Iran indicts comedian over alleged support for Israel, Pahlavi dynasty

Asked by ILNA how far Iranian society was from a mental-health emergency, Alireza Agha-Yousefi said: “I don’t think we are very far from it.”

He pointed to marriage, divorce and birth rates as areas of concern and said authorities needed to act before psychological and social problems became more severe.

Uncertainty and prolonged stress

Agha-Yousefi said the prolonged state of neither full-scale war nor peace was itself becoming a major source of pressure.

“The overall condition of society in a situation of neither war nor peace can create significant psychological strain,” he said.

He said people normally try to meet their needs while also responding to threats, but when both are present at the same time, threats tend to dominate.

“Uncertainty the future is one of the most difficult situations,” he said, adding that it deprives people of the ability to plan their lives.

Agha-Yousefi said prolonged uncertainty could produce severe anxiety and, over time, lead to both physical and psychological exhaustion.

Effects may emerge later

He cautioned that the consequences of intense stress do not always appear immediately.

“The effects may show themselves one or two years later,” he said, citing depression, marital conflict and physical health problems as possible outcomes.

He also pointed to prolonged muscle tension, joint and spinal pain and gastrointestinal problems as conditions that can be associated with chronic stress.

President Masoud Pezeshkian last week also described the current “no war, no peace” situation as the worst position Iran could be in, as tensions with Washington remained unresolved.

Economic pressure limits access to care

Agha-Yousefi said the same economic conditions contributing to psychological strain were also making treatment less accessible.

He said demand for counselling had risen, but inflation and declining purchasing power meant many people could no longer afford psychological services.

“Psychological services are not covered by basic insurance,” he said, adding that official figures on the number of people seeking treatment could therefore give a misleading picture.

He said some people who need help simply do not seek it because of the cost.

A proposal to bring psychological services under insurance coverage had been submitted to the organization’s central council around four months ago but had yet to be approved, he said.

Pressure on families and social stability

Agha-Yousefi also said Iran appeared to be moving toward greater social dislocation.

“It seems our social situation is, to some extent, moving toward anomie or social normlessness,” he said.

He warned that as social stress rises, the effects can spread into family life and wider social behavior, including later marriage, addiction and greater instability within households.

“When problems enter the family, they can be a sign of deeper social damage,” he said.

He added that severe family pressures could, in some cases, contribute to extreme violence, including killings within families.

Agha-Yousefi said delaying preventive measures would make the psychological, physical and social consequences much harder and more expensive to address later.

War fears add to uncertainty

His come as speculation grows over possible renewed US and Israeli military action against Iran.

Recent reports have said the US military has prepared options for further strikes after the November 3 midterm elections if President Donald Trump authorizes them.

That uncertainty has added another layer of pressure to an economy already strained by inflation, a weakening currency and declining purchasing power.

Destroying Iran’s military capabilities and preventing their reconstruction are different objectives, requiring different measures of success.

Since 1948, Israel has fought conventional Arab armies and armed organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas, and has increasingly confronted Iran directly through missile, drone and air attacks far beyond its borders. These forms of warfare have overlapped, posing different challenges for bringing the fighting to an end.

Their endings show how battlefield outcomes interact with diplomacy, outside pressure and arrangements for security after the fighting.

1948: Survival without peace

Fighting between Jewish and Arab communities followed the UN’s 1947 partition plan. After Israel declared independence in May 1948, neighboring Arab armies entered the conflict. Israel survived and gained territory beyond the boundaries proposed for the Jewish state.

In 1949, it signed separate armistice agreements with Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. These established lines separating the forces, rather than permanent political settlements. The Egyptian agreement explicitly envisaged a subsequent peaceful settlement.

Israel’s survival did not resolve the territorial dispute or the displacement of Palestinians. The fighting ended without peace between Israel and its neighbors.

1956: Military gains, withdrawal under pressure

During the Suez crisis, Israel attacked Egypt in coordination with Britain and France, rapidly advancing across Sinai.

Pressure from the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Nations forced a withdrawal, completed in March 1957. Israel could not retain the territory it had captured, despite its battlefield success.

