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G2 — Adversary's Veto

Reports say Iranian hard-liners launched the Hormuz attacks without authorisation, sinking the US deal

Accounts from several outlets describe a faction that fired on shipping in defiance of Iran's president and its Revolutionary Guard chief.

Assembled by Claude from 7 sources at 7 outlets · Sunday, September 13, 2026, Evening edition, 5:12 PM EDT · no human byline

Disclosure. This item was assembled by an AI from the RSS excerpts of the outlets tagged inline. No human wrote or checked it before publication. Feed selection and categories are editorial choices by Teresa Lo. Nothing here is investment advice.

What happened

Iranian hard-liners launched attacks in the Strait of Hormuz in defiance of the country's leadership, undermining a deal with the United States, according to reporting carried by the Times of Israel timesofisrael.com. The New York Times account describes how Iran's hard-liners prevailed and sabotaged the peace deal, and records that Iranian forces opened fire on three commercial ships in the strait nytimes.com. Firstpost reported that a rogue faction of the Iranian military, controlled by a former spymaster, derailed the deal in defiance of President Masoud Pezeshkian and Revolutionary Guard chief Ahmad Vahidi firstpost.com.

The chain of command described is unusually explicit. Pezeshkian rushed back to Tehran and angrily telephoned Vahidi to demand answers timesofisrael.com. One summary of the reporting puts it plainly: the president did not know, the Guard chief did not authorise it, a hardline faction staged its own campaign in the strait, and nobody has claimed Saturday's strike easternherald.com. A separate account describes a security official resurfacing to sabotage the deal and push the war toward escalation, and notes that Pezeshkian had travelled to Iraq for a week of mourning ceremonies for Ali Khamenei, Iran's former supreme leader, who was killed ynetnews.com.

Who is in charge is itself contested. Questions about who directs Iran's government are intensifying while Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei remains absent from public view and hard-liners expand their influence i24news.tv. Opposition-linked reporting describes pension protests, an oil dispute and calls for a nuclear test deepening the crisis amid factional infighting, with an official tied to the supreme leader's publication office attacking former president Hassan Rouhani ncr-iran.org.

Why it matters to investors

Markets price negotiated outcomes on the assumption that a signatory can deliver its own side. These accounts say that assumption did not hold: the attacks that broke the deal were not ordered by the president or by the Guard's own chief firstpost.comeasternherald.com. Any future agreement on Hormuz therefore carries an execution risk separate from its terms, because a faction outside the chain of command can void it with a single strike timesofisrael.comnytimes.com.

What to watch

The first marker is attribution. No one has claimed the most recent strike, and until responsibility is established, deterrence has no address easternherald.com. The second is whether Pezeshkian's demand for answers produces any visible consequence inside the Guard timesofisrael.comfirstpost.com.

The third is the vacuum at the top. With the supreme leader unseen in public and hard-liners gaining ground, the question of who can bind Iran to anything remains open i24news.tv. The internal pressures reported alongside it, from pension protests to calls for a nuclear test, point the same way ncr-iran.org.

Sources

  1. ncr-iran.org: Pension Protests, Oil Dispute and Nuclear-Test Calls Deepen Iran's Crisis Amid Factional Infighting (2026-09-13)
  2. timesofisrael.com: Iran hardliners launched Hormuz attacks in defiance of leaders, undermining US deal (2026-09-13)
  3. i24news.tv: Iran's Unseen Supreme Leader Fuels Doubts As Hard-liners Expand Influence - Report (2026-09-13)
  4. nytimes.com: How Iran's Hard-Liners Prevailed and Sabotaged U.S. Peace Deal - The New York Times (2026-09-13)
  5. ynetnews.com: Shadowy Iran security chief resurfaces to sabotage US deal, pushing war toward escalation (2026-09-13)
  6. firstpost.com: Defying Pezeshkian & IRGC , rogue commanders & ex-spymaster derailed US- Iran peace deal (2026-09-13)
  7. easternherald.com: Iran's Hardliners Launched Unauthorized Hormuz Attacks to Sink Peace Deal, Report Says (2026-09-13)