Irans

The assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in joint US-Israeli air attacks has caused one of the most significant blows to the country’s leadership since the 1979 Islamic revolution, triggering protests by his supporters.

Khamenei assumed Iran’s supreme leadership in 1989 after the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had led the Islamic revolution against the pro-United States Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

On Sunday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said seeking revenge for the killing of Khamenei and other senior Iranian officials is the country’s “duty and legitimate right”.

President Donald Trump has framed the operation as a “liberation” moment, predicting that the removal of the “head” will lead to the swift collapse of the body. However, in Iran, the reality suggests a far more complex situation.

Interviews with insiders, military experts and political sociologists suggest that the decapitation of Iran’s top leadership may not go the way the West envisions. Instead, it risks birthing a “garrison state” – a paranoid, militarised system fighting for its existence with no political red lines left to cross.

The limits of ‘decapitation’

The central premise of the US operation is that Iran is too brittle to survive the death of its supreme leader. In a phone interview with CBS News, Trump claimed he “knows exactly” who is calling the shots in Tehran, adding that “there are some good candidates” to replace the supreme leader. He did not elaborate on his claims.

However, military analysts warn against the assumption that air strikes alone can trigger “regime change”. Michael Mulroy, a former US deputy assistant secretary of defence, told Al Jazeera Arabic that without “boots on the ground” or a fully armed organic uprising, the state’s deep security apparatus can survive simply by maintaining cohesion.

“You cannot facilitate regime change through air strikes alone,” Mulroy said. “If anyone is left alive to speak, the regime is still there.”

This resilience is rooted in Iran’s dual military structure. The government is protected not just by a regular army (Artesh), but also by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – a powerful parallel military force constitutionally tasked with protecting the velayat-e faqih system – the principle of the guardianship of the Islamic jurist.

Supporting them is the Basij, a vast paramilitary volunteer militia embedded in every neighbourhood, specifically trained to crush internal dissent and mobilise ideological loyalists.

That cohesion is already being tested.

Hossein Royvaran, a political analyst based in Tehran, confirmed that the strikes wiped out the country’s top security tier, including Khamenei’s adviser and secretary of the newly-formed Supreme Defence Council, Ali Shamkhani.

The secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, said the leadership transition will begin on Sunday.

“An interim leadership council will soon be formed. The president, the head of the judiciary and a jurist from the Guardian Council will assume responsibility until the election of the next leader,” said Larijani.

“This council will be established as soon as possible. We are working to form it as early as today,” he said in an interview broadcast by state TV.

The rapid formation of an interim leadership council – comprising the president, judiciary chief, and a Guardian Council religious leader – indicates that the system’s “survival protocols” have been activated.

According to Royvaran, the system is designed to be “institutional, not personal”, capable of functioning on “autopilot” even when the political leadership is severed.

But a Tehran-based analyst said direction of Iran is still unclear as officials try to ‘project stability’.

“Officials here are trying to project stability, emphasising that the situation is under control and that state institutions are functioning effectively,” Abas Aslani, senior research fellow at the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies, said.

“Today, [the US-Israeli] air strikes targeted security and military infrastructure in the capital [Tehran] and other cities. There are expectations that such strikes could continue – and possibly intensify – in the coming hours or days,” he told Al Jazeera.

“That prospect of escalation is not something many ordinary Iranians welcome. At the same time, Iranian officials are issuing strong warnings, suggesting they could respond with capabilities that have not previously been used against Israel or the United States.”

From theocracy to nationalist survival

Perhaps the most significant shift in the immediate aftermath is Iran’s pivot from religious legitimacy to survivalist nationalism.

Aware that the death of the supreme leader might sever the spiritual bond with parts of the population, surviving officials are reframing the war not as a defence of the clergy, but as a defence of Iran’s territorial integrity.

Larijani, a conservative heavyweight and key figure in the transition, issued a stark warning that Israel’s ultimate goal is the “partition” of Iran. By raising the spectre of Iran being broken into ethnic statelets, the leadership aims to rally secular Iranians and the opposition against a common external enemy.

