Seven Things to Know About Iran Right Now

There is one pesky country in the Middle East whose unbelievable potential for good is only matched by its unthinkable capacity to destroy.

Americans should prioritize knowing the latest about Iran. As for Israelis, they don’t need to rely on the news as much, because their spies probably even know the secret code to the little lock on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s diary. You know, the one that’s marked with doodles of hearts, daisies and surface-to-air missiles. 

Here are seven important updates regarding Iran to help readers stay informed and, as a side effect, also ruin the happy mood of any Thanksgiving gathering (unless a heated argument over the recent elections ruins the festivities first). 

Iran Has Executed a Jewish Citizen for the First Time in 30 Years

On Nov. 4, a date which marked the 45th anniversary of the day fanatics took over the American embassy in Tehran in 1979, Iran executed a 20-year-old Jewish man named Arvin Ghahremani in the city of Kermanshah. Neither his family nor his attorney were given prior notice before Ghahremani was hanged, although news of his death devastated Iranian Jews worldwide, including those in Iran, Europe, Canada and the United States. 

Various reports claim that in 2022, seven Muslim Iranian men, including one named Amir Shokri, confronted Ghahremani at a gym and an altercation ensued regarding money that Shokri owed to Ghahremani. During the fight, Shokri pulled a knife on Ghahremani, who fought off his attackers and killed Shokri. Despite repeated pleas from Ghahremani’s family and attorney that he was acting in self-defense, the word of a Jew in Iran holds little weight against testimonies offered by Muslims. 

Shokri’s family, who are Shiite Muslim, had two choices: to accept blood money from Ghahremani’s family (toward that end, Iran’s Jewish community tried raising funds so that his life would be spared), or to demand his execution. Ghahremani’s execution had been scheduled in May, but he was granted a last-minute stay of execution. But earlier this month, Shokri’s family rejected the blood money as compensation for their loss and demanded the young man’s execution. 

According to the nonprofit organization Iran Human Rights, Shokri’s family initially agreed to accept the blood money when Ghahremani’s religion was inaccurately cited as Shiite Muslim, but they changed their minds after it became clear that Ghahremani was Jewish. Last month alone, Iran executed 161 prisoners (doubling September’s total of 78 executions). As for Iran’s Jewish community, its hands are tied, as always. Sadly, if Jews in Iran protest Ghahremani’s execution or appear overly sympathetic, they will put the entire community at risk. 

The Long Reach

By now, it is widely known that Iran orchestrated a murder-for-hire plot against former President Donald Trump, according to federal prosecutors. But this week, it was revealed that Iran also tried to murder Irwin Cotler, the Canadian former justice minister and human rights champion who has been a steadfast critic of the regime and a vocal supporter of Israel. The Globe and Mail first reported that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) informed the liberal (retired) member of parliament that an assassination plot against him had been foiled 48 hours before it was to be carried out. 

Cotler told Radio Canada that he had been under police protection, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for over a year. It is unknown whether the suspects fled Canada or were arrested. On a related note, in January, an unsealed indictment by the U.S. Department of Justice alleged that two Canadians planned to carry out assassinations in the U.S. on behalf of Iran. 

All of this begs the question: Why are many countries worldwide still maintaining trade and diplomatic relations with a regime that has now tried to kill major world leaders? I can’t help but point out that if Iran ever targets a leader in Mexico, its assassination plots will cover the entirety of the North American continent. 

A Different Type of Clinic

Mehri Talebi Darestani, the female head of the Women and Family Department of the Tehran Headquarters for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (try writing that as an acronym) has announced the opening of a new “hijab removal treatment clinic” for women who defy the country’s compulsory laws pertaining to hijab, or Islamic head coverings. Darestani claimed that the clinic will offer “scientific and psychological treatment for hijab removal,” according to The Guardian.

Darestani claimed that the clinic will offer “scientific and psychological treatment for hijab removal,” according to The Guardian. You can’t make this stuff up. 

