{"id":338143,"date":"2025-10-12T18:07:58","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T17:07:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=338143"},"modified":"2025-10-12T18:07:58","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T17:07:58","slug":"irans-power-struggle-escalates-as-state-media-admits-setbacks-snapback-tightens-and-the-street-simmers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/iranian-regime-infighting\/irans-power-struggle-escalates-as-state-media-admits-setbacks-snapback-tightens-and-the-street-simmers\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran\u2019s Power Struggle Escalates as State Media Admits Setbacks, Snapback Tightens, and the Street Simmers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"MP
MP Mehdi Kouchakzadeh confronts Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf during a heated public session of the regime\u2019s Majlis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Four-minute read<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

As international snapback tightens, Tehran\u2019s narrative is splitting in two. One camp soothes\u2014insisting sanctions won\u2019t bite and urging calm\u2014while another, from regime media to industry insiders, now concedes strategic and economic failure. The government has quietly approved gradual gasoline price hikes\u2014a direct hit to household budgets that contradicts pre-election pledges\u2014just as state-linked figures admit food prices far above global norms and regulators formally raise chicken prices. The through-line is not policy confidence but message management: downplay to defuse panic, admit enough to shift blame, and pass costs to the street.<\/p>\n

Admission from within<\/h2>\n

The most striking fissure came in print. Jomhouri Eslami<\/em> wrote<\/a> on October 12, \u201cIn reality\u2026 Operation Al-Aqsa Flood was a mistake,\u201d before acknowledging \u201cthe destruction of Gaza\u201480 percent of buildings and all infrastructure.\u201d The paper went further, arguing that \u201cSyria [has been] taken out and swallowed by the U.S. and Israel,\u201d that Israel has \u201cpenetrated south Lebanon,\u201d and that a U.S.-aligned government has emerged in Beirut. For a house organ that typically amplifies the system\u2019s line, these are not semantic quibbles; they are a public audit of strategic loss.<\/p>\n

That admission matters for two reasons. First, it punctures a year of triumphalist rhetoric about \u201cresistance wins\u201d by conceding that the costs\u2014material, political, and reputational\u2014have outpaced returns. Second, it arrives precisely as snapback measures tighten, reinforcing a perception among elites that escalation has reduced options rather than expanded them.<\/p>\n

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#Iran<\/a>\u2019s Bravado Masks Strategic Paralysis and a Volatile Societyhttps:\/\/t.co\/3l5a20KWbV<\/a><\/p>\n

— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) October 10, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n