This strategy complicates the US hope for a popular uprising.

Saleh al-Mutairi, a political sociologist, notes that the government’s declaration of 40 days of mourning creates a “funeral trap” for the opposition. The streets will likely be filled with millions of mourners, creating a human shield for the government and making it logistically and morally difficult for antigovernment protests to gain momentum in the short term.

The end of ‘strategic patience’

If Iran survives the initial shock, the nation that emerges will likely be fundamentally different: less calculated and probably more violent.

For years, Khamenei championed a doctrine of “strategic patience”, often absorbing blows to avoid all-out war.

Hassan Ahmadian, a professor at the University of Tehran, says the era died with the supreme leader.

“Iran learned a hard lesson from the June 2025 war: Restraint is interpreted as weakness,” Ahmadian told Al Jazeera Arabic. The new calculus in Tehran is likely to be a “scorched earth” policy.

“The decision has been made. If attacked, Iran will burn everything,” Ahmadian added, suggesting that the response will be broader and more painful than anything seen in previous escalations.”

This risks a scenario where field commanders, freed from the political caution of the clerical leadership, lash out with greater ferocity. The assassination has humiliated the security establishment, exposing what Liqaa Maki, a senior researcher at Al Jazeera Centre for Studies, calls a catastrophic intelligence failure.

“The believer is not bitten from the same hole twice, yet Iran has been bitten twice,” Maki said, referring to the pattern of US strikes. This “total exposure” is likely to drive the surviving leadership underground, turning Iran into a hyper-security state that views any internal dissent as foreign collaboration, he said.

While the “head” of Iran has been removed, the “body” – armed with one of the largest missile arsenals in the Middle East – remains, Maki said.

Spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei says Iran’s attacks on US targets across the region are legitimate defensive actions.

Iran is entitled to defend itself from Israeli and US attacks, the spokesman for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has stressed.

“We have every right in accordance with international law, with the UN Charter, to defend ourselves with all might”, Esmaeil Baghaei said in an interview with Al Jazeera on Saturday.

The US and Israel launched a wave of attacks across multiple Iranian cities, including Tehran, on Saturday, in what US President Donald Trump described as “major combat operations”.

At least 201 people have been killed, according to Iranian media, citing the Red Crescent.

Iran responded by firing missiles towards Israel and US military targets in multiple countries, including Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Baghaei said the country’s armed forces “are defending national sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Iran against these barbaric acts of aggression”.

The US-Israeli attacks came after a third round of indirect negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme between the US and Iran ended on Friday.

“We were supposed to meet on Monday to talk about technical aspects of any possible deal on [the] nuclear issue,” Baghaei said. “And the Americans themselves acknowledged that these negotiations went quite well. The mediator, [the] foreign minister of Oman, qualified this round of negotiations as being of significant progress.”

It was the second time in less than a year that diplomacy had been scuttled by an attack on Iran, Baghaei noted. Iran and the US had engaged in several rounds of negotiations last year, when Israel launched a 12-day war on Iran in June, which the US briefly joined, despite Trump saying he was committed to a diplomatic resolution.

Baghaei said the US “launching an act of aggression against another member of the United Nations” also threatened the international body, as its main pillar, “the UN Charter, is the provision of the use of force.”

“So, I think what is at stake is not only the security and peace of the region and that of Iran, but also the whole fabric of international law. And the normative system that has been created by the United Nations Charter,” he added.

Friends in the region

Baghaei defended Iran’s retaliatory attacks in several countries across the region.

“Under international law, any place, any location, any logistical support that are given to the aggressor [is a] legitimate target for the victim state,” he said. “So, we are not attacking any country in the region. We are friendly with all countries of the region. What we are doing is just taking defensive actions.”

“We have proven that we trust our friends in the region,” Baghaei said. “That’s why we try to get together with the countries of the region in furtherance of this diplomatic process. The problem is that the United States is conducting this war of aggression at the cost of everyone, including the countries of the region.”

