In the narrow waters of the Strait of Hormuz, where a third of the world's seaborne oil passes daily, a hidden war over Iran's future was quietly waged — not by foreign adversaries, but by factions within Iran's own government. Hard-line opponents of a developing nuclear agreement with the Trump administration orchestrated covert attacks on commercial shipping, hoping that enough chaos would collapse the diplomacy before it could take hold. When Iran's president discovered the operation, his fury revealed something larger than a policy dispute: a profound contest over who truly governs, and wh