Nobel laureate rejects Iran referendum call, says it won't lead to democracy

Following the recent twelve-day war with Israel, many Iranians are asking: What truly happened? Where do we stand now? And what is the realistic path forward?

Prevailing narratives misdiagnose the crisis. They fall into three categories:

The government’s narrative casts Iran as victorious. Yet the facts suggest otherwise.

Iran suffered serious losses: senior military figures were killed, defense systems degraded, and critical parts of its nuclear and missile infrastructure were hit. In return, Iran’s retaliatory strikes did not shift the balance.

Misrepresenting this as triumph only reinforces poor decisions.

Regime-change advocates imagine foreign military pressure will fracture Iran’s security apparatus and cause collapse. But this view underestimates the cohesion of Iran’s coercive institutions and the self-interest of foreign powers, who are unlikely to commit to regime change.

The assumption that mass defections would yield democratic transition lacks grounding.

Structuralist perspectives also misplace blame.

One variant cites imperialism and calls for confrontation with the West. Another urges nuclear armament to balance power. But both ignore domestic dysfunction and corruption, and the risks of pursuing nuclear weapons now.

National strength requires more than deterrence—it needs capable, legitimate governance.

Understanding the crisis

The Islamic Republic has become a driver of national weakness. Two trends define this: a confrontational US posture and a disrupted power balance weakening Iran.

Decades of mistrust between Tehran and Washington—rooted in the 1953 coup and 1979 hostage crisis—have been worsened by missed diplomatic openings.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei consistently rejected efforts by moderate president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and others to improve ties, viewing diplomacy as infiltration.

Even after the 2015 nuclear deal, his stance blocked normalization. Similarly, Iran’s hardline stance on Israel has drained resources and diplomacy, disconnected from national interests.

Key missteps have weakened Iran's power since the theocracy's inception: from purging the military after the revolution to abandoning arms deals, and taking aggressive anti-Western positions.

The "Look East" strategy, replacing Western ties with China and Russia, has brought limited gains.

These ties emerged from isolation, not strategy. Russia withheld arms and reversed support for Iran’s enrichment rights. China has complied with sanctions and avoided defense ties.

These partnerships reflect weakness, not strength.

The core of the problem

Iran’s political structure is inseparable from the Supreme Leader.

Khamenei has shaped nearly all key decisions for over three decades. Velayat-e Faqih concentrates power in an unelected cleric, undermining accountability.

Why should governance belong to clerics? Democracies allow voters to remove failed leaders. In Iran, the Supreme Leader claims divine legitimacy beyond electoral scrutiny.

The 1989 constitutional revision gave him unchecked power, while the Assembly of Experts is functionally powerless.

Khamenei has deepened internal divisions—between loyalists and critics, and between state-enforced norms (like forced hijab) and citizens who reject them.

The state spends resources policing women and dissent rather than addressing threats. The result: emigration of skilled professionals, unqualified loyalists in office, and decisions made by an isolated circle.

This erodes Iran’s capacity and sovereignty.

A path forward?

Recent gestures in Tehran—nationalistic concerts and reformist figures, recently reappearing on state TV after years of exclusion—don’t address the crisis’s roots. Iran needs internal transformation and rebuilding of national power through institutional change.

Change must come from within—via elite and popular pressure—not foreign intervention, which would prolong the crisis and invite geopolitical rivalry.

One path is sustained pressure compelling Khamenei to step down and transfer power to a transitional authority.

During this interim period, a constituent assembly could draft a democratic constitution. That authority could then oversee a national referendum and free elections.

Institutions that block broad participation—like the Guardian Council—should be dissolved. Only fully open elections, inclusive of all political currents, can restore national sovereignty.

Democratic governance—paired with efforts to rebuild military, economic, and institutional capacity—offers a viable path.

A legitimate, inclusive state can deter threats, foster cohesion, and let Iranians shape their future.

Iran doesn’t need another myth. It needs a transformation grounded in realism, responsibility, and renewed commitment to national power through democratic means.

Citizen reports of water outages in the capital began surfacing on Tuesday and continued into the following days.

On Thursday, Ham-Mihan, a Tehran-based newspaper, described the situation as “silent water rationing” and noted that officials had so far refused to acknowledge any interruption in service.

“The water company denies cuts and only mentions low pressure,” the paper wrote. “Still, its own managing director has now urged residents to purchase water tanks.”

Mohsen Ardakani, managing director of the Tehran Province Water and Wastewater Company, said on Wednesday that no cuts were taking place.

“If there are 20 percent savings in water use, there will be no outages. Without it, we will enter the stage of water cuts,” he added.

Outages concentrated in southern Tehran

Field reports indicate that southern and peripheral districts of Tehran are most affected. Residents of Salehiyeh, Pishva, and villages around Kahrizak and Baghershahr, all around Tehran, have faced recurring shutoffs in recent weeks, often occurring at night and appearing to follow a pattern.

In February, as complaints over weak flow mounted, Hesam Khosravi, deputy director of operations at Tehran Water and Wastewater Company, said the company was only responsible for supplying pressurized water to the second floor of buildings. Residents on higher floors, he added, should install pumps and tanks to meet their own needs.