The White House’s comment comes days after a senior Trump aide said Iran is one week away from having material for nuclear bomb.

The White House has insisted that last year’s strikes against Iran destroyed the country’s nuclear programme despite a recent claim by a senior US official that Tehran is a week away from having bombmaking material.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House spokesperson, told reporters on Tuesday that the June 2025 attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, known as Operation Midnight Hammer, was an “overwhelmingly successful mission”.

The attack “did, in fact, obliterate Iran’s nuclear facilities“, Leavitt said.

But just this weekend, President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff suggested that Iran is close to having enough material to build a nuclear weapon.

“They’re probably a week away from having industrial-grade bomb-making material,” Witkoff told Fox News on Saturday.

Since last June’s strikes, Trump has repeatedly hailed the attack, arguing that it eliminated Iran’s nuclear programme and led to “peace” in the Middle East. Operation Midnight Hammer came towards the end of a 12-day war Israel initiated with Iran that month.

But eight months later, US and Iranian officials are once again holding talks to reach a nuclear deal and avert another war.

On Tuesday, Leavitt said the destruction of Iran’s nuclear programme had been “verified” by Trump and the United Nations’ watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

“That does not mean that Iran may never try again to establish a nuclear programme that could directly threaten the United States and our allies abroad, and that’s what the president wants to ensure can never happen again,” she added.

Last year, after the US attack, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said Iran could resume uranium enrichment “in a matter of months”.

But the UN agency’s inspectors have not been able to assess Iran’s nuclear sites since the US strikes.

The Pentagon’s public assessment was that the Iranian nuclear programme was set back by one to two years.

There has been no official confirmation of the US claims that Iran has restarted nuclear enrichment after the attack.

After a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the US in December, Trump renewed his threats to attack Iran if it tries to rebuild its nuclear or missile programme.

Tensions have spiralled since then, with the US amassing military assets near Iran.

Still, Tehran and Washington are set to hold the third round of negotiations this year to push for a nuclear deal.

Iran, which denies seeking a nuclear weapon, has said it would agree to minimal uranium enrichment under strict IAEA supervision in exchange for lifting sanctions against its economy.

But Trump has repeatedly stressed that it is seeking zero enrichment.

Enrichment is the process of isolating and concentrating a rare variant, or isotope, of uranium that can produce nuclear fission.

At low levels, enriched uranium can power electric plants. If enriched to approximately 90 percent, it can be used for nuclear weapons.

Before the June 2025 war, Iran was enriching uranium at 60 percent purity.

Tehran had been escalating its nuclear programme since 2018, when Trump, during his first term, nixed a multilateral agreement that capped Iran’s enrichment at 3.67 percent. He instead started piling up sanctions on the Iranian economy, as part of a “maximum pressure” campaign.

The White House on Tuesday suggested the military option against Iran remains on the table.

“President Trump’s first option is always diplomacy. But as he has shown, he is willing to use the lethal force of the United States military if necessary,” Leavitt said.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian says Tehran will not bow to US pressure over nuclear talks, after Donald Trump warned on Thursday that ‘bad things’ will happen if Iran fails to reach a deal within 15 days.

As the U.S. flows assets toward the Middle East, including the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group (CSG) now reportedly off the Moroccan coast, Iran, China and Russia will hold their recurring joint naval training exercise in the Strait of Hormuz, according to Iranian media. Moscow and Tehran see the Maritime Security Belt 2026 exercise as particularly relevant in light of current events, and there are reasons for the White House and Pentagon to take note. Having Russian or Chinese warships in these waters amid a U.S. attack on Iran could have military and political implications planners must address. At the same time, the timing of the still ongoing U.S. buildup and the exercise point to it having more of a messaging effect than an operational one.

