Four-minute read
On Friday, November 28, 2025, Iran’s state media delivered an unusually candid picture of a system under strain: loyalists accusing government insiders of “lying to the Leader,” parliamentarians clashing over collapsing services, toxic air blanketing the capital, and the government preparing for the fallout of its new 5,000-toman gasoline tier. Meanwhile, the “white internet” scandal — unrestricted access for officials while the public pays for VPNs — deepened a sense of structural injustice.
Across these stories, one thread stands out: a clerical establishment tightening internal discipline while shifting economic and environmental burdens onto citizens.
Loyalty Tests and Foreign-Policy Fear
Former MP Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi went on state television demanding “severe and deterrent” punishment for officials who, according to him, had falsely claimed that Pezeshkian — with Khamenei’s approval — had exchanged messages with Trump.
Kayhan’s editor, Hossein Shariatmadari, sharpened the attack, warning that “those who spread this lie — despite the denial issued by four main government centers — are themselves inside the government, holding sensitive and even very close positions.”
Simultaneously, the IRGC-aligned daily Javan denounced talk of “real negotiations” as naïve, publishing an editorial telling deputy foreign minister Abbas Araghchi that European politicians embody a “wild mentality.”
Former diplomat Mohammad-Qassem Mohibali, speaking to Bahar News, warned that if incendiary rhetoric — such as recent talk of “no path but the destruction of Israel” — ever aligns with policy, “another war” becomes plausible and “the balance is not in Iran’s favor.” His critique is aimed not at reforming the system but at preventing a confrontation it may not withstand.
Khamenei Retreats to Televised Message as Regime Faces Deepening Rifts and Denials Over U.S. Overtureshttps://t.co/dSz1tDr3R3
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) November 28, 2025
The Politics Of “White Internet”
If foreign policy exposes ideological red lines, the internet scandal exposes systemic apartheid and discrimination. MP Ahmad Bakhshayesh Ardistani admitted this week that parliamentarians receive completely open internet from day one, and that “many intelligence and security organs” use the same filtered-exempt “white SIMs.”
In parallel, KhabarOnline promoted the claim that the fourteenth government has reduced these privileged SIM cards by “50%” in a year. Yet other reporting — including recent leaks via the geolocation feature on X — shows senior officials, MPs and state-media presenters connected from inside Iran without VPN lag. The result: public confirmation that those enforcing filtering do not live under it.
Former MP Gholam-Ali Jafarzadeh Aminabadi told Bahar News that such discrimination has made people “deeply distrustful” of the system, especially after filtering destroyed small online businesses run by women heads of household and home-based workers. Abbas Abdi, a former intelligence interrogator turned media activist, conceded that “white internet” is not a privilege to expand but evidence of a punishment imposed on everyone else — a disparity that exposes the logic of control behind the filtering regime itself.
Bakhshayesh added another dimension — a “VPN mafia” with an estimated turnover of 300 trillion tomans a year. Even state-friendly analysts acknowledge that official data understates the gravity: filtering has become both a political control tool and a revenue stream for networks tied to security institutions.
#Iran’s White-SIM Internet: How Tehran Hacks the Feed You Trusthttps://t.co/IUhKVR2wcg
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) November 26, 2025
Fuel Hikes and Toxic Air
While factions quarrel, the economic burden shifts steadily downward. On November 25, the cabinet approved a new three-tier gasoline system: 1,500 tomans (quota), 3,000 tomans (second tier) and a new 5,000-toman “station-card” rate. State media struggled to frame it as modest and “rational,” arguing that with the dollar above 113,000 tomans, even 5,000 tomans is only a few cents. But for most households with their meager incomes, transport costs, freight rates and food prices will all tighten accordingly.
Official figures illustrate the bind: Iran produces about 110 million liters of gasoline a day but consumes about 133 million in normal periods and over 160 million during holidays. The system cannot afford another overnight hike like November 2019 — not financially, and not politically. Hence the incremental approach: avoid a shock, but claw back revenue.
Environmental deterioration amplifies the pressure. Late November saw Tehran ranked the world’s most polluted major city. Health-ministry experts now attribute more than 54,000 deaths a year to air pollution — roughly 86 per 100,000 people. Despite years of warnings, the state still relies on aging vehicles, substandard fuel and seasonal burning of high-sulfur mazut. Structural solutions remain deferred because they would require confronting entrenched lobbies inside the energy and automotive sectors.
Theatrical Strength Cannot Cover #Tehran’s Fear of Organized Revolthttps://t.co/gcmv6Y7kXQ
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) November 26, 2025
Parliament’s Fraying Nerves
Inside parliament, scarcity is producing open friction. MPs warned against the consequences of crumbling health services, 240-kilometer trips for treatment and the termination of retirees’ supplementary insurance — only to have Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf repeatedly cut them off. The complaint beneath the procedural skirmish is simple: the legislature cannot perform oversight when crisis touches every domain.
At the same time, cleric-MP Hamid Rasaee announced that a withdrawn bill on “spreading lies” online will be reintroduced with Pezeshkian’s backing — a move that tightens digital controls just as the “white internet” scandal exposes elite privilege. Firebrand MP Amir-Hossein Sabeti revived the familiar call for new executions of “economic corruptors,” naming business figures while sidestepping the IRGC or clerical bodies that dominate the economy.
The most extreme rhetoric came from MP Ghazanfari, who claimed that some of former president Hassan Rouhani’s alleged offenses amount to efsad-fel-arz and said that the day “the noose is placed around Rouhani’s neck” would be a day “the Iranian people celebrate.” Such public fantasizing about executions is less about justice than about reminding current officials that the system retains coercive options at the top.
#Iranian Officials Float NPT Withdrawal and ‘Imported’ Warheads Following @iaeaorg Resolutionhttps://t.co/HVvfRvCK3I
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) November 24, 2025
A State Governing by Privilege and Pressure
What this week’s coverage ultimately reveals is not a state edging toward structural change, but one cornered by its own strategic misfires — a costly regional policy, serial economic blunders and an entrenched machinery of social coercion. The result is a political class locked in a competition to shout the loudest, each faction trying to distance itself from the wreckage while assigning blame to rivals.
These performances do nothing to contain the underlying pressures. Instead, the infighting underscores a deeper truth: a system that cannot resolve its crises turns inward, and every new feud becomes combustible material piled atop an already volatile society.