Iran's president wrote an open letter to the American people
asking whose interests this war is serving, a leaked exchange
revealed. He warned the IRGC chief that
without a ceasefire, Iran's economy would collapse within
three weeks, and the IRGC chief told him he could not be
involved in negotiations because he would give too much away,
Posseshkian reportedly told aides.
He feels like a hostage. And the United Arab Emirates
arrested dozens of money changers linked to Iran's
Revolutionary Guards, severing 1 of Tehran's most critical
financial life lines at precisely the moment the
civilian government is warning of economic collapse.
It is Friday, April 3rd, 2026, day 35 of Operation Epic Fury.
The April 6th deadline is 3 days away and inside Iran, a power
struggle between the civilian president and the military
command is emerging as the most consequential domestic story of
the entire conflict. This is episode 35 of Epic Fury,
the US Iran War podcast. Follow on Spotify and Apple
Podcast to stay with this story as it develops.
Let's get into it. Start with the open letter,
Because Masood Posseschian addressing the American people
directly is an extraordinary act for a sitting head of state
whose country is at war with the United States.
No Iranian president has done anything like it in the history
of the conflict between the two countries.
Posseschian posted the letter on social media on Wednesday.
It was addressed to the people of the United States and to all
those who, amid a flood of distortions and manufactured
narratives, continue to seek the truth.
He asked Americans a direct question.
Exactly which of the American people's interests are truly
being served by this war? He described Iran as a
civilization that has never in its modern history chosen the
path of aggression, expansion, colonialism or domination.
He said Iran had been attacked twice while its negotiators were
taking part in multilateral nuclear talks, once in the June
20, 2512 Day War and again on February 28th when Operation
Epic Fury began. He said the Iranian people
harbor no enmity toward the American people, the European
people, or their neighbors. He directed a specific challenge
at the America First framing that Trump has invoked
throughout this war to justify both the military campaign and
the economic sacrifices it is imposing on American consumers.
He asked, is America First truly among the priorities of the US
government today? He accused Israel of
manufacturing an Iranian threat to divert global attention from
Palestinian issues and said the United States had entered this
war as a proxy for Israel. He invited Americans to look
beyond the machinery of misinformation and speak with
those who have visited Iran or with a many Iranian immigrants
who teach at American universities and contribute to
American scientific and cultural life.
The letter is remarkable for several reasons.
It is written not to Trump, not to Congress, not to the
international community, but to ordinary Americans.
It is an appeal to the public over the head of the government,
a strategy with a long history in diplomatic and wartime
communication, but one that carries particular resonance in
a country where 35% of the population now opposes the war,
where no King's protests have spread to all 50 states, and
where Republicans in competitive districts are beginning to
question the war's political cost ahead of November midterms.
Posseshkian is not speaking into a void.
He is speaking into a country with a fracturing domestic
consensus on the war. Whether his letter changes any
American minds is unknowable, but it does not need to change
many minds to matter. If it reinforces the doubts of
Americans already questioning the wars duration and cost, the
families paying $4.00 per gallon at the pump, the voters watching
13 service members die in a conflict with no announced
endpoint, it may add incremental pressure to the American
political environment that is already the most important
variable in how this war ends. Iran's civilian president is
reaching toward the American domestic political landscape as
a lever. The letter also did not deny
that Posseschkian had asked for a ceasefire.
Trump claimed on Wednesday that Iran's president had requested
one. Iran's Foreign Ministry called
the claim false and baseless. Posseschkian's letter, published
the same day, did not address the specific claim at all.
That silence is itself a form of communication.
A president who is internally arguing for a ceasefire and
feels like a hostage unable to negotiate would not formally
deny seeking one in a public letter because the denial would
contradict what he privately believes.
Instead, he wrote around the question, asking whose interests
the war serves without crossing the red lines his own military
commanders have drawn around the negotiating process.
The more consequential story about Posseshkian came not from
the letter, but from a leaked exchange reported by Iran
International and Channel 14. Sources described A tense
confrontation between Possession and IRGC Chief Commander Ahmad
Vahidi over the war's management in Iran's economic situation.
According to the reporting, Possession told Vahidi directly
that without a ceasefire, Iran's economy could completely
collapse within three to four weeks.