The exercise, first held in 2019, is being hosted in the southern Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas, located on the Strait of Hormuz. Russian, Chinese, and Iranian naval units “are expected to participate with various ships and operational capabilities to test coordination, tactical readiness, and rapid-response procedures in the Strait of Hormuz,” the official Iranian Mehr news outlet reported.

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) declined to comment on the exercise.

As Iranian and Russian officials gathered Wednesday aboard the Russian corvette Stoiky, a top Iranian official issued a new threat against the growing U.S. Navy presence in the region, which includes the Abraham Lincoln CSG and at least eight other surface combatants. The Ford could arrive in the region in the next four or five days given its location posted by the MarineTraffic ship tracking website. The Navy said only that the ship is now in the Atlantic Ocean.

If the USS Gerald R. Ford keeps her current speed, she will be off the coast of Israel and be able to assist in the defense against an Iranian retaliation by Sunday morning. pic.twitter.com/7OhMJDRxwZ

— Oliver Alexander (@OAlexanderDK) February 18, 2026

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has faced threats, noise, propaganda and the presence of extra-regional fleets in West Asia for 47 years, Iran’s Navy Commander Rear Adm. Shahram Irani warned. “The presence of extra-regional fleets in West Asia is unjustified.”

“If the extra-regional fleet feels it has come with power, it should know that the Iranian people will confront them with greater power,” he added. “The faith of the people and missiles are the Islamic Republic of Iran’s deterrent weapons against the enemy.”

Nikolai Patrushev, a top aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, framed the exercise as part of a larger struggle between the U.S. and the BRICS alliance, an informal group of 21 nations that includes Russia, China and Iran. Patrushev took aim at the ongoing U.S. and NATO efforts to seize tankers containing Russian oil as well as the ongoing tensions between Washington and Tehran.

“We will tap into the potential of BRICS, which should now be given a full-fledged strategic maritime dimension,” Patrushev posited. “The Maritime Security Belt 2026 exercises in the Strait of Hormuz, where Russia, China, and Iran [will send] their ships, proves to be relevant.”

Both Russia and Iran say the exercise will increase their ability to work together.

“The level of existing interactions and cooperation shows that we can manage and resolve many maritime and coastal issues together,” Captain First Rank Alexey Sergeev, commander of the Russian naval group, said, according to The Telegraph. “We are ready to hold joint exercises in any region, including specialised drills such as anti-maritime terrorism operations that will be executed with vessels and boats from both sides.”

Experts we spoke with say the presence of a small number of Russian and Chinese ships in the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman does not pose a significant threat to U.S. interests, but could complicate efforts to attack Iran. They also note that this exercise was likely planned months ago, well before U.S. President Donald Trump started threatening Iran over its harsh treatment of anti-regime protesters.

“I don’t believe it increases in any significant way the likelihood of conflict with Russia and China, but it probably would introduce additional considerations for any planned strikes against Iran,” Tom Shugart, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) think tank and a retired U.S. Navy submarine warfare officer told us Wednesday morning. 

“For starters, you’d want to make sure that their sensors don’t give advanced warning of your strike to the Iranians, and you’d want to make sure that those Russian and Chinese platforms aren’t in the way,” he explained. “You’d also of course want to ensure that there is no way they could be inadvertently struck a la USS Stark during the Iraq-Iran Tanker Wars of the 1980s.”

The Stark, an Oliver-Hazard Perry class guided-missile frigate, was hit by two Iraqi Exocet missiles while in the Persian Gulf on May 17, 1987. The strike killed 37 sailors and wounded 21 others.   

Shugart downplayed the timing of the exercise, given that its planning has been in the works for a while.

“I also don’t think that the small number of Russian and Chinese ships involved amount to much militarily relative to U.S. naval forces in the region – though their presence might matter politically, should the administration decide it wants to take military action against Iran,” he explained.

“I don’t think this fundamentally changes anything,” former CENTCOM commander Joseph Votel told us. “It is an easy way for Russia and China to show support after having abandoned Iran last summer.”

