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Rouhani Calls for Referendum on Economy, Foreign, Domestic Policies

Former Iranian President Hasan Rouhani with former Foreign Minister Javad Zarif (Hasan Rouhani website)
Former Iranian President Hasan Rouhani with former Foreign Minister Javad Zarif (Hasan Rouhani website)
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Rouhani Calls for Referendum on Economy, Foreign, Domestic Policies

Former Iranian President Hasan Rouhani with former Foreign Minister Javad Zarif (Hasan Rouhani website)
Former Iranian President Hasan Rouhani with former Foreign Minister Javad Zarif (Hasan Rouhani website)

Former Iranian President Hasan Rouhani on Thursday called for free elections and a general referendum on foreign, domestic, and economic policies 332 days before the scheduled legislative elections.

During his meeting with the ministers and senior officials of his former cabinet, Rouhani said that this year would be a test for the regime to stage free and fair elections.

"The eyes of the world are on the elections so that they see, and we see, whether the elections are held in a healthy, competitive, and free manner or not," the former president said.

Rouhani voiced his successor Ebrahim Raisi in focusing on the recommendations of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who called for curbing inflation and boosting growth.

Rouhani said that the past year witnessed bitter events, resulting in most people, including the protesters, demanding a better life.

"The country needs reform, change, and transformation," he added, calling for tangible transformation that meets the popular demands.

Rouhani reiterated that the answer to people's demands in foreign and domestic policies and the economy could be found by holding referendums as envisaged by Article 59 of the constitution.
He explained that a single public referendum could record the people's responses to three questions on the foreign and domestic policies and the economy, stressing that this is a big step for transformation and would lead to optimism for a better future.

On Tuesday, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said that the upcoming elections are critical and "can be a manifestation of national power."

During his reception of several officials and authority figures, Khamenei warned that if the elections were "not held properly, it shows the weakness of the country, nation, and officials, which makes us weaker and more vulnerable to enemy attacks and pressures."

According to the Supreme Leader, the relevant officials should determine the "participation, security, health and competition of elections" strategy to hold fair elections.

Khamenei first expressed the calls for a transformative approach on March 21 on Nowruz in Mashhad.

Referring to the recent protests, Khamenei said the transformation and transition the enemies want is the opposite of Iran's beliefs.

He said that the primary goal of the enemies behind using concepts such as “structural transformation,” “change,” and “revolution” was to change the identity of Iran, adding that the enemy's goal was to eliminate the strengths of the nation and government.

Meanwhile, Guardian Council spokesman Hadi Tahan Nazif pledged that the council began preparing for the upcoming February elections and would use all its powers to conduct them properly in line with its legal duties.

Iran will also witness the elections of the Assembly of Experts for Leadership, which includes 88 influential clerics, and one of its most significant tasks is to name the successor to the current Supreme Leader.

The Assembly holds elections every eight years, and the past elections sparked controversy after Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of the Iranian Supreme Leader, was removed from the list of candidates.

Similarly, former reformist President Mohammad Khatami called for reforms and returning to the spirit of the Iranian constitution.

In his statement marking the 43rd anniversary of the Iranian revolution last February, Khatami said the way and approach followed made it impossible to meet the demands for reforms, reaching a dead end.

Khatami expressed his regret that the government did not show any sign of reform, saying that structural or behavioral reform would be less costly and more fruitful to get out of the crises.

Khatami responded to his ally, the reformist leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who called for drafting a new constitution and submitting it to a popular referendum in "free and fair" elections to change the regime's structure.

Mousavi described the structure and unsustainable basic system as a "major crisis" in a country facing many crises.

Mousavi, who has been under house arrest since February 2011, said that his campaign slogan for the 2009 presidential elections to implement the current constitution fully is no longer effective.