The outcome nevertheless brought security gains: Israel regained access to the Straits of Tiran, while a UN emergency force deployed in Sinai. The US State Department’s historical account distinguishes those gains from the territorial withdrawal.

The episode illustrates why withdrawal is not automatically evidence of military defeat, and why military superiority alone does not determine a war’s political outcome.

1967: Six days of fighting, decades of consequences

Israel’s opening airstrikes devastated Egypt’s air force. Within six days, Israeli forces had captured Sinai, Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. The war ended through ceasefires, without a formal surrender by the defeated Arab states. Israel’s decisive battlefield victory transformed the territorial balance but did not settle the conflict.

UN Security Council Resolution 242 subsequently established a framework linking Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory with an end to belligerency and recognition of states’ right to live within secure, recognized boundaries.

The military result was immediate. Disputes over occupation, borders and Palestinian rights lasted far beyond the fighting.

1973: From surprise attack to a peace treaty

Egypt and Syria attacked Israeli forces in Sinai and the Golan Heights in October 1973, initially making substantial gains. Israel counterattacked and crossed the Suez Canal before US-Soviet diplomacy and UN ceasefire resolutions helped stop the fighting.

The US State Department’s history describes the war as opening the way for Henry Kissinger’s shuttle diplomacy and, ultimately, the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. Egypt did not recover all Sinai through military action, but the war helped break the diplomatic stalemate.

The 1978 Camp David accords provided the framework for the 1979 treaty. Israel agreed to withdraw from Sinai in exchange for peace with Egypt. The main withdrawal was completed in 1982; the disputed Taba area was returned in 1989 following arbitration.

Egypt recovered territory through a combination of war and diplomacy. Israel exchanged territorial control for a political agreement with a major adversary.

Lebanon, 1982–2000: Initial success, prolonged conflict

Israel’s 1982 invasion drove into Beirut, where US-mediated arrangements secured the departure of Palestine Liberation Organization leaders and fighters. This was an evacuation from Beirut, not the elimination of every Palestinian armed presence in Lebanon.

Israel withdrew much of its force in 1985 but retained a southern security zone alongside the allied South Lebanon Army. Its remaining troops left in May 2000, following years of conflict with Hezbollah. UNIFIL’s historical account records both withdrawals.

The withdrawal was unilateral, without a peace treaty or formal Israeli surrender. Hezbollah portrayed it as a victory; Israel ended a prolonged deployment without resolving the underlying confrontation.

The departure of one armed organization’s leadership in 1982 had not produced a lasting end to fighting.

2006: A ceasefire without disarmament

The 2006 war followed Hezbollah’s cross-border attack and capture of two Israeli soldiers. Israel launched extensive air and ground operations, but Hezbollah remained armed and continued firing rockets during the conflict.

Neither side’s survival or military performance alone explains the settlement. The operative mechanism was UN Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted on August 11, followed by a cessation of hostilities on August 14.

It called for Hezbollah to stop attacks, Israel to stop offensive operations, and Israeli forces to withdraw as Lebanese troops and an expanded UNIFIL deployed. It envisaged an area between the Blue Line and Litani River free of armed personnel and weapons other than those of the Lebanese government and UNIFIL.

Hezbollah was not disarmed. Nevertheless, UNIFIL says the arrangements helped sustain almost 17 years of relative calm before the escalation beginning in 2023. An incomplete settlement still had significant practical effects.

Gaza: Repeated campaigns and rebuilding

The Gaza wars of 2008–09, 2012, 2014 and 2021 ended without Hamas surrendering or losing all its military capabilities.

Scholars Efraim Inbar and Eitan Shamir described Israel’s approach as “mowing the grass”: periodically degrading an adversary’s capabilities and restoring deterrence rather than expecting a permanent political resolution through force. Their study appeared online in 2013 and in the Journal of Strategic Studies in 2014.

After Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, Israel set broader objectives, including dismantling its military and governing capabilities and recovering the hostages. Shamir argued that the attack marked a departure from the limited-campaign approach. That was his strategic assessment, rather than proof that eliminating Hamas was achievable.