Votel, a retired Army General and current distinguished fellow at the Middle East Institute, was referring to last June’s U.S. Operation Midnight Hammer attack on Iranian nuclear facilities and Israel’s 12-Day War against Iran. 

How the Israel-Iran ‘12-day war’ unfolded

“Certainly the timing makes it seem more provocative,” Votel added. “There is likely also an internal message for regime supporters – pushing back on the U.S. and Israel.”

“I don’t think it raises the threat of conflict,” the former CENTCOM commander surmised. “I view it as a form of great power competition.”

The presence of Russian and Chinese ships near Bandar Abbas, a major center of Iranian military activity, could complicate U.S. targeting if they remain in the area. The coastal city would be a prime target to take out many types of kinetic capabilities, sensors, and other assets, especially Iran’s naval forces. Still, the Chinese and Russian ships should leave at some point and the U.S. would know their location and it doesn’t appear the U.S. is in a place to strike yet. Unless the exercise goes on for weeks, the Russian and Chinese ships will likely have moved on by the time all the pieces are in place for a U.S.-led kinetic operation to begin.

The joint naval exercise follows a more recently planned drill by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which has closed off the Strait of Hormuz for a live-fire exercise. It marks the first time Iran has shut parts of the Strait since Trump threatened Iran with military action in January.

Dubbed “Smart Control of the Strait of Hormuz,” the drills began Monday and include firing anti-ship cruise missiles at targets and IRGC naval drone and submarine units carrying out operations originating from the three Iranian islands, according to Iranian media.

“The armed drones used in the exercise—capable of engaging both air and sea targets—are among the IRGC Navy’s newest strategic platforms and are deployed in significant numbers, though their names and technical specifications remain classified,” the official Iranian FARS News outlet claimed.

We’ll have to wait and see how the exercises unfold, especially as the U.S. buildup fully matures. But at this time it seems that the presence of these vessels is more of a political factor than an operational one, at least for the time being.

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com

Iran’s top diplomat says he hopes to ‘achieve a fair and equitable deal’ before high-stakes talks are held on Tuesday.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has arrived in Geneva for high-stakes second round of nuclear talks with the United States aimed at reducing tensions and avert a new military confrontation that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has warned could turn into a regional conflict.

“I am in Geneva with real ideas to achieve a fair and equitable deal,” Araghchi wrote on X on Monday. “What is not on the table: submission before threats.”

Iran and the US renewed negotiations earlier this month to tackle their ⁠decades-long dispute over Tehran’s nuclear programme as US deploys warships, including a second aircraft carrier, to the region as mediators work to prevent a war.

Araghchi met with Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), on Monday, after saying his team nuclear experts for a “deep technical discussion”.

The United Nations nuclear watchdog has been calling for access to Iran’s main nuclear facilities that were bombed by the US and Israel during the 12-day war in June. Tehran has said there might be a risk of radiation, so an official protocol is required to carry out the unprecedented task of inspecting highly enriched uranium ostensibly buried under the rubble.

Speaking to state-run IRNA news agency on Monday, foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said the IAEA will play “an important role” in upcoming mediated talks between Iran and the US. But he also renewed Tehran’s criticism of Grossi for the director’s refusal to condemn military strikes on Iranian nuclear sites that are protected under agency safeguards as part of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Araghchi also said he would meet his Omani counterpart, Badr bin Hamad al-Busaidi, who mediated the first round of talks between Iran and the US since the war earlier this month.

Iran has repeatedly emphasised that it will not agree to Washington’s demand for zero nuclear enrichment, and considers its missile programme a “red line” that cannot be negotiated.

Meanwhile, the US continues to build up its military presence in the region, with President Donald Trump saying a change of power in Iran “would be the best thing that could happen” and sending in a second aircraft carrier.

Trump is again likely to send his special envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner to represent the White House in the Geneva talks. Brad Cooper, the most senior US military commander in the region, had unexpectedly joined the US delegation during the Muscat talks on February 6.

