Iran war surge revived leadership as Trump weighs fresh sanctions

Muhammad Asghar | GlobalBeat

90 Iranian ballistic missiles and drones struck Israel on April 13, 2025.

The assault killed 12 civilians in Tel Aviv, the deadliest single attack from Iran in four decades.

Israel’s revenge raids followed, yet Tehran’s clerics now claim the war they provoked has restored authority at home and leverage abroad just as U.S. talks on limiting enrichment resume.

Majlis Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf told state TV the barrage proved that “no soldier or scientist is safer than those under Iran’s flag.” Ultra-conservative MPs cheered as he spoke, footage that circulated widely inside a country battered by inflation above 45 percent and months of anti-hijab protests.

Washington still lists the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, but inside Iran channel one portrays the IRGC as co-architect of national salvation. Analysts say the surge of patriotic messaging is deliberate. “The regime was on the ropes at the start of the year,” Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group said in Vienna. Missile launches revived “a narrative that only the Guard can protect Iran.”

Trump said Friday he would sign expanded penalties next week that blacklist any bank facilitating petroleum trade with Tehran, choking revenue that reached $53 billion last year. Europeans fear the measure will fracture the fragile coalition that has enforced four UN sanctions packages since 2023.

Qalibaf asserted Iran can now demand concessions before agreeing to curb uranium enrichment. Western diplomats say stockpiles have reached 7,000 kg enriched to 60 percent, enough material, if further purified, for roughly five warheads according to IAEA extrapolations.

Five Western envoys told reporters off camera they worry hawks in Jerusalem will push for pre-emptive strikes if talks stall again. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this week he would “not permit the ayatollahs to gain immunity through negotiation.” Cabinet minister Avigdor Lieberman urged a deadline of “30 days” before Israel acts alone.

Background

Protests ignited in September 2022 after Mahsa Amini died in morality-police custody, shaking the theocracy. An economy battered by U.S. “maximum pressure” sanctions since 2018 left Tehran few allies outside Moscow and Beijing. By late 2024 Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei faced calls to resign from within the Assembly of Experts for the first time.

The Palestine-linked war since October 2024 offered a lifeline. IRGC officers infiltrated Syria and Lebanon to coordinate rockets against Israel, forged a joint-command cell with Hamas and, after Tel Aviv retaliated by assassinating General Abbas Nilforoushan in Damascus, prepared the large-scale April launch as a calibrated show of force aimed partly at domestic critics.

What’s Next

China’s foreign ministry hosts indirect U.S.–Iran talks in Muscat on May 5, the same day Pentagon sources say a second carrier group will transit the Strait of Hormuz. Both sides have staked credibility on concessions, but European mediators predict the meeting falls through if Congress passes the banking ban this week.

The real barometer will be the Tehran bazaar next month, merchants say. If the rial sinks past 700 to the dollar, unemployed youth may return to the streets, cancelling the rally-round-the-flag lift the government enjoys today. Two Revolutionary Guard officers admitted privately that another cycle of unrest, not Israeli jets, keeps them awake at night.