Iran's intelligence merger debate signals possible security shake-up

In a statement released on Thursday, the assembly called for reviewing Iran's membership in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and its defense doctrine to establish adequate deterrence, describing the move as an “unavoidable necessity” and a “public and national demand.”

The intervention carries particular religious significance because the assembly comprises senior clerics, some of whom are qualified to exercise independent Islamic legal reasoning. Their support for reconsidering the doctrine could help weaken the religious justification for Iran's longstanding prohibition on nuclear weapons, based on a decree by the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

The assembly is constitutionally responsible for appointing and overseeing Iran's supreme leader. It has no direct authority over nuclear policy, but its statement gives institutional weight to demands previously voiced largely by hardline lawmakers and commentators.

Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful, citing Khamenei's religious ruling against weapons of mass destruction.

Iran's security chief Mohsen Rezaei said last month that changing the nuclear doctrine was under discussion but that neither the government nor the broader establishment had made a new decision.

Earlier this week, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Tehran remained committed to the NPT.

Hardliners press for nuclear policy shift

Tehran's interim Friday prayer leader, Mohammad-Javad Haj Ali-Akbari, described revising the nuclear doctrine as a national demand on October 30. Lawmaker Ahmad Naderi has openly advocated acquiring an atomic bomb.

Hardliners have also urged Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei to overturn his father Ali Khamenei's religious decree prohibiting the production of nuclear weapons. Others have proposed enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels while stopping short of manufacturing a bomb.

Reformist figures have challenged claims that developing nuclear weapons enjoys broad public support. Separately, Nour News, a website close to the Supreme National Security Council, warned against allowing crowd slogans to substitute for expert assessment of nuclear policy.

Warning of retaliation

The assembly also warned that another attack on Iran would trigger an “immediate and effective response without geographical limits” from the armed forces.

Its language echoed instructions attributed to Mojtaba Khamenei in an account published by the Revolutionary Guards-affiliated Tasnim news agency on October 31. That account did not announce an order to develop nuclear weapons.

Beyond military policy, the assembly called for establishing a “war economy headquarters” involving different branches of government and operating under the supreme leader's oversight.

It also urged action against what it described as the enemy's “cultural assault,” particularly concerning chastity and hijab.

The conditions are back at the center of the war’s diplomacy this week. On Thursday Hossein Taeb, a cleric who ran the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence organization until 2022 and now heads the Basij paramilitary force, gave the most detailed account yet of how messages are moving between the two sides.

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Days before the US midterm elections, he said, a Trump representative went to Vladimir Putin, and a Russian envoy then flew to Tehran with a written message for Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei. The envoy waited for a reply. Khamenei, Taeb said, calmly ordered that it be sent “at a suitable time.”

Then came a phone call between Putin and Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, and Rezaei’s trip to Moscow, where he handed Putin a letter from Khamenei on November 5.

“Our position is that Iran’s seven conditions must first be met and accepted by the other side,” Taeb said. Only then would Iran decide how, and about what, to negotiate.

His account sits awkwardly beside his colleagues’. Rezaei told Al Mayadeen this week that there are no negotiations of any kind and that reports of talks are “lies.” On X he told Washington to stop “manufacturing FAKE NEWS about imaginary talks” and wrote that it was “time to SURRENDER to the seven conditions.”

Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who formally leads Iran’s negotiating team, told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that Tehran had given Washington “a clear and transparent response” and was waiting for an official reply.

The US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Putin in the Kremlin on Thursday, mainly to discuss Ukraine after talks in Abu Dhabi. Neither side has said whether Iran came up.

A list that was never published

Rezaei announced the seven conditions on September 23, after a meeting with President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, and said they had been put in writing and handed to Pakistan and Qatar. Iran later offered to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if they were met, then within two.

Iran has never officially released the text. Officials say the conditions grew out of the Islamabad understanding of June, which Hassan Ghashghavi, spokesman of parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, says the presidents of both countries signed. Trump has disowned it.