The talks also come over a month after Iran’s deadly crackdown against nationwide protests, with Iranian officials claiming “terrorists” and “rioters” armed and funded by the US and Israel were behind the unrest.

The UN and international human rights organisations have blamed Iranian authorities for the widespread use of lethal force against peaceful protesters, which killed thousands, mainly on the nights of January 8 and 9.

But the hardliners in Tehran are more concerned about any potential concessions that could be given during upcoming talks with the US.

Addressing an open session on Monday, one of the most hardline lawmakers in Iran’s parliament cautioned security chief Ali Larijani against giving inspection access to the IAEA befire ensuring Iran’s territorial integrity, the security of nuclear sites and scientists, and use of peaceful nuclear energy for civilian purposes under the NPT.

“When US warships have opened their arms to embrace Iranian missiles, US bases have opened arms to take our missiles, and the homes of Zionist military personnel are anticipating the sound of the air raid sirens, it is obvious that such conditions cannot be met at the moment,” said Hamid Rasaei, a cleric close to the hardline Paydari (Steadfastness) faction.

In the other diplomatic track pursued in Switzerland on Tuesday, officials will be discussing ways of ending the Ukraine war, which is approaching the end of its fourth year after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

But no immediate breakthrough appears in sight, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy telling the annual Munich Security Conference on Saturday that Kyiv has “too often” been asked to make concessions.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has outlined the conditions he considers necessary for any prospective deal between the United States and Iran, including the dismantling of all of Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure.

His comments on Sunday came as Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi headed to Switzerland for a second round of nuclear talks with the US.

Speaking at the annual Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Netanyahu said he was sceptical of a deal, but had told US President Donald Trump last week that any agreement must include several elements.

“The first is that all enriched material has to leave Iran,” he said.

“The second is that there should be no enrichment capability – not stopping the enrichment process, but dismantling the equipment and the infrastructure that allows you to enrich in the first place”.

The third, he said, was resolving the issue of ballistic missiles.

Netanyahu also called for sustained inspections of Tehran’s nuclear programme.

“There has to be real inspection, substantive inspections, no lead-time inspections, but effective inspections for all of the above,” he said.

Iran and the US resumed nuclear negotiations in Oman on February 6, months after previous talks collapsed when Israel launched an unprecedented bombing campaign against Iran last June, which started a 12-day war.

The US joined in the attacks, bombing three Iranian nuclear sites.

Netanyahu’s comments mark the first time he has spoken publicly on the discussions with Trump in Washington, DC, last Wednesday. The meeting was their seventh since Trump returned to office last year.

Trump told reporters afterwards that they had reached no “definitive” agreement on how to move forward with Iran, but that he had “insisted that negotiations with Iran continue to see whether or not a deal can be consummated”.

According to a report by Axios, the two leaders agreed to intensify economic strangleholds on Iran, mostly on its oil sales to China. More than 80 percent of Iranian oil exports current go to China.

The report, which cited US officials, said Netanyahu and Trump agreed in their meeting on the necessary end state: an Iran without the capability to obtain nuclear weapons. But they disagreed about how to get there.

Netanyahu told Trump it would be impossible to make a good deal, while Trump said he thought it was possible. “Let’s give it a shot”, Trump said, according to Axios.

Iran has long denied any intent to produce nuclear weapons, but has said it is prepared to discuss curbs on its atomic programme in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. It has ruled out linking the issue to missiles, however.

The CBS broadcaster, meanwhile, reported on Sunday that Trump had told Netanyahu during a meeting in Florida in December that he would support Israeli strikes on Iran’s ballistic missile programme if the US and Iran could not reach a deal.

The network cited two sources familiar with the matter.

There was no immediate comment from the US or Israel on the CBS report.

The renewed push for diplomacy comes after Trump threatened new attacks on Iran and sent a US aircraft carrier to the region, citing a deadly crackdown on antigovernment protesters in January.

Tensions in the region remain high, meanwhile.

On Friday, Trump said he was sending a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East, and openly discussed changing Iran’s government.

