Iran International
Middle East analyst Elizabeth Tsurkov says people close to President Trump believe he is likely to strike Iran, arguing the Islamic Republic’s failure against Israel revealed a “paper tiger” abroad — even as it remains ruthlessly lethal toward its own citizens.
Speaking to Iran International in Washington, Tsurkov, a senior non-resident fellow at the New Lines Institute, said the recent US military buildup in the region is the largest since the 2003 invasion of Iraq and has raised expectations that force may ultimately be used.
“People who know the president personally have told me they believe he will attack,” she said, adding that talks are unlikely to succeed because “the maximum that the Iranian regime is willing to offer is less than what the US is willing to accept.”
Talks between Iran and the United States were held on Friday, with multiple back-and-forth exchanges taking place both through an Omani mediator in Muscat and reportedly in face-to-face meetings.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman said the talks concluded with an agreement to keep negotiations going, after both sides outlined their positions.
'Paper tiger'
Tsurkov said Iran’s performance in its June conflict with Israel underscored the limits of its ability to harm a capable adversary.
“Iran was doing their best to kill Israelis and damage infrastructure, but killed around 30 people and failed to hit targets that could have altered the conflict, such as facilities producing air-defense missiles,” she said. “Israel, by contrast, destroyed missile production sites and struck nuclear facilities inside Iran.”
"I think after the 12-days war with Israel, uh, there's a uh um there's a term was coined that they are paper tigers... they are a paper tiger to the outside world."
The United States held five rounds of negotiations with Tehran over its disputed nuclear program last year, for which Trump set a 60-day ultimatum.
When no agreement was reached by the 61st day, Israel launched a surprise military offensive on June 13, followed by US strikes on June 22 targeting key nuclear facilities in Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow.
Hundreds of military personnel and civilians were killed in the Israeli airstrikes. Tehran responded by launching more than 500 ballistic missiles and 1,100 drones, killing 32 Israeli civilians and one off-duty soldier and causing widespread damage.
A ceasefire ended the 12-day conflict, but the fate of nearly 400 kilograms of near weapons grade enriched uranium is still unknown. Tehran has said it will not give up the uranium stockpiles.
Tsurkov, who was held from 2023 to 2025 by Iran-backed militias in Iraq, said the conflict exposed a familiar pattern.
“The militias in Iraq pose a significant threat to the Iraqi people. They have killed thousands of innocent Iraqis, Shia and Sunni,” she said.
“They’ve killed only a couple of Israelis with a drone attack. The same with the Iranian regime: it managed to kill around 30 Israelis and really did try to kill more. But when it comes to the Iranian people, when you are facing unarmed protesters, you can just mow them down and kill tens of thousands in the span of about two days.”
‘Desperate protesters’
Tsurkov said the Islamic Republic is now in an “extreme moment of weakness,” pointing to reports that Tehran may be willing to negotiate not only over its nuclear program but also over missiles and proxy militias.
“Iranians have tried voting, only to see elections forged. They have tried peaceful protest and were slaughtered,” she said. “When all avenues are closed, people either leave or become radicalized.”
Last month, Iran International reported that more than 36,500 Iranians were killed by security forces during the January 8–9 crackdown on nationwide protests, making it the deadliest two-day protest massacre in the country’s history.
“When people love their country but still hope foreign powers will bomb it just to free them, that is the clearest sign of utterly failed leadership,” Tsurkov said.
“The solution to the suffering of Iranians and to the security threats that emanate from Iran is the end of this regime,” she said. “It is not easy and it will not happen quickly, but that should be the goal guiding policy.”
Ali Shakouri-Rad said the protests on January 8 and 9 were a predictable outcome of years of accumulated social discontent, even if the scale of the response surprised political factions and security institutions alike.
Shakouri-Rad rejected remarks promoted by official media that foreign intelligence services or opposition networks orchestrated the violence.
“I do not believe this, and I think many people do not believe it either,” he said, referring to claims that Israel’s Mossad or networks associated with exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi were responsible for the violence.
Protests and unexpected scale
Shakouri-Rad said the breadth of demonstrations across almost 400 cities exceeded expectations across Iran’s political spectrum. “Reformists, conservatives and the security institutions did not think this many people would respond to Reza Pahlavi’s call,” he said.
While protests were foreseeable given sustained grievances among workers, teachers and retirees, he said, the social response exposed a deeper rupture that institutions had failed to anticipate.
‘Injecting violence’ to justify force
The reformist politician argued that violence was introduced by those seeking to suppress protests and then use that violence as justification. “I can more easily believe that those who wanted to suppress what they called unrest carried out these acts,” he said.