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World

Behind The Scenes: US-Israeli Military Decisions Shaping Iran's War

US CENTCOM chief Adm. Brad Cooper meets Israeli Army Chief of Staff Lt-Gen. Eyal Zamir during his visit to Israel (Israeli Army)
US CENTCOM chief Adm. Brad Cooper meets Israeli Army Chief of Staff Lt-Gen. Eyal Zamir during his visit to Israel (Israeli Army)
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Behind The Scenes: US-Israeli Military Decisions Shaping Iran's War

US CENTCOM chief Adm. Brad Cooper meets Israeli Army Chief of Staff Lt-Gen. Eyal Zamir during his visit to Israel (Israeli Army)
US CENTCOM chief Adm. Brad Cooper meets Israeli Army Chief of Staff Lt-Gen. Eyal Zamir during his visit to Israel (Israeli Army)

Although US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have made the ultimate war and ceasefire decisions regarding Iran, The Jerusalem Post revealed the details and extent to which Israeli Army Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir, US Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, and CENTCOM Chief Admiral Brad Cooper have been the next most dominant figures.

In many ways, Zamir was key to convincing Caine and Cooper that such a war was feasible, such that they would support it, or at least not oppose it.

Caine was then critical in convincing Trump that such a war was viable, while precisely describing risks and second and third order considerations, even as the US chairman himself held doubts about significant aspects of the war, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Caine has also hovered over Trump's decisions to repeatedly announce unilateral ceasefires with Iran out of concern that any upping the ante on the military playing field could cost him in both American lives and politically.

When Netanyahu made an emergency flight to Washington to meet with Trump around 11:00 am on February 12 to try to convince him to go to war with Iran, as the US president had started to move away from that option, he presented a four-step plan.

The four steps were: First, assassinating Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his top military and intelligence officials. Second, pounding Iran's ballistic missile and drone capabilities. Third, helping foment an uprising within Iran against the regime, and fourth, transforming the uprising, plus possibly a ground attack by the Kurds who straddle Iran and Iraq, into regime change.

None of the three high commanders really believed in steps three or four, but Zamir was willing to roll the dice to see what might come of it, the Jerusalem Post said. Caine and Cooper were ready to go in for the first two steps and hold their noses regarding efforts at steps three and four.

It was not a coincidence that Israel was assigned to bomb Iran's top leaders and thousands of Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij command centers and locations, as well as Iranian military threat capabilities, while US forces stayed more focused almost exclusively on Iranian capabilities.

Trump, to some extent under the influence of Caine (with Cooper supporting in the background), kept the US out of direct military involvement in regime change.

Sources have indicated to the Jerusalem Post that Israeli efforts to influence Trump and when and how to go to war have also heavily focused on Caine.

Zamir, Mossad Director David Barnea, and Israeli Army Intelligence Chief Maj. Gen. Shlomi Binder also visited Washington leading up to Netanyahu's February 12 White House sales pitch to make their case directly to a variety of officials, but collectively especially to Caine.
In some ways, Cooper was easier to convince than Caine, the report said.

This is partially true because Cooper did not try as much as his predecessor, Erik Kurilla, to influence the decision of whether to go to war or not, focusing more on being the architect of what the different options of going to war would look like.

Right Timing

Zamir was very successful in bringing on board Caine and Cooper, and then indirectly Trump, in the sense of convincing them that the timing was right.

The Post has learned that Zamir made a sophisticated and nuanced argument to Caine, Cooper, and others, which reached Trump.

The argument acknowledged that in theory Israel and the US could wait some period of months, as Iran had not yet crossed a redline threshold of a volume of ballistic missiles which the Israeli army would have trouble with. After all, Israel's original plan was not to attack Iran's ballistic missile program until sometime between June and November 2026.

However, Zamir said that Iran was racing forward too fast.

Iran was producing an additional 200-300 ballistic missiles per month. It had replaced about half of its lost missiles and half of its lost missile launchers in only eight months, getting back up to 2,500 missiles.

In Zamir's understanding, waiting another six months could mean an Iran with 3,700-4,300 missiles, and waiting another year could mean 4,900 to 6,100 missiles.

