ARCHIVE: Weekly Roundup from Kayhan Life: September 5th- September 12th

September 18, 2025

Khamenei Nods, Europe Waits, and Snapback Looms

Tehran’s latest nuclear “understanding” with the International Atomic Energy Agency was signed with a flourish in Cairo and greeted at home with fury. To some, it’s capitulation to Europe’s “E3.” To others, it’s just another attempt to stall until the nuclear deal’s sunset clause kicks in next month.

Kayhan, the conservative daily, wasted no adjectives, branding the IAEA chief “a pawn, a spy, and probably both.” The paper insisted the deal bypassed parliament’s law suspending cooperation, without explaining how Iran’s foreign minister could sign anything without the Supreme Leader’s nod.

Parliament, conveniently on vacation, offered little resistance. Critics accused Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf of scheduling recess to avoid debate.

Mohammad Reza Mohseni Sani, a national security committee member, offered a conditional stance on inspections. First, he said, America and Israel must compensate Iran for damage from the recent 12-day conflict. Only after nuclear sites are rebuilt and switched back on will inspectors be allowed to visit.

Meanwhile, the deal seems to exist in two parallel universes: the IAEA’s Rafael Grossi boasts of “full access,” while Iran’s Abbas Araqchi insists no such access was granted.

Europe waits. If inspectors are barred, the Snapback Mechanism is triggered—restoring the full suite of U.N. sanctions without a fresh vote. These are not symbolic. Chapter VII sanctions are binding, enforced even by America’s rivals, and strip the regime of vital economic oxygen.

The result would return Iran to its pre-JCPOA status, but this time the Islamic Republic faces something worse: a regime at its weakest point in four decades, unable to provide basic needs like water, electricity, and fuel, and most vulnerable to an increasingly restless population.

The regime, frailer than at any point in four decades, appears to be wagering that international diplomacy can stretch the intermission before its final curtain call.

Welcome to the Kayhan Life Week in Review

The Islamic Republic mounted a defiant display this week as the prospect of renewed international sanctions loomed, underscoring stalled negotiations over nuclear inspections and mounting pressure on the regime’s proxies and allies in the region.

With the deadline for a “snapback” of sanctions under the 2015 nuclear accord approaching, the theocratic state leaned on its partners in Moscow and Beijing, who denounced the move. The agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, restricted the regime’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief and granted United Nations inspectors access to nuclear sites. The Islamic Republic halted those inspections in July after disputes with Western governments over the scope of its activities.

For a moment this week, the regime appeared poised to restore access for inspectors. But Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi quickly walked back the prospect on Wednesday, telling state television that any new arrangement with the U.N. watchdog would not automatically translate into renewed monitoring.

In New York, South Korea, which holds the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council, introduced a draft resolution that would allow a vote on reimposing sanctions. Britain, France and Germany had already triggered the 30-day process, accusing the Islamic Republic of breaching the terms of the 2015 deal.

Across the Middle East, the regime’s proxies came under strain. Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia long accused of entrenching Tehran’s influence, faced the possibility of disarmament under a measure advancing in Lebanon’s parliament. In Qatar, Israel mounted a failed assassination attempt against Hamas leaders, a move that drew a sharp rebuke from President Trump, who called it a unilateral strike that served neither U.S. nor Israeli interests.

Mr. Trump instead expanded his preferred tool of pressure, signing an executive order that allows Washington to penalize states it accuses of arbitrarily detaining Americans. The Islamic Republic has long faced such accusations, with several U.S. citizens among those imprisoned in Tehran.

In Florida, another regime-linked drama unfolded in court. Ryan Routh, charged with attempting to assassinate Mr. Trump at his golf course during the 2024 campaign, dismissed his lawyers and is now representing himself. He floated proposals for a prisoner exchange with detainees from the Islamic Republic held in U.S. custody as his jury trial opened this week.

And in Tehran, the authorities executed Mehran Bahramian, who had been convicted of moharebeh, or “enmity against God.” Officials buried his body in Isfahan’s Bagh Rezvan cemetery without handing it over to his family. Bahramian and his brother Fazel had both been sentenced to death, while a third brother, Morad, was shot dead by security forces during the 2022 unrest. The brothers were detained in January 2023 after attending a memorial for Morad and other victims in the city of Semirom.

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