The ensuing war devastated Gaza. The October 2025 ceasefire did not settle its future: a year later, the UN human rights office was still reporting killings despite the agreement.

Lebanon after 2023: Military damage and state authority

Israel’s 2024 campaign killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and other senior commanders, severely damaging its leadership. The fighting nevertheless moved toward a negotiated cessation of hostilities rather than formal surrender.

The US-French-brokered arrangement took effect on November 27, 2024, and again rested on implementing Resolution 1701, Lebanese state authority and Israeli withdrawal.

Disarmament remained contested. In October 2026, The Wall Street Journal reported that Hezbollah demanded the return of explosives seized by Lebanese authorities, illustrating the continuing struggle over weapons outside state control.

Iran: Ending operations or preventing reconstruction?

The June 2025 war involved Israeli attacks on Iranian military and nuclear targets and direct US strikes on Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. US involvement therefore preceded the broader war of 2026.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry described the nuclear threat as “existential and imminent” in its account of the operation. That characterization was Israel’s stated justification, not an independently established finding that Iran possessed nuclear weapons. The same document records Israel’s acceptance of a US-proposed ceasefire on June 24. The broader confrontation in 2026 extended to shipping and energy supplies. By October, the US naval blockade and the standoff over reopening the Strait of Hormuz remained unresolved.

Netanyahu has explicitly advocated moving beyond containment. Addressing military cadets in February 2026, he declared there would be “no more containment of threats” and emphasized preemptive action. This supports describing a shift in his stated approach, without assuming a uniform doctrine across every Israeli institution.

Destroying launchers or facilities has measurable immediate effects. Preventing their reconstruction depends on industrial capacity, supply networks, political decisions and whatever monitoring or enforcement follows.

Within the approach of seeking to prevent Iran from rebuilding its military threat, two scenarios can be considered. Neither is a prediction or an exhaustive account of how the conflict might end.

The first is a military defeat sufficiently extensive to destroy much of Iran’s offensive capability and substantially constrain its reconstruction. Lasting results would depend on measures that prevent replenishment, rather than destruction alone. The second combines military defeat with the end of the Islamic Republic and its replacement by a political system that abandons hostility toward Israel and support for armed proxies.

That scenario depends on more than a change of leadership. It assumes a successor government both chooses and can enforce a different policy, including ending financial, military and operational support for allied armed groups. A government’s collapse would not itself establish those conditions.

The scenarios may overlap, but neither guarantees stability. Their outcomes would depend on political authority, security arrangements and the capacity to enforce commitments after combat ends.

Other possible outcomes include a negotiated agreement that constrains Iran’s capabilities without changing its government, or a prolonged armed standoff sustained by deterrence. Neither would necessarily eliminate the underlying hostility, though either could bring the current fighting to an end.

Israel’s earlier wars provide different benchmarks: territorial withdrawal under international pressure in 1956, land exchanged for peace with Egypt, unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon, and ceasefire arrangements that reduced fighting without disarming Hezbollah. Each ended a particular phase of conflict; only some produced a broader political settlement.

At least 63 armed incidents were documented across Sistan and Baluchestan and neighboring Kerman province between March 31 and October 10, leaving at least 94 people dead and 33 injured, according to the rights group HRANA. The attacks have grown more complex as well as more frequent: coordinated ambushes, roadside bombs and heavier weapons.

The question is whether a decades-old insurgency, long contained by force, can become a wider problem for a state fighting on other fronts.

A coalition with bigger aims

Several Baluch armed organizations joined forces in December 2025 under the People’s Fighters Front. The coalition includes Jaish al-Adl, which Iran and the United States both list as a terrorist organization.

The front has increasingly framed its goal as ending the Islamic Republic’s rule rather than winning concessions for the Baluch. Whether it can draw support beyond the southeast is unproven.

Its timing is not accidental. Iran’s security services are absorbing the consequences of war with the United States and Israel while still needing the forces they rely on to suppress dissent at .

Rahim Bandoui, an Iranian-Baluch human rights activist and senior member of the Balochistan People’s Party, said the conflict itself is nothing new.