No official list exists. Pieced together from what officials have said, it usually runs: an end to the war on all fronts, especially in Lebanon, the lifting of sanctions, the release of frozen assets, an end to the US naval blockade, compensation for war damage, guarantees against future attacks, and Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz.

But the list moves. Vahid Ahmadi, a member of the same committee, includes “the management of the Strait of Hormuz” by Iran under a new route agreed with Oman. Ghalibaf, listing them on Wednesday, added guaranteed waivers for Iranian oil sales. The armed forces chief, Ali Abdollahi, has set out five conditions of his own, including recognition of Iranian authority over Hormuz and a new regional security framework. Some reports include a reduction of US forces in the region. “Sometimes we may mention some conditions,” Rezaei said in September, “but Iran has seven.”

On October 11 Rezaei said Washington had “agreed to some” of them. This week he said there was no response at all.

Why they don’t hold up

An end to war “on all fronts.” This asks Washington to stop wars that Iran’s allies are fighting. Ahmadi says the condition now covers not only Lebanon but “the other resistance fronts,” meaning Hezbollah, the Houthis and militias in Iraq. Lebanon already has its own track. A US-brokered framework between the United States, Israel and Lebanon in June led to direct talks between Israel and Lebanon. Tehran is tying its own deal to a war fought by a group it arms and funds.

Lifting sanctions. No US president can do this alone. Many US sanctions on Iran are written into law by Congress. United Nations sanctions returned in late September 2025 under the nuclear deal’s snapback mechanism. The European Union and Britain impose their own. Lifting sanctions under the 2015 nuclear deal took two years of negotiation. Iran is asking for it as a condition for starting to talk.

Frozen assets. Iran’s own figures do not agree with anyone else’s. Tasnim and the central bank put the total at about $24 billion; other estimates run past $100 billion. Some of the money is tied up in US court judgments won by victims of attacks blamed on Iran, and the $6 billion moved to Qatar in 2023 was frozen again after the Hamas attack on Israel that October.

Ending the blockade. The US blockade of Iranian ports began on April 13, after Iran choked traffic through Hormuz. The condition asks Washington to lift its response while Iran keeps the closure that caused it. Iran’s only offer in return is to reopen a waterway it closed.

Reparations. The government spokeswoman has put Iran’s losses at $270 billion without a breakdown. Trump has rejected paying anything. Tehran is demanding compensation while its own missiles and drones struck its neighbors. The UAE alone absorbed close to 3,000 attacks in the first months of the war, the Financial Times has reported.

Guarantees against attack. No US president can bind his successor, which is the lesson Iranian officials themselves draw from Trump’s exit from the 2015 deal. The same officials who say Washington cannot be trusted are demanding a promise from it.

Iranian control of Hormuz. The strait is an international waterway. A condition that Iran “manage” it, approve routes or collect tolls is not a term for ending a war. It is a claim to a power Iran did not have before the war began.

What is not on the list

The issue Washington says the war was about is missing. Rezaei said this week that the nuclear file “is not under discussion,” and that “not even a particle” of Iran’s enriched uranium would leave the country.

The result is a list that asks Washington to give up every lever it holds, sanctions, the blockade, its forces and the money, before talks begin, while Iran keeps the two things the other side wants most: the closure of Hormuz until the end, and its nuclear material for good.

Who the list is for

Officials have sold the conditions at home as the terms of a victory. Rezaei told Washington it was “time to SURRENDER to the seven conditions Iran has repeatedly set out.” Taeb told his audience that the 40-day war decided the elections in Israel and the United States, and that Trump would have to withdraw his forces or face “a wider social movement” at home.

Ghalibaf said on Wednesday that Tehran wants to end the state of “neither war nor peace,” but that this might come through “sustainable deterrence” rather than talks.

The cost of the stalemate falls on Iranians. Ghalibaf himself complained that the blockade has cut access to food and medicine. Taeb said gasoline output fell to about 102 million liters a day during the war against consumption of about 135 million, and that Iran still imports some seven million liters a day. Inflation reached about 77 percent in October.

The increasingly confrontational language comes as Iran faces a continuing US naval blockade and uncertainty over whether the two countries can reach an agreement to end the war.

Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, warned Wednesday that Tehran could target US military bases in Europe and on distant islands if Washington attacked Iran again.

During a November 10 discussion on the state broadcaster's nightly talk show Be Vaght-e Iran, three analysts argued that Iran should use the Strait of Hormuz to drive up oil prices, deter further US attacks and pressure Washington to accept Tehran's terms for ending the war.

Nima Akbarkhani, a political and military analyst and regular panelist, argued that the United States would launch another war only after bringing oil prices down as far as possible, allowing it to contain the resulting increase once hostilities began.

He rejected the argument that a tighter closure of the Strait of Hormuz, or an Iranian attempt to break the US naval blockade, could prompt President Donald Trump to launch a full-scale war.

“We must definitely go after the blockade militarily. We must recognize that a blockade is a military action and demands a military response,” Akbarkhani said.

“Americans are monitoring the situation, and if it serves their interests, war will happen. We must do something to make it work against their interests.”

He argued that Washington had limited its military response even after US personnel were killed during the earlier war over Hormuz.

Yousef Azizi, an international relations and Middle East analyst, said Iran should keep oil prices high by closing the strait to deter another US attack.

Azizi also urged Iran's diplomatic apparatus to avoid releasing information that could drive oil prices down, including reports of possible meetings with officials from Iraq and Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

His remarks followed a denial by Rezaei of reports about a possible meeting with US Vice President JD Vance in Qatar and claims that negotiations with Washington were continuing.

In an interview with Al Mayadeen on Tuesday, Rezaei called the reports “completely false and a lie,” arguing that American claims about ongoing negotiations were intended to “reduce economic pressure and bring down oil prices.”

Azizi said Washington appeared to have concluded that it could not achieve its objectives through war. He considered a cycle of limited clashes, temporary ceasefires and interim understandings more likely than either side accepting all the other's demands.

Vahid Khazab, another regular analyst on Be Vaght-e Iran, said the costs of war could push the US and global economies into a deep recession and damage Trump's legacy.

An agreement, however, would require Washington to accept Iran's preconditions for ending the war and beginning nuclear negotiations, he said.

“More precisely, there is no unity, consensus or even a majority within the ruling camp in the United States in favor of making such concessions,” Khazab said.

Of three possible scenarios — war, an agreement ending the conflict, or continued economic pressure and a naval blockade — Khazab considered the third the most likely because it was the least costly option for Washington.

He argued that Iran should therefore close the Strait of Hormuz completely, denying Washington the option of maintaining economic pressure while some energy supplies continued to pass through.

Rather than focusing solely on raising oil prices, Khazab said Tehran should seek to influence market expectations about future supplies. A complete closure would prevent Trump from signaling that the strait might soon reopen, encouraging expectations of a return to normal traffic.

“Of course, this will also be reflected in prices, albeit with some delay,” he added.

He also argued that a tighter closure would prompt regional countries to pressure Washington to reach a resolution favorable to Tehran, without Iran having to attack their infrastructure.

Khazab said Tehran should present Washington with a stark choice: “Your only option is to reach an agreement with me and accept my seven conditions. If we want to get to this point, the way to do it is to close the strait.”

“Most importantly, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait and others would prefer the status quo, that we remain as is,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday after meeting Qatar’s prime minister.

He described that approach as continuing the US naval blockade, while keeping American forces ready for renewed military action.

Speaking to reporters in Paris after meetings with G7 counterparts on Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US sanctions and the naval blockade were inflicting growing economic damage on Iran, reducing the need for further major combat operations.

Regional analysts disagree over whether that policy offers Arab states across the Persian Gulf their safest option or prolongs a confrontation that threatens their security and economies.

Pressure without stability

Ghaith al-Omari, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute and former executive director of the American Task Force on Palestine, offered the opposite assessment to Trump’s. Regional governments want a weaker Islamic Republic, he said, but that does not mean they favor an indefinite blockade.

“They would like to see the regime weakened, but they don't believe that the blockade serves their interests,” he told Iran International.