He said he wanted to be involved in the negotiations with the
United States. Vahidi's reported response was
categorical. That is exactly why you cannot
be involved. You will give up everything for
a deal. That exchange, if accurate, is
the most important glimpse into the internal Iranian decision
making process since the war began.
It reveals A fundamental structural conflict at the heart
of Iran's wartime governance. The civilian president
Possesskian, the reformist elected on a platform of
reengaging with the West, is warning about economic collapse
and wants to negotiate. The IRGC chief is telling him he
cannot be trusted to negotiate because he would concede too
much. Posseshkian reportedly told
aides afterward that he feels like a hostage, unable to act
independently amid hardliner control.
The framing of Posseshkian as a hostage is precisely what the
structure of the Islamic Republic was designed to
produce. The IRGC reports to the supreme
leader, not the elected president.
With the supreme leader newly installed and possibly
incapacitated, the IRGC has stepped into that power vacuum.
The result is a civilian president who can write open
letters to Americans but cannot apparently participate in the
negotiations that might end the war devastating his country.
This matters enormously for the diplomatic track.
The United States has been passing messages through
Pakistan to Iranian intermediaries.
Rubio has said there is potential for a direct US Iran
meeting. Pakistan's foreign minister has
said direct talks could come in days.
But the Poseskian Vahidi exchange reveals the central
obstacle. Who in Iran actually has the
authority to agree to anything? The answer based on this
exchange is not the civilian president.
The IRGC has effectively cut the civilian government out of the
negotiating process, insisting that the military command
manages any potential settlement on its own terms.
Any American official sitting across from an Iranian
interlocutor needs to know whether that person has the
authority to make binding commitments, or whether whatever
they agree to will be overruled by Vahidi or the new supreme
leader before the ink is dry. That uncertainty is the central
obstacle to any deal. That is why the public
statements from Iran's foreign ministry, parliament, speaker
and IRGC have been consistently defiant, even as Posseschian has
been signalling willingness to end the war.
They are not contradicting each other out of confusion.
They are contradicting each other because there are two
parallel chains of authority in Iran right now and they want
fundamentally different outcomes.
Posseschian also reportedly called for executive and
administrative powers to be returned to the civilian
government, a demand firmly rejected by Vahidi, who blamed
the current crisis on the civilian government's failure to
implement structural reforms before the war.
That framing positions the IRGC as the victim of mismanagement
rather than the author of the military escalation that has
produced it. The Irgc's institutional
survival depends on Iran remaining in confrontation with
the United States and Israel. Its budget, patronage networks,
and political power within the Islamic Republic are predicated
on the existence of an external enemy that justifies its scale
and reach. Any deal that ends this war on
acceptable terms will, by definition, curtail the
conditions that have sustained IRGC power for nearly five
decades. It is not merely that the IRGC
believes Posseshkian would concede too much, is that any
acceptable deal would diminish the IRGC itself.
The economic situation inside Iran that Posseshkian was
describing to Vahidi is becoming visible in granular and deeply
concerning ways. Reports from multiple major
Iranian cities describe ATMs that are empty, out of service
or inaccessible. Online banking systems have
faced repeated disruptions. Government workers across
multiple ministries have reported months of delayed
salary payments. The Iranian rial has been an
effective free fall since the start of the conflict, with
informal exchange rates reflecting a collapse in the
currency's purchasing power. Inflation in essential goods was
already above 100% before the war began, a product of years of
sanctions and economic mismanagement.
The war has layered new disruptions on top of that
already strained foundation energy shortages in residential
areas, supply chain breakdowns for imported goods, and the
disruption of trade routes that pass through the Gulf states
Iran has been attacking. The most vulnerable populations
inside Iran are those who depend on government subsidies,
imported medicines and stable food prices.
The war has disrupted all three simultaneously.
Iran's Red Crescent has previously reported that more
than 80,000 civilian units have been damaged since the war
began. The human cost is not limited to
those killed or physically injured.
It extends to the entire population experiencing the
compounding effects of bombardment, economic collapse,
information blackout and government dysfunction.
According to the leaked exchange, the Iranian president
himself warned that total economic collapse, not merely
severe hardship, is a real scenario within three to four
weeks without a ceasefire. The IRGC chief's response was to
remove Posseshkian from negotiating process.
