Technically, we’re still engaged in combat operations against Iran. Sort of.

After last week’s assertion that Iran was about to come to the table yet again, so Trump called off the “massive” strike that had been planned, guess what happened? There were no talks. Everyone, show me your shocked face! We’re now just passing notes back and forth, as if this was a classroom and Iran is supposed to check “yes” if they want to be bombed, and “no” if they don’t.

Iran reiterated Sunday that it is not holding direct negotiations with the U.S. and that it would not restart diplomatic talks until Washington agrees to certain conditions and stops violating the terms of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told reporters in Tehran that Tehran is passing messages through intermediary countries, likely Pakistan and Qatar, but indicated that the conversations are far from direct negotiations.

He added that Iran’s separate discussions with Oman over control of the Strait of Hormuz are in “final stages” but warned that any agreement reached between the two nations would not automatically reopen the waterway, which has remained closed to commercial shipping for weeks.

At this point, it seems President Trump is okay with the status quo, and allowing Iran to crumble economically in the slowest way possible.

President Trump said Sunday that he would keep a “low-key” approach to the Iran war, signaling a willingness to allow economic pressures to crush Tehran rather than start a new military offensive.

After threatening to resume America’s military campaign last week, Trump said he was open to a more hands-off approach as Iran’s economy continues to plummet amid the war.

“We are low-keying it,” Trump told Axios. “We are only semi-negotiating with them. We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money.”

Trump notably did not attach any threats of additional strikes to Iran in his remarks, a rare occurrence after spending weeks warning of big blows coming to the Islamic republic if it did not submit to his demands.

At this point, it would likely be more merciful to deliver a finishing blow to the Iranians. It’s an open question whether we have the munitions to finish the job, and Trump’s hands-off approach may be related to that. In the meantime, the Iranian regime knows that they are teetering on a knife’s edge.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian recently addressed the dire situation in the country as he accused the US of “exerting pressure in an attempt to provoke the people into protesting.”

The Islamic Republic underwent mass protests earlier this year over the failing economy, triggering national unrest and a brutal crackdown by the regime.

The current situation has gotten so bad that some Iranians have been reportedly forced to start stealing groceries and foregoing medical treatment to survive.

In an effort to assure the Iranian people that the Islamic regime is totally okay, a video was released of the Nepo Baby Ayatollah, the missing Mojtaba Khamenei. Except… this video is clearly a pre-bombed version of Mojtaba, and there are no indications that it was taken recently. Essentially, the regime released a home video of Mojtaba and expects everyone to be fine with that.

The country’s semi-official Mehr News Agency flaunted video of Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, sitting in a circle and speaking with a group of men, with no context of when or where the scene took place.

Khamenei was notably free of any of the horrific injuries he was believed to have suffered in the initial airstrikes of the war that killed his father, suggesting the video was taken before the conflict began.

The supreme leader, who has yet to be seen in public in nearly half a year, suffered severe leg and facial injuries in the Feb. 28 strike on his father’s compound, according to Washington and Tehran.

Khamenei’s face was disfigured in the strike and has been kept out of the public eye, sources close to the supreme leader told Reuters, with recent reports suggesting the supreme leader was suffering health complications from his injuries.

Iranian officials have repeatedly denied that Khamenei’s health is deteriorating and that he merely serves as a puppet for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that backs his rule.

Qasem Qoraishi, deputy of Iran’s Basij Organization, suggested the Mehr footage was merely the beginning of a new wave of Khamenei footage to reinforce that the supreme leader is well and making active decisions in the government.

Footage and other documentation of Khamenei actively going out in public on the streets of Tehran, along with attending meetings with his armed forces, will supposedly be released in the future, Qoraishi said Sunday.

The videos will “once ⁠again ​bring disgrace upon the enemies and detractors ​of the Iranian people,” he said.

Iran previously released AI-produced images of Khamenei after the initial rumors that he had been killed in the Feb. 28 airstrike.

It’s going to be so exciting when we finally see new AI video of Mojtaba walking around in public with three legs and six fingers on his right hand. Oh, and apparently we’re going to get video of his sooper seekrit meeting with President Pezeshkian as well. They had a “meeting” in July – except Pezeshkian said that he’s not sure if that was actually Mojtaba that he met.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was whisked to a secret location in Tehran, shoved into the back seat of a dark car with blacked-out windows and told he was sitting next to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei — except he never actually saw the man, according to a bombshell report from Iran International.

Sources told Iran International that Khamenei’s office agreed to the meeting only after Pezeshkian repeatedly begged for one and threatened to quit. Even then, the supreme leader refused to meet at his official residence, as is custom.

Instead, the president was driven to a secret location in Tehran, pulled from his own security convoy and placed in the back of a commercial vehicle.

The cabin was kept so dark the two men couldn’t see each other — with guards even barring Pezeshkian from shaking the supreme leader’s hand.

The situation reportedly irritated Pezeshkian, who asked aides whether the person beside him had actually been Khamenei at all — because all he’d heard was someone talking in the dark.

The president has since asked for another meeting, this time face-to-face at the leader’s residence. So far, he’s been turned down.

If these sources can be believed, then it was so dark that video isn’t going to be much help. Which suits the regime’s purposes perfectly. After all, it really has officially become a military dictatorship, with Mojtaba allegedly handing over complete power to IRGC chief Ahmad Vahidi. Why, how very convenient!

Pezeshkian has since offered to step down again, complaining that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had seized near-total control over running the country, according to reports.

Iranian media reported this week that Khamenei formally granted IRGC Commander-in-Chief Ahmad Vahidi the ultimate authority on decision-making, sidelining Pezeshkian’s political administration.

The civilian officials are little more than the forward-facing puppets of the regime at this point. They have no power, but they are the officials that the West hears from and are treated as serious political players. The real power is Vahidi and the IRGC, who have complete control over Mojtaba Khamenei. If Mojtaba is dying, or comatose, or unable to govern at all, the mullahs would elect another Supreme Leader – someone probably NOT in the control of Vahidi, and who might revoke that “ultimate authority” that was just handed over. Are they going to do that, or are they going to perpetrate the fiction that Mojtaba is just injured and doesn’t want to be seen at all, and push out some old or doctored videos, in order to hold on to power? I think we all know what the IRGC would do. They have control over the “supreme leader” who never appears, the civilian politicians have been pushed aside and can do nothing about it – because the IRGC holds all the guns.

The IRGC has exactly what they wanted – all the power and all the excuses to wield it, and no pesky “supreme leader” to check their ambitions. Will this be the brutal status quo indefinitely, so long as they can claim that Mojtaba is still alive? Or will the Iranian people have the strength and the numbers to attempt another uprising?

Featured image: Mojtaba Khamenei in 2017 via Wikimedia Commons, cropped and modified