The report said it could also mean much more damage, could lead to Israeli difficulties with its volume of missile interceptors at a much earlier point, and collectively force Israel and the US to cut short their attacks on Iran's missile and other capabilities much earlier than what might make sense strategically.

Adding on that if Israel and the US wanted to take a real shot at regime change, that February was a unique moment to build on the January Iranian domestic protests, the Post understands that Zamir argued that February was a unique moment to go to war. This was true despite Israel's original plan for an attack in later 2026.

Two Main Failures

The report held Zamir, Caine and Cooper responsible for two main failures, the first being the inability to stop Iranian missiles.

It said only days into the war, Zamir, Caine, and CENTCOM were telling the public that missile fire was down 70-90%. The expectation was that within a week or two, it would be down to a drizzle. But while missile fire did drop to a medium level, the fading to a drizzle never happened.

None of the top Israeli or American officials anticipated how rapidly Iran would be able to unearth its underground missile launchers, which the allies had caused to be neutralized with cave-ins.

Pre-war estimates were that cave-ins would neutralize such missiles for the rest of the war, whereas in many cases, the Post has learned that Iran has developed bulldozer teams and techniques to uncover caved-in missile teams or silos within less than a day.

Also, Iran spread its surviving missile crews throughout its vast country, making it nearly impossible to track them down efficiently, and adjusted its missiles such that over 70% of them included cluster munitions, which the Israeli army was much less ready to defend against.

The second potential failure of Caine and Cooper relates to Hormuz.

The report found that neither Caine nor Cooper raised their voices loudly and decisively about the Hormuz nightmare scenario, again preferring to provide neutral advice to a US president, who clearly was out of his depth in aspects of this conflict.

The two of them could have seen this scenario coming, and so their choice, despite their heavy potential influence, to not raise the alarm loudly enough leaves them with some contributory fault in not better preparing Trump and the US.

The fact that the US needed to wait several weeks into the war before troops were in place to do something about Hormuz, if necessary, was a massive strategic miss.

In fact, the US could have even deployed forces into the Hormuz area the day the conflict started, as opposed to focusing on sinking large Iranian naval vessels first.

Overall, the report found that the military campaign pitched by Zamir and approved by Caine and Cooper succeeded more than might have been expected upfront, with notable exceptions regarding the continuity of medium-level ballistic missile threats and regarding Hormuz.

It said the military gains into long-standing strategic achievements is now more in the hands of the political and diplomatic leaders than the generals.

World

Hormuz Crisis Throws Spotlight on World's Largest 'Chokepoint' - the Malacca Strait

FILE PHOTO: A container ship enters the Singapore Strait for the Strait of Malacca, as tourists stand at mainland Asia's southern most point in Johor, Malaysia November 12, 2016. Picture taken November 12, 2016. REUTERS/Henning Gloystein/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A container ship enters the Singapore Strait for the Strait of Malacca, as tourists stand at mainland Asia's southern most point in Johor, Malaysia November 12, 2016. Picture taken November 12, 2016. REUTERS/Henning Gloystein/File Photo
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Hormuz Crisis Throws Spotlight on World's Largest 'Chokepoint' - the Malacca Strait

FILE PHOTO: A container ship enters the Singapore Strait for the Strait of Malacca, as tourists stand at mainland Asia's southern most point in Johor, Malaysia November 12, 2016. Picture taken November 12, 2016. REUTERS/Henning Gloystein/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A container ship enters the Singapore Strait for the Strait of Malacca, as tourists stand at mainland Asia's southern most point in Johor, Malaysia November 12, 2016. Picture taken November 12, 2016. REUTERS/Henning Gloystein/File Photo

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has forced policymakers in Asia to face questions over the security of other maritime chokepoints, including the Strait of Malacca, which is the world's busiest waterway for international trade.

Importance of The Malacca Strait

The 900-km (550-mile) long Malacca Strait, bounded by Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, provides the shortest sea route from East Asia to the Middle East and Europe, according to Reuters.