This approach, he noted, was not new, arguing that security agencies have historically escalated confrontations to rationalize harsher measures. “From the beginning it has been like this, and it has grown worse over time,” he added.
Shakouri-Rad cited an academic article by a doctoral student at Guards-run Imam Hossein University that described “manufacturing deaths among one’s own forces” as a method for controlling unrest. He said the model included the killing of Basij or police personnel or attacks on symbolic sites, later attributed to protesters to justify coercive action.
Shakouri-Rad described an incident in which protesters who fled into a dead-end alley were shot and killed by a Basij member. The shooter, he said, was not inherently violent but shaped by an environment of polarization that placed weapons in the hands of poorly trained forces.
Criticism of the presidency
Shakouri-Rad criticized President Pezeshkian for publicly relying on security briefings to explain the killings, saying it stripped the president of his standing as a centrist figure. Repeating those assessments on state television, he said, alienated the public, which had witnessed events firsthand.
“People were present and knew what had happened,” he noted, adding that the president should have questioned the security bodies over how such events unfolded.
He also questioned how alleged armed networks could operate across hundreds of cities without the knowledge of Iran’s security agencies, saying the lack of accountability, resignations or formal inquiries underscored the credibility gap.
A leader-backed presidency
Shakouri-Rad said Pezeshkian’s rise to the presidency was a project backed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, rather than the result of open political competition. Reformists, he said, assisted the process without understanding its nature.
Pezeshkian, he said, could have acted as a bridge to defuse crises only if real authority had been delegated.
Shakouri-Rad described the January killings as among the “darkest moments in Iran’s modern history,” saying the wounds left by injustice and the killing of young people – most of them under 30 – would not heal without truth, accountability and a fundamental change in governance.
Referring specifically to the bloodshed on January 8 and 9, Shakouri-Rad said: “It is not something we can erase easily in the coming years, or even in decades to come.”
The effort to compile a database of detained healthcare workers is led by the AIDA Health Alliance (AHA), named after Aida Rostami, a 36-year-old Tehran physician who treated protesters in secret during the 2022 protests, went missing after a hospital shift, and was later found dead bearing signs of torture.
Doctors involved with AHA say they have so far identified at least 40 detained healthcare workers across multiple provinces, including doctors, nurses, medical students, technicians and volunteer first responders. They say the figure is likely incomplete.
“Hospitals are no longer safe places,” said Homa Fathi, one of the doctors involved in documenting the cases. “If a doctor treats a protester, questions security forces or refuses to discharge a patient prematurely, that doctor becomes a target.”
Doctors working on the documentation say the crackdown has pushed medical care underground, forcing physicians to choose between their professional oath and their personal safety.
Some have established makeshift home clinics to treat gunshot and pellet wounds. Others report being followed, threatened or warned to stop providing care altogether.
The Norway-based rights group Hengaw reported this week that an Iranian surgeon, Alireza Golchini, had been charged with moharebeh, or waging war against God—a charge that carries the death penalty.
Golchini was later released on bail following international pressure, including a statement by the U.S. State Departmentcalling for his release alongside what it described as “all the brave doctors who have helped their fellow countrymen.”
Doctors following his case say it has not been closed and is not an outlier, but part of a broader effort to dismantle medical networks that support protesters.
Fathi described a hospital in southwest Iran where an elderly woman suffering from hundreds of pellet wounds to her face, back and legs was forced out of care to free beds for members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
In other cases, she said, security forces fired tear gas inside emergency departments to clear wards, while doctors who confronted plainclothes agents photographing injured patients were later arrested.
She also cited an incident in which a medical intern was shot inside a hospital after protesting the presence of security forces. In one of the most disturbing accounts, she described unconscious patients being placed among the dead.
Another physician, Panteha Rezaeian, described cases in which doctors were followed to prevent home treatment, homes were raided, and physicians were warned to stop speaking publicly or face detention.
“We are seeing people attempt to remove bullets themselves or treat serious injuries at home,” Rezaeian said. “Some of them die days later, not because their injuries were unsurvivable, but because they were too afraid to seek help.”
Rezaeian warned that the denial of medical care had become “a secondary killing mechanism,” as injured demonstrators avoid hospitals out of fear of arrest or execution, risking death from untreated wounds, infections and internal injuries.
Doctors involved in the documentation effort say the pattern has intensified since January, with arrests accelerating after the latest wave of nationwide protests.
They warn that the systematic targeting of healthcare workers is intended not only to punish doctors, but to deter the injured from seeking care at all.
“This is not just about arresting doctors,” Rezaeian said. “It is about making people afraid to survive.”
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