Even where oil continues to flow, insurance costs and the risk of further attacks weigh on regional economies. Prolonged uncertainty also threatens the stability underpinning investment, tourism, finance and logistics, he said.

“No war, no peace equals uncertainty, equals instability,” al-Omari said.

He argued that Arab governments across the Persian Gulf doubt Washington’s willingness to sustain the policy.Trump’s midterm setback has intensified concerns that domestic pressure could prompt an abrupt change, leaving neighboring countries to manage the consequences.

Without an agreement reopening the Strait of Hormuz and ending the conflict, some governments could seek separate arrangements with Tehran to reduce their exposure, he said.

Between a rock and a hard place

Dalia Ziada of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) described the Arab states of the Persian Gulf as caught “between a rock and a hard place”: fearful of a resurgent Islamic Republic, yet harmed by the instability of a prolonged standoff.

“They don't want the Iranian regime to get strong again,” she told Iran International.

But continued insecurity carries its own economic consequences, threatening the region’s appeal to investors and confidence in its future.

“The biggest loss for the wealthy Gulf states is the lack of stability,” Ziada said.

She argued that differences among regional governments, combined with doubts about the reliability of American protection, complicate their choices. Their concerns cannot be reduced to a simple preference for war or continued restraint, she said.

One incident could break the standoff

Mohamed Fahmy, a journalist and Middle East political analyst, also sees significant differences among Iran’s Arab neighbors.

“There is no unified Gulf position on how long the blockade should continue,” he told Iran International.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE see value in maintaining American pressure until Tehran makes meaningful concessions, Fahmy said, while Qatar and Oman place greater emphasis on mediation.

Their shared interest in reducing the Iranian military threat does not eliminate the costs of prolonged confrontation.

“The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have invested heavily in presenting themselves as stable international hubs for business, tourism, finance and logistics. Prolonged confrontation threatens those ambitions,” he said.

Those concerns reflect damage already sustained. An October 15 Reuters investigation documented at least 135 missile and drone attacks by Iran and allied groups against at least 84 infrastructure sites across seven Arab countries since US-Israeli attacks on Iran began on February 28. The tally covered infrastructure attacks, rather than every launch or attempted strike.

Fahmy said the standoff could continue for some time because Washington and Tehran both appear to believe waiting will improve their negotiating positions. But an attack killing American personnel or seriously damaging Persian Gulf energy infrastructure could trigger renewed military action.

“It takes only one serious incident involving American forces, a commercial tanker or a Gulf energy installation to undermine the current restraint,” he said.

Growing pressure in Washington over financial costs, military commitments and the absence of a clear exit strategy could instead encourage a negotiated settlement, he argued.

The case for staying the course

Saad bin Tefla Al-Ajmi, Kuwait’s former information minister, argues that maintaining the status quo remains the least harmful choice.

“The solution is to keep the status quo as is. That’s the best solution,” he told Iran International, referring to an article he supplied outlining his position.

Renewed war could bring further Iranian attacks on neighboring countries, he argues, while American withdrawal could leave them exposed.

“The third option is the safest and best for us, for the region and for the beleaguered peoples of Iran,” he wrote in the article.

Al-Ajmi advocates sustained naval and economic pressure alongside efforts to constrain Tehran’s regional armed allies. He predicts that pressure could eventually bring down the regime, although that outcome remains uncertain.

He acknowledges the costs to neighboring states.

“The Gulf states are indeed paying a price under this scenario. Their trade is disrupted, tensions persist in their airspace and their projects are delayed,” he wrote.

His support for maintaining that pressure rests on the judgment that the alternatives would be worse. The question is whether Washington and its regional partners can sustain it without an escalation that forces them back into war.

Vahid Khazab, introduced as a military and political analyst, said on the state broadcaster’s Be Vaght-e Iran (Iran Time) talk show on Monday night that a significant development amid mediation efforts was Tehran’s willingness to discuss its nuclear program through intermediaries.

His account suggested room for diplomacy, but did not amount to an official announcement of a change in Iran’s negotiating position.

Iran has insisted that Washington accept its seven demands and end the war before nuclear negotiations begin. Khazab described preliminary discussions through intermediaries as a sign of “flexibility.”