It carries nearly 22% of the world's maritime trade, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. This includes oil and gas shipments from the Middle East to the energy-hungry economies of China, Japan and South Korea.

Malacca is the largest “oil transit chokepoint” in the world and the only one that outpaces Hormuz, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

In the first half of 2025, some 23.2 million barrels of oil per day were transported through the Malacca Strait, accounting for 29% of total maritime oil flows. The next largest chokepoint, Hormuz, saw about 20.9 million bpd pass through.

More than 102,500 ships, mostly commercial vessels, transited through the Malacca Strait in 2025, up from around 94,300 in 2024, data from Malaysia's ⁠Marine Department showed. These include most tankers, but some very large vessels avoid the strait because of draught restrictions and go south around Indonesia instead.

This route allows the Strait of Malacca to be bypassed if it were closed, but it adds to journey time that would delay shipments and drive up prices.

Concerns About Strait of Malacca

At its narrowest point in the Phillips Channel of the Singapore Strait, the Malacca Strait is only 1.7 miles (2.7 km) wide, creating a natural bottleneck, as well as potential for collisions, grounding, or oil spills.

Some parts of the strait are relatively shallow, with a depth of 25-27 meters restricting the largest vessels, but even very large crude carriers (VLCCs) measuring more than 350 meters long, 60 meters wide, and with a draft of more than 20 meters, make the transit.

For years, the strait has been a hotbed of piracy and attacks on merchant vessels. Last year saw criminal attacks spike to at least 104, but these have fallen off in the first quarter of this year, according to the ReCAAP ⁠Information Sharing Centre, an organization established by regional governments to combat piracy.

The narrow and congested waterway has been strategically important to Beijing, with around 75% of China's seaborne crude oil imports passing through it from the Middle East and Africa, data from tanker tracker Vortexa shows.

The Iran crisis has crystallized long-standing worries about how chokepoints such as Malacca could be affected if a conflict breaks out in the South China Sea or the Taiwan Strait, where another 21% of global maritime trade transits, according to CSIS.

Malaysian authorities say the Malacca Strait is also a growing spot for illegal ⁠ship-to-ship transfers, where oil is shifted between tankers at sea to obscure its origin.

Officials Assurances

Indonesian Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa made waves on Wednesday by openly musing about ways countries could impose tolls on ships as a way to monetize the strait, before noting that such an arrangement is not possible.

When asked about the risks of tolls or other restrictions on movement in ⁠the strait, Singapore Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan told CNBC that the nations along the strait share a strategic interest to keep it open, and have agreed not to collect tolls.

He also said Singapore had assured the United States and China that the right of passage was guaranteed for all and it would not participate in any efforts to ⁠block the strait or impose tolls.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan told a forum on Wednesday that no unilateral decisions can be made about the strait and that Malaysia is on the same page with Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand, and they conduct joint patrols to ensure the waterway remains open.

World

A 60-Day Deadline Could Pressure Trump on Ending the Iran War

US Air Force personnel perform maintenance on bomber at UK's RAF Fairford (EPA)
US Air Force personnel perform maintenance on bomber at UK's RAF Fairford (EPA)
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A 60-Day Deadline Could Pressure Trump on Ending the Iran War

US Air Force personnel perform maintenance on bomber at UK's RAF Fairford (EPA)
US Air Force personnel perform maintenance on bomber at UK's RAF Fairford (EPA)

Washington - Robert Jimison

Over nearly eight weeks of war in Iran, Republicans in Congress have turned back repeated efforts by Democrats to halt the operation and force US President Donald Trump, who began the conflict without congressional authorization, to consult with lawmakers on the military campaign.

But some Republicans have signaled that a key statutory deadline in the coming weeks could be an inflection point when they will expect the president to either wind down the conflict or seek congressional approval to continue it.

Democrats have tried and failed several times to invoke a provision of the 1973 War Powers Resolution, a law aimed at curbing a president’s ability to wage war without congressional approval, to challenge the conflict in Iran.

