Reports claim the war has begun, with the United States allegedly destroying four Iranian fighter jets. Officials have not issued full confirmation as tensions surge and Americans are urged to stay alert.

Tehran’s increasingly combative official statements suggest its leaders may be taking US military deployments more seriously than Washington’s signals of diplomacy.

The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, along with several destroyers and warplanes, is set to arrive in the Middle East in the coming days, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing two US officials.

Tehran’s increasingly combative official statements suggest its leaders may be taking US military deployments more seriously than Washington’s signals of diplomacy.

The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, along with several destroyers and warplanes, is set to arrive in the Middle East in the coming days, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing two US officials.

“We have a big force going toward Iran,” US President Donald Trump said on Thursday. “I’d rather not see anything happen, but we will see. We are watching them very closely. We have an armada, we have a massive fleet heading in that direction, and maybe we won’t have to use it.”

The strike group has been en route from the Asia-Pacific region even as Trump has spoken publicly about talks following Iran’s violent crackdown on protests, which has left thousands dead.

The tone from parts of Iran’s military establishment has been notably defiant—and at times confident—prompting questions about whether some in Tehran see war as politically useful, a major event that could overshadow the mass killing of protesters.

“We are preparing for a fateful war with Israel. We possess weapons no one else has,” said Yahya Rahim Safavi, a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and a senior adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

“The next war will end this conflict once and for all.”

Another senior commander, Ali Abdollahi, warned that any attack on Iran’s territory or interests would turn US interests, bases, and centers of influence into “legitimate and accessible targets.”

Revolutionary Guards Commander Mohammad Pakpour wrapped it up: Iran was prepared for any possibility, he said, “including an all-out war.”

Diplomatic messaging from Tehran has been more restrained but no less accusatory.

On Thursday, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi again accused the United States of instigating unrest inside Iran. An all-out confrontation, he wrote, would be “messy, ferocious and far longer” than Israel or its allies anticipate.

Araghchi’s tone contrasted with Trump’s remarks earlier in the week, in which he said he had pulled back from a strike after Iran reportedly halted plans to execute hundreds of detainees.

“Iran does want to talk, and we’ll talk,” the US president said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Hours later, aboard Air Force One, Trump reminded reporters that military action remained an option.

As ever, Trump appeared to be keeping his options open. In Tehran, however—perhaps mindful that Israeli strikes last June came amid US-Iran talks—officials appear to have drawn their own conclusions.

Tehran may have crushed street unrest with brute force, but it has no comparable solution for an economy gripped by surging inflation and collapsing incomes.

The protests initially erupted over a sharp spike in exchange rates but soon escalated into open calls for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.

Many Iranians now say they personally know at least one or two people killed on January 8 or 9. Arrests and enforced disappearances—whose exact scale remains unknown—have also drawn countless families into the crisis, deepening fear and uncertainty.

According to people who have recently left Iran or managed to communicate via Starlink, businesses across the country are either closed or operating at minimal capacity, battered by currency turmoil and the prolonged internet shutdown.

On one side, customers have disappeared; on the other, sellers are reluctant to part with their goods.

Merchants say they cannot be sure they will be able to replace inventory amid exchange-rate volatility, turning even routine transactions into a gamble. Many now prefer not to sell at all.

Even before the unrest, businesses were under intense pressure.

Data published by the economic website Eco Iran show that bank lending from April to December rose 47 percent year-on-year. But 82 percent of loans to the productive sector went toward “working capital”—a sign that firms were borrowing not to expand, but simply to survive.

Shrinking purchasing power

Soon after the protests began, the government announced a plan to offset declining purchasing power following the removal of subsidized exchange rates for essential imports.

Under the plan, low- and middle-income individuals are to receive 10 million rials per month—about $7.50, roughly equivalent to one day’s wage for a construction worker.

Four months of payments were deposited at once, with recipients told they could spend one-quarter of the sum each month on 11 basic items, including rice, cooking oil, protein products, and dairy, at state-set prices in designated stores.

Prices for most of those goods in the open market have continued to surge, and some items have become scarce. Most readers responding to a poll by the news website Khabar Online said the subsidy was insufficient or ineffective.

One reader commented on the website that the handout offsets at most half the price increase for the 11 subsidized items, noting that rising food costs would also push up prices for everything from biscuits to restaurant meals, for which no compensation exists.

Many also fear the government will finance the program by printing money, further accelerating inflation, which official figures show had already surpassed 50 percent by December.

Cost of blackout

The nationwide internet shutdown, imposed on January 8 and still in place, has crippled hundreds of thousands of small and home-based businesses.

From home food producers to online language and music teachers, entire livelihoods have vanished overnight, with authorities offering no clear timeline for restoring connectivity.

These businesses relied almost entirely on online platforms for advertising and sales. Many were small producers in cities and even remote villages, selling handicrafts, agricultural goods, or homemade food directly to customers through Instagram.

Even before the shutdown, widespread filtering had forced them to pay for VPNs, further straining already fragile operations.

Kourosh, the manager of an advertising company who left Iran for Turkey after the January 8–9 killings, said all advertising activity had come to a halt.

“My clients have lost any hope of selling their products before the Iranian New Year, which is just two months away,” he told Iran International.

“People have no money, and even if they do, they won’t spend it on clothes, shoes, or home goods. Everyone was counting on sales in these final weeks of the year.”