That response is the most alarming data point of this
entire episode. The Dubai Financial Channel
disruption is the result of a development that received less
attention than it deserved. UAE authorities arrested dozens
of money changers tied to financial entities linked to
Iran's Revolutionary Guards, shut down associated companies
and close their offices. The UAE crackdown followed days
of mounting regional tensions and came alongside other
measures targeting Iranian nationals, including visa
revocations and tighter travel restrictions through Dubai.
For years, Dubai has served as Iran's main offshore financial
artery where oil proceeds and real conversions were turned
into usable foreign currency beyond the reach of American
sanctions. Iranian linked money exchange
houses sustained government and military spending under the
world's most severe sanctions regime.
The arrest of dozens of IRGC linked moneychangers is one of
the most serious blows yet to Tehran Sanctions of Asian
Network and the UA ES decision to take this action represents a
country that has been absorbing Iranian strikes throughout this
war, now retaliating through financial means rather than
military ones. The combination of those stories
paints a picture of Iran entering Week 5 in a
fundamentally different condition.
From February 28th. Its military command structure
has been decimated. It's Navy largely destroyed.
Its missile production capacity more than 2/3 degraded.
It's Internet blacked out for 35 days.
It's president privately warns of economic collapse.
It's IRGC refuses civilian participation in negotiations.
It's Dubai financial lifeline shut down, ATM's running dry.
Government salaries delayed. Tehran a ghost town.
None of that means Iran is about to collapse.
States under siege persist longer than external observers
predict. Iran survived decades of Western
pressure and a devastating war with Iraq.
The IRGC retains institutional cohesion in its lower ranks.
And the question of what comes after the Islamic Republic has
no clean answer. But the convergence of internal
economic pressure, civilian military conflict, external
financial isolation, and a three-year sentence of
hyperinflation does suggest that the war is extracting a cost
from Iran that its public statements and military posture
are designed to conceal. Posseshkian's warning to Vahidi.
3 weeks to economic collapse is not the statement of a
government that feels comfortable with the current
trajectory. It is the statement of a
civilian leader who can see a Cliff edge approaching and
cannot get his country's most powerful institution to slow
down. The impact of this war on the
United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia is being
felt daily in ways that extend well beyond the battlefield.
In the United States, gas prices are now averaging $4.06 per
gallon, the highest level since 2022 and rising.
Bank of America forecasts oil at $100 per barrel through the rest
of 2026, meaning the economic pain of the pump is not a short
term anomaly, but a structural condition for the year ahead.
Airlines are cutting routes, delivery companies are raising
surcharges, and the US Postal Service is seeking regulatory
approval for an 8% package surcharge.
Consumer confidence has fallen sharply. 45% of Americans say
they are extremely or very concerned about affording gas in
the coming months. Trump's approval rating sits at
its lowest point of his second term.
No King's protests have now spread to all 50 states.
A bipartisan group of senators is pushing back on NATO
withdrawal threats, and 13 American service members are
dead, with a toll of wounded now running into the hundreds.
The war Trump said would last four weeks has entered its sixth
week with no end formally announced.
The domestic political cost of that extension is now
compounding with midterm elections in November.
Republicans in competitive districts are beginning to treat
the war as a liability as much as an asset.
Three days remain until April 6th.
The deadline is real. The economic pressure inside
Iran is intensifying. The Dubai Financial Lifeline has
been severed and the civilian military rupture in Tehran is
the most significant development inside Iran since the war's
opening decapitation strikes in the United Kingdom.
The war's effects are being felt through energy prices,
diplomatic stress and a government navigating the
narrowest of paths between alliance loyalty and domestic
opposition. British Gas and electricity
bills have risen sharply since the hormones closure began,
driven by the disruption to global LNG supplies.
The UK imports a small but meaningful percentage of its
liquefied natural gas from Gulf sources and the pricing effect
has cascaded across the broader European energy market.
Prime Minister Starmer has walked a careful line
reaffirming UK support for the war's stated objectives while
declining to participate militarily in offensive
operations, confining British forces to a defensive role
intercepting Iranian missiles over Jordan, Qatar and Iraq.
His announcement that 35 nations have signed a maritime security
statement for post war hormones represents Britain attempting to
lead diplomatically in a space where it cannot lead militarily.