The latest defeat came on Wednesday, when Senate Republicans blocked such a measure for the fifth time since the war began.

Yet the law also establishes a set of deadlines, the first of which is coming on May 1, that could increase the pressure on the Trump administration in the coming days. Here is what the law says about how long a president can continue to direct US forces in a conflict without congressional approval.

The 60-Day Mark

When the United States began joint strikes with the Israeli air force on Feb. 28, the president said he was acting under his authority as commander in chief to protect US bases in the Middle East, and to “advance vital United States national interests.”

He said the action was taken in “collective self-defense of our regional allies, including Israel.”

Many Democrats disputed that justification and have continued to argue that Trump acted illegally.

White House officials and most Republicans on Capitol Hill say he is operating within the bounds of the war powers statute, which sets a 60-day clock for a president to remove American forces from hostilities without congressional authorization to use military force.

Although the war began at the end of February, Trump formally notified Congress of the operation on March 2, starting the 60-day period that ends on May 1.

Some Republicans have already signaled they will not support any extension beyond 60 days.

Senator John Curtis, Republican of Utah, wrote in an opinion essay earlier this month that he “will not support ongoing military action beyond a 60-day window without congressional approval.”

Other Republicans, including Representative Brian Mast of Florida, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee, warned that the president could lose significant support if the conflict continued into May.

Moments after Republicans just barely blocked a war powers resolution in the House last week, Mast said there could be “a different vote count after 60 days,” alluding to the May 1 deadline.

A 30-Day Extension

Under the statute, once the initial 60-day deadline passes, the president’s options for continuing a military campaign without congressional approval become limited.

At that point, Trump would effectively have three choices: seek congressional authorization to continue the campaign, begin winding down US involvement or give himself an extension.

The law allows a one-time, 30-day extension of the deployment if the president certifies in writing that additional time is necessary to facilitate the safe withdrawal of US forces, but it does not grant authority to continue waging an offensive campaign.

Congress Can Authorize the War

Lawmakers also have the option at any time of granting explicit permission for Trump to continue the operation by passing an authorization for the use of military force.

Such measures have become the primary way Congress approves military campaigns short of a formal declaration of war, something that has not been done since World War II.

While Republicans have largely united in blocking Democrats’ attempts to halt the war, it is unclear whether the same unity exists when it comes to affirmatively authorizing the conflict.

Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, has said she is working with a group of senators on a formal authorization for the use of military force against Iran, but has yet to introduce the resolution.

Congress has not voted in favor of using military force since 2002, when lawmakers authorized it against Iraq.

Murkowski was an early critic of the administration’s lack of transparency around the objectives, costs and timeline for the war, and said that her goal with an authorization vote would be to reassert congressional authority and require the administration to be held to firm parameters for the operation.

Why Trump Might Ignore the Deadlines

Administrations led by presidents of both parties have long argued that the Constitution gives broad authority to the commander in chief, meaning that the limits the war powers law places on the president are unconstitutional.

In 2011, President Barack Obama continued a military engagement in Libya beyond the 60-day mark, arguing that the law did not apply because “US operations do not involve sustained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces, nor do they involve US ground troops.”

Though that prompted bipartisan backlash at the time, some lawmakers anticipate that the Trump administration could make a similar argument about Iran.

During his first term, Trump similarly balked at the law in 2019 when he vetoed a bipartisan resolution both chambers had passed that sought to end American military involvement in Yemen’s civil war. He argued then that the measure was an “unnecessary, dangerous attempt to weaken my constitutional authorities.”

Still, ignoring the deadline could pose a political problem for Republicans, which so far has given the administration broad latitude to carry out the war without congressional involvement, including any formal oversight.

“Many Republicans are on record having set the 60-day mark as somehow legally important,” said Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who has been among the Democrats offering resolutions aimed at limiting the president’s ability to continue the war without congressional authorization. “So I do think it will be harder for Republicans to continue to look the other way once we are out of the 60 days.”

The New York Times