Middle East: calm before the storm?
By Richard North - April 25, 2026
Although nothing has been formally declared, there seems to be something of a consensus that close of play yesterday was the deadline for the Iranian leadership to come up with coherent proposals so the negotiations could re-start, with a view to ending the war, failing which the ceasefire is to end.
In the meantime, we’ve seen two articles in the New York Times on successive days, one from the experienced Iran hand, Farnaz Fassihi and the other from commentator Katrin Bennhold, both of which make it clear that the IRGC generals are running the show in Iran.
Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, the new supreme leader – son of Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader who was killed in an airstrike in the first day of the war – was gravely wounded in the same attack.
He is said to have had one leg operated on three times, and he is awaiting a prosthetic. He has had surgery on one hand and is slowly regaining function, but his face and lips have been burned severely, making it difficult for him to speak.
What is not disputed is that Khamenei has not recorded a video or audio message since assuming the leadership. Officials, we are told, say this is because he does not want to appear vulnerable or sound weak in his first public address. He has issued several written statements that have been posted online and read on state television.
We are led to believe that messages to him are handwritten, sealed in envelopes and relayed via a human chain from one trusted courier to the next, who travel on highways and back roads, in cars and on motorcycles until they reach his hide-out. His guidance on issues is said to snake back the same way.
However, there are persistent rumours that Mojtaba is already dead. The fantastic, detailed intel – even the candid admissions of severe injury in The New York Times – is said to be carefully calibrated Iranian disinformation.
One way or another, this leaves a significant power vacuum which the IRGC is best placed to fill. This leaves civil officials out on a limb, such as foreign minister Abbas Araghchi and parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who led the original negotiations with the US – which have since been disowned by the IRGC.
Araghchi and his team have now arrived in Islamabad for further talks, but these are confined to contacts with the Pakistani leadership for discussions on regional stability. There is to be no formal engagement with US officials. The foreign minister is described as a “rider without a horse”. He has no mandate and no authority to agree a deal.
Speaker Ghalibaf is variously said to have resigned, been deposed or otherwise sidelined – it is not clear which. But there seems little doubt that he is no longer leading the US-Iran negotiations, while the IRGC-linked Tasnim news agency has said that Iran has no plans to negotiate with the US.
This seems to be contradicted by a BBC report, which has it that special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were heading to Pakistan for peace talks with Iran this morning.
However, the same report has Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baqaei saying that: “No meeting is planned to take place between Iran and the US. Iran’s observations would be conveyed to Pakistan”.
A separate report cites the IRGC-affiliated Fars News Agency which says that Araghchi’s trip to Pakistan and the Witkoff–Kushner visits are coincidental, adding that sources close to the Supreme National Security Council have stressed that “no negotiations” will be held with the United States.
Elsewhere, leader-in-waiting, Reza Pahlavi has given a stonking speech, pledging his continued support for his country, making critical comments about the lack of balanced media reporting.
He complains that journalists are too busy criticising America and Israel for taking out the dictator who’s been slaughtering our people for 47 years, instead of going after the regime that’s actually doing the killing.
Meanwhile, to coincide with the unofficial deadline, the carrier USS George H.W. Bush has arrived on station in the Arabian Sea, bringing to three the number of carriers deployed in the theatre – the highest number to be deployed in the Middle East since 2003.
Reinforcements and supplies continue to pour into the region, with a continuous air bridge of US military cargo jets and air tankers being reported. A report from Tel Aviv indicates that 25 US refuelling and transport aircraft have landed in a rare surge, raising speculation that this is preparation for potential conflict rather than routine movement.
One other transfer of note was a squadron of 12 USMC F/A-18 Super Hornets, shepherded by nine KC-46A tankers, from their base in Beaufort, South Carolina to an undisclosed location in the Middle East.
Observers note that the movement, involving a nine-hour flight from the staging point in the Azores, is extremely unusual for single-seat aircraft and possibly signifies extreme urgency – the main role of these aircraft being close air support for amphibious landings.
The sense of urgency is reinforced by calls by Russia, China and India for their citizens to leave Iran immediately. When “the West”, calls for evacuation, that’s expected. But when Russia, China, and India – Tehran’s “strategic partners” – join in, it means the intelligence available to Moscow and Beijing confirms that the impending strike is inevitable and unstoppable.
For the moment, though, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth is saying that American forces would maintain a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz “for as long as it takes”, while a senior Iranian official has declared that the regime’s fighters had been hiding in sea caves in the strait to “devastate the aggressors”.
In what may well be the calm before the storm, though, the British legacy media seems largely to have given up reporting on developments in the region. With the continuing build-up of military forces in the region – as the ceasefire pause which has given both sides an opportunity to re-arm and restock – the resumption of hostilities, if it occurs, will come as something of a shock to most British readers.
But we could nevertheless be seeing the shooting war breaking out again as early as tonight or at any time in the next few days. On the other hand, the US could be talking to Iran via undisclosed back channels, and we could all be in for a surprise. There is no means of knowing.