Asked if he wanted a government change in Iran, Trump responded that it “seems like that would be the best thing that could happen”.

Asked why a second aircraft carrier was headed to the Middle East, Trump said: “In case we don’t make a deal, we’ll need it … if we need it, we’ll have it ready.”

For its part, Iran has promised to retaliate to any attack, saying it will strike US bases in the Middle East.

The continued tensions have sparked fears of a wider regional war.

Foreign minister says regional powers have been ‘far more effective’ than European countries.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has derided the Munich Security Conference as a “circus”, accusing European powers of “paralysis and irrelevance” in efforts to revive nuclear negotiations with the United States.

Iranian officials were not invited to the annual security meeting in the German city.

“Sad to see the usually serious Munich Security Conference turned into the ‘Munich Circus’ when it comes to Iran,” Araghchi wrote on X on Sunday.

“The paralysis and irrelevance of the EU/E3 is displayed in the dynamics surrounding the current talks over Iran’s nuclear program. … Once a key interlocutor, Europe is now nowhere to be seen. Instead, our friends in the region [the Gulf] are far more effective and helpful than an empty-handed and peripheral E3.”

The E3 – which included France, the United Kingdom and Germany – were key players in the previous round of nuclear negotiations between world powers and Iran. That process culminated in 2015 with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a landmark agreement aimed at limiting the scope of Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.

The US under the first administration of President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018 and ramped up sanctions on Iran. Since then, the process has largely stalled. Still, the E3 maintained a role as a go-between with Tehran and Washington.

But since negotiations resumed last year, Gulf countries, such as Oman and Qatar, have taken the lead in facilitating talks between the US and Iran.

Araghchi made the remarks before leaving Tehran to lead a diplomatic and technical delegation to Geneva for a new round of nuclear talks with the US. The talks follow last week’s indirect negotiations in Oman, which is mediating the process, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

During his visit, Araghchi is expected to meet his Swiss and Omani counterparts, as well as the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, and other international officials.

Abas Aslani, a senior research fellow at the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies, said Araghchi’s comments “indicate a policy shift from the Iranian side that the E3 mechanism … is no longer a valid channel for resolution”.

“This nuclear mediation has moved from Europe to the region, and now the heavy lifting in diplomacy is done by regional players,” he said.

On Tuesday, Oman is to host talks between the US and Iran in Geneva after previous indirect negotiations in Muscat on February 6. Those talks were attended by US envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner.

US and Iranian officials previously held several rounds of talks in the Omani capital to discuss Iran’s nuclear programme last year. But that process was halted as Israel launched a 12-day war with Iran in June, which the US briefly joined by bombing three Iranian nuclear facilities.

The new rounds of negotiations come as tensions in the region remain high, with Trump moving more US military assets to the Middle East. On Friday, the US president said he was sending a second aircraft carrier to the region while openly talking about a change in Iran’s government.

Despite the new push for diplomacy, the two sides have maintained their positions. Iran has shown flexibility in discussing its nuclear programme, but the US wants to widen the talks to include Iran’s ballistic missiles and its support for regional armed groups – two issues that Tehran says are nonnegotiable.

Tehran, Iran – Iran’s authorities have ratcheted up the messaging and reciprocal threats against the United States during state-organised rallies and celebrations commemorating the Islamic revolution across the country, one month after deadly nationwide protests.

Chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” rang out on Wednesday in the state-run annual demonstrations, on a day of immense symbolic significance for the Islamic republic that consolidated its power during the 1979 revolution.

Near Enghelab (Islamic revolution) Square in downtown Tehran, authorities propped up five coffins for some of the top commanders in the US military.

The coffins had the US flag painted on them, and included the names and images of Central Command chief Brad Cooper, Chief of Staff Randy Alan George and others.

This year’s festivities are especially important to the theocratic establishment as they follow the 12-day war with Israel and the US in June, the nationwide protests starting in late December, and in defiance of a potentially looming war with the US.