Speaking on Iran International’s Eye for Iran podcast, he traced it to decades of repression, arguing that Tehran has long treated peaceful political activity and armed resistance in the province as the same security threat.

What has changed, he said, is the state’s position. A government weakened by war presents armed groups with an opening they did not have before.

What the attacks can and cannot do

If the attacks keep growing, Tehran will have to send more personnel and resources to the southeast at a time when its security forces are already stretched. Those forces have contained unrest there before through military operations, mass arrests and lethal force. A sustained insurgency adds a cost on top of the war.

That cost could be felt elsewhere. Every unit tied down in Sistan and Baluchestan is one not available against protests or other opposition in the rest of the country.

The limits are real, though. There is no evidence the coalition can take and hold territory or threaten the central government’s control. Its political ambitions face a further obstacle across the border: Baluch armed groups in Pakistan differ considerably from their Iranian counterparts in ideology and aims, so a unified cross-border movement is unlikely without substantial change on both sides.

The grievances underneath

The insurgency sits on grievances that successive crackdowns have failed to address.

Sistan and Baluchestan, to a mostly Sunni Baluch population, is among Iran’s poorest provinces despite its position on the Pakistani and Afghan borders and its natural resources. Residents face discrimination, few jobs and poor access to schools, clinics and other basic services.

Tens of thousands of people in the province have no official identity documents, Sabah Baluch, a human rights advocate with Iran House, told the podcast, which shuts them out of basic services and legal rights. For some families that has meant generations without formal schooling or work.

Hardship pushes residents into dangerous informal work, above all carrying fuel across the border, where they risk being shot by security forces or burning to death in vehicle fires.

The province has also seen some of the Islamic Republic’s deadliest violence against dissent. On September 30, 2022, during the nationwide protests that followed the death of Mahsa Amini, security forces killed at least 87 people in Zahedan, the provincial capital, most of them Baluch worshippers, in what became known as Bloody Friday.

Baluch prisoners are also executed out of all proportion to their numbers. According to Iran Human Rights, they accounted for 20 percent of recorded executions in 2023, 11 percent in 2024 and 9 percent in 2025, from a group that is a small fraction of Iran’s population.

For now the Islamic Republic retains the military and security capacity to hold the southeast, and nothing suggests the insurgency can change the balance of power on its own.

The larger question is not whether armed groups can defeat government forces in Sistan and Baluchestan. It is whether a state that has relied on lethal force against its opponents for decades can go on containing several challenges at once while war makes new demands on the forces it uses to do so.

For Iran’s wider opposition, the answer will matter well beyond the southeast.

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Accounts from Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, Dezful, Hamedan and other cities over the past week describe armed Basij members and riot police at major intersections and public squares, new checkpoints and additional surveillance cameras.

Users in several provinces also say internet speeds have fallen sharply, circumvention tools have stopped working and access to social media has become increasingly difficult.

The individual reports cannot all be independently verified, but describe similar changes across widely separated parts of the country.

More armed forces on the streets

In Dezful in southwestern Iran, one resident said the city had become “heavily securitized,” particularly around the city center and Shariati Street.

The resident attributed the increased presence to government concern possible protests around the anniversary of the November 2019 uprising, when demonstrations triggered by a sudden increase in fuel prices were met with a deadly crackdown.

In Tehran, a resident reported a Basij checkpoint on Khavaran Street from Thursday evening, while other accounts described increased security patrols elsewhere in the capital and neighboring Karaj.

Residents of Mashhad reported armed Basij members around Mellat Park.

In Isfahan, armed deployments were reported around major squares, while residents of Hamedan and Borujerd described increased security activity.

Iran International reported similar deployments in September around the fourth anniversary of the death in custody of Mahsa Jina Amini.

More cameras and surveillance

Residents have also reported an expansion of surveillance infrastructure.

A resident of Astara, a small city on the Caspian coast near the Azerbaijani border, said security cameras were being installed in squares and neighborhoods across the city.

“They are installing cameras neighborhood by neighborhood in a city this small,” the resident said. “Look how afraid they are of the people.”