Denial echoes past blackout policy

The pattern recalls the government’s approach to managing electricity shortages. During a period of rotating blackouts in Tehran, officials admitted to cutting power less frequently in wealthier or central neighborhoods to avoid unrest, while southern and marginal areas endured longer outages.

Similar disparities are now emerging in water supply. Reports received by Iran International confirm worsening water quality and intermittent cuts not only in Tehran but also in West Azarbaijan, Razavi Khorasan, and Khuzestan provinces.

“Nothing was accessible. Nothing was visible,” wrote Hamidreza Amouzegar, deputy head of product development at the software firm Dotin, in a LinkedIn post recounting the June 17 breach.

“We tried the backup site—same story there.”

The internet banking, mobile banking, and ATMs of the two banks remained largely non-functional until recently.

Dotin, a major provider of digital systems to Iranian banks, found itself at the center of the crisis.

“Sepah Bank’s primary data center had gone dark, with monitoring dashboards frozen and all stored data apparently corrupted,” he added.

When engineers attempted to switch over to the disaster recovery site, they found that it too had failed, with matching damage reported.

“At that point, the priority was no longer identifying the culprit or mapping the technical details,” Amouzegar wrote. “It was about getting public banking services back online—fast.”

To that end, he wrote, teams turned to Samsonite, a portable data center in a suitcase developed by Dotin following service disruptions in 2022. The system was designed to provide core banking functions—particularly card transactions—for short periods without reliance on the main network.

Nobitex, Iran’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, had also confirmed cyberattacks against its systems during the war.

The pro-Israel hacker group Predatory Sparrow, known for prior cyberattacks on Iran’s fuel infrastructure, claimed responsibility for "paralyzing" Sepah Bank and draining more than $90 million from Nobitex.

Sepah Bank is responsible for processing the payments of military personnel.

Pasargad Bank had already deployed Samsonite, allowing it to restore limited services by the early hours of June 19. Sepah, which had not yet installed the system, remained offline longer, Amouzegar added.

Basic card functionality there was only restored by June 20 after a full system rebuild from partial offline backups, he wrote.

“For a bank processing over a billion transactions monthly, losing just one day meant more than 30 million transactions vanished,” Amouzegar said.

Sepah’s full recovery took until June 27, during which time Samsonite processed more than 60 million transactions.

“The cyber war ended three days after the ceasefire,” he added. “But recovery will take months. What I’ve shared here is only a fragment of the story.”

Banking terminals experienced “momentary disruptions between 11:16 and 11:51,” and the systems were now fully operational, the Central Bank said in a statement.

But citizen accounts from Isfahan, Karaj, and Mashhad reported longer failures, with users unable to withdraw cash or transfer money via ATMs or mobile banking.

Tech outlet Digiato reported the outage was linked to Shaparak, the electronic payment network under Central Bank control.

Founded in 2011, Shaparak routes all interbank payment transactions and is a key component of the Islamic Republic’s financial infrastructure.

Broader network disruptions draw cyber concerns

Saturday’s disruption follows a series of cyberattacks and technical failures in the Iranian banking system this month. The online platforms of Sepah Bank—responsible for disbursing military salaries—went offline in mid-June amid the war with Israel. The hacking group Predatory Sparrow claimed responsibility.

At the same time, outages affected Pasargad and Melli Banks. Official media denied a breach at Melli.

On June 24, a separate group called Tapandegan (the beating ones) published data from more than 32 million accounts allegedly hacked from Mellat Bank. “We have not touched the funds,” the group said. “This disclosure is only a warning.”

Speculation over intranet test grows

Some experts say Saturday’s disruption may not have been solely a cyberattack. They suggest the outage could have been part of a live test of the National Information Network, the government’s isolated domestic intranet.

While authorities have not commented on this possibility, the combination of technical denial, widespread user complaints, and recent history of cyberattacks has left many Iranians skeptical of official explanations.

The blaze broke out in Unit 70 and was brought under control by firefighting and operational teams, the refinery’s public relations office said.

The IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News ruled out sabotage or human interference in the refinery fire, saying that the blaze was caused by "a leak in one of the pumps in Unit 70 of the refinery."

An investigation is ongoing, authorities say.

“Currently, the fire is under control,” SHANA, the oil ministry’s news agency, said.
“Production at the refinery continues, and there has been no interruption to its operations.”

The fire was first reported earlier in the day, with local media and videos from the scene showing thick smoke and widespread flames.

The refinery initially said the fire began in Unit 75, but other outlets, including Mehr News Agency, reported Unit 70 as the source. The refinery has since confirmed Unit 70 was affected.

Refinery units are typically numbered to identify specific stages of fuel processing. Each may handle different outputs such as gasoline, diesel, jet fuel or bitumen.

Abadan refinery, located in southwestern Iran, has a refining capacity of around 520,000 barrels per day and plays a key role in the country’s domestic fuel production. A similar fire occurred at the facility in 2019.