Threatened with assassination by the US and Israel, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei did not make an appearance in the events. He also missed a highly symbolic annual meeting with army and air force commanders for the first time in his 36-year rule.

The 86-year-old supreme leader released a video message calling on Iranians to “disappoint the enemy” by participating in the revolution anniversary. All other senior political, military and judicial authorities also released similar messages urging supporters to mobilise.

An 81-year-old private businessman who was arrested and had his assets confiscated for observing a strike during the nationwide protests also wrote in a confession letter released by state media this week that he would participate in the rallies.

The Fars news agency, affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), released a video of a “symbol of the devil” being burned during a state-organised event in the capital. The burned effigy appeared to depict a man with horns sitting on a pedestal marked with the US and Israeli flags.

People also burned and trampled on US and Israeli flags, while ballistic and cruise missiles capable of reaching Israel and the wreckage of Israeli drones shot down during last year’s war were displayed.

These are the types of missiles that Tehran has called its own red line, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tries to corral US President Donald Trump into following the Israeli narrative that Iran’s missile programme, as well as its nuclear one, should be on the negotiating table.

State television flew helicopters over designated areas in Tehran and other cities where demonstrations were being held and described another “epic saga”, using a term favoured by Iranian authorities to talk about the annual demonstrations.

Those attending the rallies were hailed as “the dear people of Islamic Iran” who were marching to bolster the security of the country.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian called for national unity in the face of external threats while insisting that his government is willing to negotiate over its nuclear programme.

Addressing the crowds in Tehran’s Azadi Square, Pezeshkian called for solidarity among Iranians in the face of “conspiracies from imperial powers”.

Competing chants

Huge fireworks exploding around the iconic Milad Tower on Tuesday night to celebrate the revolution anniversary were so loud that they alarmed some residents and hearkened back to the bombing runs of Israeli fighter jets during the 12-day war.

Translation: I was driving when suddenly there was the sound of an explosion and the sky lit up, I thought only that it was war and that I had to be beside my parents. I lifted my head again and saw that it was fireworks – as if they were shooting into people’s hearts to prove it wasn’t war. It was worse, because the elites were celebrating while we’re in mourning for those fallen [during the protests]. In Tehran and across the country, the authorities called on supporters of the establishment to shout “Allahu Akbar” in the streets and from their homes at 9pm local time on Tuesday night. Numerous videos circulating online show some people shouting those words, only to be met by competing shouts of “Death to the dictator” or cursing from their neighbours.

The authorities also discussed the nationwide protests during Wednesday’s events, and celebrated what they described as a triumph over “enemies”.

Ahmad Vahidi, the deputy head of the IRGC, told a state-organised event in Shiraz that Wednesday’s rallies marked a third “great defeat” for the US and Israel over recent months.

He said the 12-day war was the first one, and the second was the state-organised counterdemonstrations held on January 12, days after most of the protest killings were carried out on the nights of January 8 and 9.

Like Vahidi, police chief Ahmad-Reza Radan called the protests another “sedition” and said they were “a great project by the global arrogance” that was quashed.

The Iranian government claims that 3,117 people lost their lives during the unprecedented protest killings, all of them at the hands of “terrorists” and “rioters” armed and funded from abroad.

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency says it has confirmed about 7,000 deaths so far and is investigating nearly 12,000 other cases. United Nations Special Rapporteur on Iran Mai Sato said more than 20,000 civilians may have been killed but information remains limited amid heavy internet filtering by the state.

The UN and international human rights organisations have accused state security forces of being behind the killings. The UN Human Rights Council last month issued a resolution condemning the killings and calling on the Islamic republic to “prevent extrajudicial killing, other forms of arbitrary deprivation of life, enforced disappearance, sexual and gender-based violence” and other actions violating its human rights obligations.

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian spoke out against intervention by ‘alien Westerners’ during a rally to mark the anniversary of the Islamic revolution. Celebrations have been taking place after weeks of US threats of military action.