diplomatic opportunity.

Remarks by J.D. Vance, cautioning against escalation and underscoring the potential for a negotiated outcome, have been noted closely in Jerusalem, where officials have long worried that talks could narrow toward the nuclear file alone.

Taken together, these developments appear to have heightened Israeli concern that its core security priorities could be sidelined as diplomatic momentum builds—helping explain Netanyahu’s decision to advance his Washington visit rather than wait.

Netanyahu’s publicly stated red lines, particularly Iran’s arsenal of more than 1,800 ballistic missiles, align not only with Israeli threat assessments but with those of key Arab states.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have borne the costs of Iran’s regional tactics firsthand. Iran-supplied Houthi drones and missiles struck Saudi Aramco’s Abqaiq processing facility in 2019 and later targeted infrastructure near Jeddah in 2022.

Israel’s September 2025 strike on Hamas leaders in Doha strained but did not sever quiet channels with Qatar.

Despite public friction, Persian Gulf states involved in the Abraham Accords and Qatar continued to participate in US-led security discussions in which Israeli intelligence on Iran was reportedly shared, underscoring the resilience of regional threat coordination.

At the same time, Iran’s Arab neighbors have actively sought to contain escalation and, in some cases, helped create the conditions for diplomacy.

While they share Israel’s assessment of the missile and proxy threat, they have often favored de-escalation and engagement as a means of managing it—highlighting a divergence not over the nature of the threat, but over how best to reduce it.

Netanyahu’s visit to Washington reflects an effort to push back against that regional pull toward accommodation, pressing for a harder line on Tehran that addresses Israel’s security concerns. He appears to view Iran’s nuclear latency, missile expansion and regional outreach as a single, interlocking challenge.

Israel’s objective, therefore, is not episodic deterrence but the steady erosion of the capabilities that allow Tehran to sustain an existential threat posture—a logic shaping Netanyahu’s diplomacy in Washington as much as Israel’s readiness to act alone.

Security officials informed the families their presence at the February 11 pro-state march must be “verifiable,” including by taking photos and videos of themselves at the rally and sending the material to security bodies, informed sources said.

The officials, according to the sources, coupled the demand with threats and sustained psychological pressure, telling families that only if they comply might their detained relatives be released, spared execution, or see their sentences reduced.

The pressure coincided with a message delivered on Monday by Ali Khamenei, who in a short recorded video urged Iranians to demonstrate loyalty to the Islamic Republic and emphasized the need to stand firm against opponents of the system.

Pressure amid widening crackdown

The reported coercion comes as Iran International has previously documented an intensifying crackdown following nationwide protests, including mass arrests and a rise in reported deaths in custody. Observers have warned the pattern may point to a broader phase aimed at consolidating control and removing evidence linked to the violent suppression of dissent.

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  Over 36,500 killed in Iran's deadliest massacre, documents reveal

According to a statement by Iran International’s editorial board, at least 36,500 protesters have been killed during the unrest. Many viewers of the outlet have also reported widespread arrests, critical conditions for detainees, and, in numerous cases, families being left without information about the whereabouts or treatment of their relatives.

Statements attributed to detainees’ families

Separately, websites affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps published a text on Monday attributed to Mohammad Ali Saeedi-Nia, an entrepreneur and founder of the Saeedi-Nia Real Estate and Industries Group, alleging that he would take part in the February 11 pro-state rally.

Sources told Iran International that the publication was part of the same pressure campaign and aimed at extracting forced declarations of loyalty from families of detainees, using pro-government media to signal compliance.

Sadegh Saeedi-Nia, the son of Mohammad Ali Saeedi-Nia and chief executive of the family business, was arrested following the protests and subsequent killings and remains in prison.

Meanwhile, reports indicate a new wave of government-ordered closures of cafés and restaurants in Tehran, accompanied by the suspension of their social media accounts. Officials have not announced the reasons for the closures, which follow similar actions in recent months and appear to have intensified after the mass killings of protesters in January.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard intelligence organization and the Intelligence Ministry have pressured families of those detained during nationwide protests to attend the state-organized February 11 rally marking the anniversary of the 1979 Revolution, sources close to the families told Iran International.

Security officials informed several families their presence at the February 11 march must be “verifiable,” including by taking photos and videos of themselves at the rally and sending them to security bodies, the sources said.

The sources said officials coupled the demand with threats and psychological pressure, telling families that only if they comply might their detained relatives be released, spared execution, or see their sentences reduced.

The reported pressure comes amid what Iran International has previously documented as an intensifying crackdown following nationwide protests, including mass arrests and a rise in reported deaths in custody. Observers have said the trend may signal a broader “purge” phase aimed at eliminating evidence of a bloody suppression.

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For now, the threat is muted as Iran and the United States have returned to the negotiating table. But the shadow of war has not lifted.

Hardline and influential voices in both capitals continue to push a confrontational line, and the presence of the US aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln near Iranian waters is a reminder of how quickly tensions could escalate.

Earlier this week, units from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps approached and boarded a commercial vessel flying a US flag in the strait, while a US F-35 fighter jet shot down an Iranian drone that had approached the carrier strike group.

On the same day, amid a diplomatic scramble across the region to keep talks alive, hardline lawmakers in Tehran publicly revived calls to close the strait.

Yet the economic constraints on any serious disruption are severe.

The China factor

According to data from commodities intelligence provider Kpler seen by Iran International, nearly 95 percent of Iran’s crude oil exports in 2025 were loaded at Kharg Island and shipped through the Strait of Hormuz, primarily to China.

Estimates from the US Energy Information Administration show that roughly 20 million barrels per day of crude oil and petroleum products—about one-fifth of global consumption—pass through the strait each day.

Only about 6 percent of that volume is destined for Europe and the United States. Asian buyers dominate, absorbing 84 percent of oil and petroleum products transiting Hormuz, as well as more than 80 percent of liquefied natural gas shipments.

China alone imports around 5 million barrels of oil per day via the route. Any sustained disruption would therefore strike directly at Beijing’s energy security.

That vulnerability has grown in recent months as Venezuelan oil exports to China have effectively halted following stepped-up US enforcement. Venezuela exported about 850,000 barrels per day in January—volumes sufficient to replace most of the oil consumed in Europe and the United States that transits Hormuz.

Reuters reported that the United States last month reclaimed its position as the largest individual destination for Venezuelan crude, receiving about 284,000 barrels per day.

China, by contrast, has stepped back. PetroChina recently halted purchases of Venezuelan crude, signaling that Beijing no longer expects access to discounted supplies once available under sanctions-era arrangements.

A narrowing margin

With sanctions also complicating imports from Russia and Iran, China’s reliance on Persian Gulf oil—and on uninterrupted traffic through Hormuz—is set to deepen further.

From a Western perspective, these shifts have quietly altered the risk calculus. While any disruption in Hormuz would still push global oil prices higher, Europe and the United States are now better positioned than in the past to absorb short-term shocks. China is not.

For Iran, the costs would be higher still. Roughly 80 percent of its foreign trade, oil and non-oil alike, moves through ports along the Persian Gulf. Closing Hormuz would not only jeopardize China’s energy supplies but effectively paralyze Iran’s own external commerce.

There is also a broader cushion in the system. The International Energy Agency estimates that global spare production capacity will remain near 4 million barrels per day through 2026, helping to limit the impact of any temporary disruption.

All of this helps explain why Iran’s recurring threats to close the Strait of Hormuz—raised repeatedly over more than two decades—have never been carried out.