You can’t make this stuff up.

The Tehran Headquarters for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice falls under the authority of Supreme Leader Khamenei. A student at Tehran’s Islamic Azad University was recently attacked for stripping down to her underwear in protest of the country’s harsh modesty laws for women. The regime has claimed she suffers from mental illness and has transferred her to a psychiatric hospital. Two weeks ago, a 25-year-old Iranian woman named Roshanak Molaei Alishah was arrested after being accosted by a man over improperly covering her hair. Her whereabouts are currently unknown. 

What’s in These Grenades?

A U.S. expert has warned that Iran may have developed fentanyl-based chemical weapons. You read that correctly: weapons laced with fentanyl and other drugs. Weaponization of synthetic opioids could be added to artillery or grenades to incapacitate victims, including Israeli civilians, whom Hezbollah may attempt to kidnap, or Israeli border guards, who may inhale the drugs and lose consciousness. Iran may have already transferred the pharmaceutical-based agents, or PBAs, to Hezbollah. 

PBAs affect the central nervous system, and such toxic chemicals are banned under the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, a treaty which Iran signed. The U.S. completed destroying its chemical weapons stockpile in 2023. 

Tess-Lotta Arrogance

Tech billionaire Elon Musk met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, at a secret location last Monday, according to multiple media sources. The meeting was devoted to finding ways to defuse tensions between Iran and the U.S. One of two Iranian officials who spoke to The New York Times on the condition of anonymity claimed that Musk asked for the meeting. 

Musk has recently been named as co-director of a new Trump administration agency to tackle government efficiency. An official with Iran’s foreign ministry told The New York Times that the Iranian ambassador advised Musk to pursue sanctions exemptions from the U.S. Treasury, and to also open new branches of Musk-owned businesses in Iran. 

Are you having trouble falling asleep yet?

There’s a Leak in This Pipeline 

Asif William Rahman, a CIA employee, faces felony charges in Virginia over accusations that he leaked classified information about planned Israeli attacks against Iran. The FBI arrested Rahman last week in Cambodia. A federal judge in Virginia has indicted him on “two counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information,” according to the Associated Press (AP). “The indictment does not delve into the details of the allegations, but says Rahman had a top-secret security clearance and access to sensitive compartmented information. It accuses him of having had unauthorized possession of top-secret documents relating to national defense information and then illegally sharing them,” the AP reported. 

Unwise Priorities

And finally, the U.S. dollar was worth more than 670,000 Iranian rials recently. To give readers a sense of this unbelievable number, in 1978, the last year that Iran’s secular Shah Mohammad Pahlavi was in power, one U.S. dollar equaled roughly 71 rials. Iran’s economy is currently hovering between 40-to-50% inflation. Perhaps continuing to escalate tensions into all-out military strikes between Israel wasn’t the best idea after all. 

If the last 50 years of Iranian history has taught us anything, it is that when it comes to Iran, anything goes. Few could have predicted that the all-powerful Shah would have been toppled by a deceptively demure Shiite cleric (Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini), whose anti-Shah and anti-West sermons had been pouring into the country via illegal cassette tapes for years. 

Few could have predicted that fanatics would dare to take over the American embassy and hold Americans hostage for 444 days. And in terms of blind spots, the regime must have believed that its notorious General Qassem Soleimani, head of the dreaded Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), was untouchable, until Trump ordered his assassination in Iraq in 2020. As for Trump, he must have thought he was untouchable until a series of assassination attempts targeted him this year, including a plot planned by Iran.

If you need a Xanax, I don’t blame you. And if you need a respite from the tumultuously-unknown world of Iranian-American affairs, just make sure you don’t check into a “hijab removal treatment clinic” somewhere in Tehran. Keeping up with the latest news of Iran can mean losing more than your hair.

Tabby Refael is an award-winning writer, speaker and weekly columnist for The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. Follow her on X and Instagram @TabbyRefael.