But the broader question of whether Britain's support for
American use of Diego Garcia and RAF Fairford for offensive
operations constitutes A meaningful form of Co
belligerence is a debate that has not been resolved in
parliament and is unlikely to be resolved before the war ends.
In Australia, the war's impact is most visible at the petrol
Bowser, where prices have risen to their highest level since the
post pandemic fuel crisis. The Australian government has
announced free public transport in Victoria through April and in
Tasmania through July to offset the cost of rising fuel prices
for commuters. WA's public transport authority
has reported a large spike in ridership over the past three
weeks as petrol becomes prohibitively expensive from
many families. Australia has no direct military
involvement in the conflict, but is a major buyer of refined fuel
products in a country deeply integrated into global supply
chains that pass through Middle Eastern energy infrastructure.
The economic exposure is substantial and growing.
What makes this moment different from every previous phase of the
war is that the internal Iranian picture is now becoming slightly
more visible than it has been at any previous point.
The Possesskian letter to Americans, the leaked Tahiti
confrontation, the UAE financial crackdown, the ATM shortages,
the reports of delayed government salaries, the
paralysis described by the New York Times.
These are data points that collectively suggest Iran's
wartime management is under more strain than its public posture
of defiance reveals. The shared experience of the
United States, the United Kingdom and Australia in this
conflict is in many ways the story of three allied
democracies absorbing the cost of a war that none of their
publics were asked to authorize. In the US, Congress was bypassed
through executive action. In the UK, Parliament was
briefed but not voted on. In Australia, the government's
exposure is entirely indirect, economic rather than military,
but no less real. For the families paying higher
fuel bills, higher food prices and higher delivery surcharges
every week, the war continues in all three countries.
The political pressure to end the war is building, even among
governments broadly supportive of its stated objectives.
Trump faces Republican dissent and falling poll numbers.
Starmer faces Labor backbenchers who oppose both the offensive
use of British bases in the absence of a diplomatic
strategy. Australia's government faces
rising cost of living pressures that the war is materially
worsening at a time of domestic electoral vulnerability.
The China Pakistan 5 Point Initiative, Starmer's 35 Nation
Maritime Coalition, and the quiet diplomatic architecture
being assembled around Pakistan's intermediary role are
in part a product of the pressure that all three of these
democratic governments are absorbed domestically.
They need this war to end not on Iran's terms, not
unconditionally, but they need it to end before the economic
costs produce political consequences that outlast the
war itself. Posseskian's letter also arrived
as UN rights chief Volcker Turk condemned attempts to limit
media freedom across the region, including in the United States,
where the Federal Communications Commission reportedly threatened
to revoke broadcast licenses for coverage deemed critical of the
war. The context of that
condemnation, with Iran under a 35 Day Internet blackout and
press freedom under pressure in United States adds another layer
to the war of narratives that Posseskian's letter was
consciously trying to intervene in.
The letter was an act of public diplomacy conducted over the
heads of both governments, and it landed at a moment when the
domestic political debate in the United States is precisely the
lever that could most change the trajectory of this conflict.
Whether possessions warnings move the IRGC toward any
accommodation before Monday evening will determine whether
April 6th becomes the hinge on which this war turns.
The Irgcs position that it cannot allow the civilian
government to negotiate because it would give too much away is a
coherent strategic stance from the perspective of a military
institution determined to preserve its leverage.
But it is a stance that ignores the economic reality that
Possesskian is describing. If the economy collapses before
a deal is reached, the IRGC will have preserved its negotiating
leverage at the cost of the state's functional capacity to
govern. That is the paradox at the heart
of Iran's wartime decision making, and it is the paradox
that the next three days will begin to force towards some kind
of resolution. The paradox at the heart of this
conflict is now visible in its starkest form.
The IRGC has the power to end this war or prevent it from
ending, but its institutional incentives pushed toward
continuation. The civilian government wants to
end it but has been stripped of the authority to negotiate.
The Supreme Leader may or may not be operational.
The economy is heading toward collapse on a three to four week
timeline according to the President's own warning, and
April 6th power plant deadline is 3 days away.
The war is not ending. It is approaching the moment
where something has to give. This has been episode 35 of Epic
Fury, the US Iran War podcast. 3 days till April 6th.
The internal story inside Iran is now as consequential as
anything happening on the battlefield.
We will be back very soon.