Another resident reported more surveillance cameras around Tehran's Sadeghieh district.

Tehran municipality announced last year that it planned to install 15,000 surveillance cameras across the capital, while security agencies have used camera footage to identify protesters and enforce government restrictions.

Residents in Semnan, Shiraz, Tabriz, Kerman, Tehran and elsewhere told Iran International that connections had slowed markedly, VPNs had stopped functioning and social media platforms had become increasingly difficult to reach.

A Shiraz resident said internet access had been extremely slow for six days, while in Kerman one user said even paid VPN services were failing.

A resident of Tonekabon on the Caspian coast said Irancell mobile internet was being cut at night. Other users reported disruption to both fixed and mobile connections.

The cause of the disruptions is unclear, and the accounts do not establish that the security deployments and deteriorating internet access are part of a coordinated operation.

But they come against the backdrop of Iran's extensive use of internet shutdowns during periods of political unrest and conflict.

Tech outlet Zooman reported this week that authorities had issued instructions for international internet access to be cut immediately in the event of another war.

When Israel and the US attacked Iran in February, authorities imposed a nationwide internet blackout that lasted 88 days, the longest recorded in any country, according to NetBlocks.

The latest disruptions also coincide with sharp increases in the cost of getting online.

Iran's two largest mobile operators, Hamrah-e Aval and Irancell, raised prices for calls, text messages and internet packages by as much as 40% on Friday, citing higher equipment, maintenance and infrastructure costs.

“By making the internet more expensive, they have closed our last route to the free world,” one resident told Iran International. “For me, when the internet was my only comfort and source of income, even being present in this space is no longer possible.”

Mike Waltz told the Financial Times that Washington still wanted Tehran to return to negotiations and reach what he called a “meaningful agreement” on its nuclear program, but acknowledged the standoff could continue without a deal or a return to prewar shipping levels through the Strait of Hormuz.

“The president and the US Navy can maintain this blockade for the foreseeable future,” Waltz said, adding that the administration was continuing to tighten economic pressure.

He said the US would not consider its objectives achieved until Iran’s highly enriched nuclear material had been dealt with and an agreement reached over domestic uranium enrichment.

Trump considers renewed strikes after midterms

The come as Trump is considering several days of renewed strikes against Iran after the midterms, The Atlantic reported, citing officials and people familiar with the discussions.

Potential targets include Iran’s missile and drone arsenal, energy infrastructure and nuclear facilities, according to the report. One outside adviser told the magazine that US economic pressure was working and that additional strikes could push Iran closer to collapse.

An official and another person familiar with the talks said Trump had initially hoped Tehran would return to negotiations before the election, but that had not happened.

US officials stressed that no decision had been made on whether to resume strikes after November 3. The Atlantic said some officials also saw uncertainty over Washington’s move as a way of keeping Tehran under pressure.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had pushed for another round of strikes before Israel’s election, according to the report, but Trump has so far declined to authorize a new attack before the US vote.

Washington and Tehran trade competing Hormuz messages

The military pressure is unfolding alongside sharply different accounts from Washington and Tehran over control of the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump said on Thursday that more oil had moved through the strait over the week than at any point before the war, attributing the increase to the US blockade.

“More oil came out of the Hormuz Strait over the last week than at any time , including before the war,” Trump told a campaign rally in Iowa. “That’s because of the blockade.”

He said the blockade had stopped Iran from exporting its own oil and again argued that US military action had destroyed Tehran’s nuclear enrichment capacity.

IRGC says US pushed away from the strait

Iran, however, presented a very different picture on Friday.

IRGC Navy commander Ali Ozmaei said US forces had been pushed hundreds of kilometers away from the Strait of Hormuz and no longer had a place there.

“Today, the Americans are not present in the Persian Gulf and have moved 600 to 700 kilometers away from the Strait of Hormuz,” Ozmaei said. “America no longer has a place in the Strait of Hormuz.”

The competing statements underscore how control of shipping and access through Hormuz have become central to both sides’ strategy, as Washington seeks to pressure Tehran economically while keeping open the possibility of renewed military action.