However, he said, those discussions were limited to determining the issues that could be addressed in future nuclear negotiations, once Iran’s initial conditions had been accepted and the war ended.

Proposed nuclear compromise

According to Khazab, Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, has raised the possibility of allowing Iran to continue uranium enrichment at 3.67%. His account did not establish whether Washington had accepted that provision.

In exchange, the proposals include diluting Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched to 60%, which Khazab put at 400 kilograms, or converting it into fuel rods for nuclear reactors.

The proposed arrangement would also include the release of part of Iran’s frozen assets, the return of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, and ultimately the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, Khazab said.

Tehran would likely regard any US acceptance of enrichment inside Iran as a major concession, he said. However, it would seek to negotiate how its highly enriched uranium stockpile is diluted and how much nuclear material remains inside the country.

He added that some Iranian experts had suggested gradual dilution to preserve part of the country’s nuclear capabilities for the “future, post-Trump era.”

Parallel mediation efforts

Pakistan, China, Iraq, Turkey and Qatar have been pursuing diplomatic initiatives amid concerns about renewed US military strikes against Iran.

Nima Akbarkhani, also introduced as a military expert on the program, said people with what he described as “greater access” had told him that the scale of mediation efforts in recent days was unprecedented compared with previous initiatives.

China has been among the countries involved. Ali Bagheri-Kani, a deputy secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, traveled to China in early November and met with Beijing’s special envoy for Middle Eastern affairs, Zhai Jun.

Zhai subsequently traveled to Iran on November 8. According to Khazab, he met not only with Iranian Foreign Ministry officials but also with Parliament Speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf.

Iraq has also been involved. Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Faleh al-Zaydi traveled to Iran late last week on an unannounced visit.

Iran’s Tasnim News Agency, which is affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, reported that al-Zaydi met with President Masoud Pezeshkian and Ghalibaf. However, the agency said he had not obtained what it described as “a result satisfactory to the United States.”

Turkey has also been seeking to facilitate an agreement through political contacts with Washington and Tehran.

According to remarks attributed to Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke with Trump and expressed concern about renewed military attacks against Iran, urging him to refrain from further strikes.

Qatar, which has served as one of the main channels of communication between Tehran and Washington in recent months, is also attempting to bring the two sides back to negotiations.

Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani traveled to Washington on Monday and met with Trump and Vice President JD Vance.

Former Qatari prime minister and foreign minister Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani has also emphasized the need to resolve regional disputes.

Khazab interpreted his recent emphasis on cooperation to end Iran’s blockade as a possible shift in Qatar’s calculations under wartime conditions.

Iran denies plans for Vance-Rezaei meeting

Khazab also addressed reports that Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, could meet Vance in Qatar next week.

The discussion followed reports on Monday citing Kalin as saying Qatar would host the US vice president and Iran’s security chief the following week. Türkiye newspaper carried the Turkish intelligence chief’s remarks.

In his Monday night comments, Khazab suggested that reports of a possible meeting were not necessarily false, interpreting Iranian denials as a rejection of the existence of a specific arrangement.

According to the analyst, whether a meeting could take place would depend on Washington announcing its acceptance of Iran’s seven initial conditions for ending the war and reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi dismissed reports of the meeting as “speculation and media fabrication” and described them as “baseless from the outset.”

“There are no plans for such a meeting,” he said.

Rezaei subsequently told Lebanon-based Al Mayadeen television in an interview on Tuesday that “the Americans’ claims about the continuation of negotiations or the holding of a meeting in Qatar are outright lies.”

He said the claims were being circulated solely to ease economic pressure and drive down oil prices.

Khazab’s argument for conditional engagement rested on Tehran’s distrust of Washington. He accused the United States of violating its commitments after an earlier agreement and memorandum of understanding, leading to renewed hostilities.

For that reason, he said, Iran did not want to enter another round of negotiations that might produce a temporary agreement followed by a return to war.

“We have no objection to negotiations, no objection to talking. But it must be done in a way that genuinely removes the threat of war,” Khazab said.