INTREP360 INTELLIGENCE REPORT
04.23.2026
April 23rd, 2026
Greetings!
You’d be forgiven if you thought Louis Armstrong was still alive today & singing “We have all the time in the world” in Washington, D.C. & Tehran. That was certainly the vibe President Donald Trump & Team Iran were trying to message each other.
AI image credit: Grok. Montage of Team U.S.A. & Team Iran channeling Louis Armstrong’s “We have all the time in the world” from the opening credits of the 1969 James Bond Film, “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.”
Yesterday, Trump set the tone. In a Truth Social post, he argued, “I have all the time in the world, but Iran doesn’t — The clock is ticking.” Then, early this morning, he accused its leaders on Truth Social of “infighting” and claimed that “Iran is having a very hard time figuring out who their leader is!”
Trump’s bet — as we noted here on Tuesday — is that the U.S. can economically outlast the estimated $300 million to $500 million that Iran is losing daily in oil export revenue. Iran’s bet — in reverse — is that they can outlast the $2 billion a day in damage Tehran is inflicting upon the global economy by keeping the Strait of Hormuz closed.
Yet something discernible changed today in Iran. Trump — wittingly or not — hit a nerve in Iran. Let’s get started examining how, why & where that may soon lead us as the tenuous ceasefire between the U.S. & Iran continues to hold.
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IRANIAN UNITY
Suddenly, in the wake of Trump’s post claiming Iranian disunity, Iran’s governing regime — moderates & hardliners alike — quickly began to flood X with declarations of national unity. Masoud Pezeshkian, the president of Iran, asserted that, “In Iran, there are no ‘hardliners’ or ‘moderates.’”
Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, the Speaker of Iran’s Parliament, bellowed on X that, “In Iran, there are no radicals or moderates; we are all ‘Iranian and ‘revolutionary,’ and with the iron unity of the nation and government.” Seyed Abbas Araghchi — the country’s foreign minister & resident pragmatist — piped up as well declaring on X that the “state institutions continue to act with unity, purpose, and discipline.”
Others quickly followed including Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i, the chief of the Iranian judiciary, and Mohammad Reza Aref, the first vice president of Iran. By then — as Mark pointed out on X — we had seen enough.
Ahmad Vahidi, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) & Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, the Secretary of Iran’s National Security Council — clear as day — had put the word out in Tehran: get on the same hardliner page fast or else.
Araghchi — arguably the most exposed of the bunch — purportedly toured the Strait of Hormuz today on an Iranian naval vessel. If true — and we say that because as of now it remains unconfirmed — Araghchi was likely trying to convey that he is fully on the side of the IRGC hardliners.
Regardless, one thing is clear. Vahidi & Zolghadr are firmly in control. And their Don Corleone-like godfather message?
Iran will not capitulate. That means — at least for now — Tehran will not give up nuclear enrichment, funding & training of its Axis of Resistance proxies, or limit its ballistic missile & drone programs to defense purposes.
Nor — most notably — will they reopen the Strait of Hormuz so long as the U.S. blockade of Iranian seaports in western & southwestern Iran continues to be enforced by CENCOM locally or globally.
Significantly, as well, by day’s end, the Supreme Leader — Mojtaba Khamenei — or at least what’s left of him, weighed in.
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SUPREME LEADER MOJTABA KHAMENEI
First a caveat. No one — at least visually — has been able to verify that Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is still alive or if he is alive, that he is conscious & capable of fulfilling the functions of his office. For now, we only have unconfirmed reports that he is alive & receiving medical treatment in the Iranian holy city of Qom.
Photo credit: Vahid Salemi / AP. A man holds a poster of Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, the successor to his late father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as supreme leader, during a rally to support him in Tehran, Iran, Monday, March 9th, 2026.
Indeed, in our March 10th edition of the INTREP360 Intelligence Report, we considered that he might already be dead or permanently incapacitated & that the IRGC — meaning Vahidi & Zolghadr — were only keeping him symbolically alive.
If he is alive, there are numerous reports that he is severely injured. Earlier tonight, on CNN’s Outfront with Erin Burnett, Farnaz Fassihi, a New York Times reporter, said that “he has trouble speaking and may need a prosthetic leg.” Fassihi also claimed that “he uses a long chain of human couriers to send hand-written messages from hiding.”
Either way — meaning dead or alive — someone spoke for him. On his Farsi X account, Khamenei claimed that Trump’s attempts to “undermine [Iranian] national unity and security” will not — God willing — be allowed to “come to fruition.”
This statement — regardless of who posted it — was significant. It was the culmination of messaging to Trump today. Iran is unified, even if it is Vahidi & Zolghadr’s guns that are doing the unifying.
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TRIFECTA
Khamenei’s message — simple as it was — “choreographed,” the Institute for the Study of War put it this evening, and its issuance was symbolic of all three branches of the Iranian government — the executive, parliament & the clerics — being on the same page.
Vahidi — who we assess with high confidence is the wizard behind the curtain in Tehran pulling the strings — got his messaging trifecta.
It was principally aimed at one man: Trump. It also had the added benefit of warning any potential protesters in Iran that the IRGC & the Basij — its bloody street enforcers — remain firmly in charge of the country & its government (if not Khamenei himself).
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TIME IS RUNNING OUT
Despite assertions otherwise by Washington & Tehran, time is beginning to run out & the ceasefire that we called at USA Today a “road to nowhere,” is about to run its course having arrived there with no effect.
Louis Armstrong got it right. As the fictional James Bond found out, no one — not Trump, nor Vahidi — has all the time in the world. The Strait of Hormuz is a powder keg waiting to go off. Iran seized several oil tankers today & Trump ordered Adm. Brad Cooper, the Commander of U.S. Central Command, to begin firing on any Iranian fast boats attempting to lay mines in the strategic waterway or elsewhere in the Persian Gulf or Gulf of Oman.
The only remaining question is when will time finally be up. We can’t know, but we suspect it will be sooner than later.
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ICYMI #1
Earlier today, our weekly Thursday national security column at The Hill in Washington, D.C. focused on Trump blinking first in the ceasefire standoff with the Islamic Republic of Iran. He’s betting on time to destroy the country’s economy, yet Team Iran — in our view — sees it as weakness.
Photo credit: Anjum Naveed / AP. A police officer walks past a billboard regarding the United States and Iran negotiations, outside a media facilitation center in Islamabad, Pakistan, Saturday, April 11, 2026
You can read it here.
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ICYMI #2
Early today, Jon appeared on Q News in Cairo, Egypt to discuss the latest on the war in Iran & efforts to reach a peace deal. Q News is the English language news channel owned by the Egyptian Al Qahera network.
You can watch it here.
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Thank you for reading. We will see you tomorrow. Please subscribe, comment & share. We truly appreciate it!
Jon & Mark
Follow Jon on X at @JESweet2022 or on Bluesky at @JonSweet.bsky.social. Follow Mark on X at @MCTothSTL or on Bluesky at @MarkToth.bsky.social.