Iran’s hardliners are sabotaging their own government’s peace talks

 In Iran, trust is an invaluable currency. But it is in short supply.

For more than 100 days, the Islamic Republic – one of the world’s most militarised theocracies, a state built on the idea of unimpeachable authority – has been governed by a supreme leader no one has seen.

And now it is expected to do a deal with the United States.

But the system of government is fractured. Not everyone can be controlled, and hardliners within the parliament and military are doing their best to scupper any agreement.

That includes taking to the water and laying sea mines, inviting the US to launch missiles during a ceasefire and putting the entire deal in jeopardy.

The Islamic Republic is built on the principle that elected institutions exist beneath an unelected supreme leader who holds final authority on all strategic matters.

This concentrated power worked – however repressively – when Ali Khamenei wielded it for 36 years.

Mojtaba Khamenei, his son, does not have that control.

Adding to the uncertainty, there is also a profound information vacuum at the heart of the negotiations.

Multiple Iranian officials and analysts have acknowledged that most government figures learn about the state of talks only through media reports, not internal briefings.

“No one knows what is really happening,” one Iranian official told The Telegraph from Tehran. “Most officials hear only from TV what’s happening. They do not know what we are giving up and what we are actually gaining.”

That vacuum has created a dangerous dynamic.

Hardliners, who are opposed on principle to any agreement with the US, fill the void with worst-case assumptions, convinced that negotiators are surrendering Iran’s core values in a war they believe Iran has already won.

The lack of transparency fuels suspicion that President Masoud Pezeshkian’s team and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the chief negotiator and speaker of Iran’s parliament, are making secret concessions behind closed doors.

On Monday, Mr Ghalibaf travelled to Qatar with Abbas Araghchi, the foreign minister, for talks in Doha, though even their trip was mired in confusion.

The dispute over billions of dollars’ worth of frozen Iranian assets has become a particular flashpoint.

A source close to Tehran’s negotiating team told Fars news agency that no negotiations were possible until Iran’s blocked funds were released.

Washington had previously backtracked on commitments in this area, the source said, and Tehran has insisted that no agreement can be finalised until the agreed money is deposited.

Some progress was reportedly made in Doha, though Iran’s team – citing a history of broken US promises – does not consider any understandings to be finalised, and has warned repeatedly that Tehran is prepared for all possible outcomes.

Underlying everything is a fundamental distrust of the Americans.

That distrust is not just rhetorical. It is embedded in the Islamic Republic’s founding ideology and reinforced by decades of confrontation, compounded by the fact that the US bombed Iran twice during talks and then coordinated with Israel to kill the supreme leader.

Hardliners believe any deal with Washington is inherently a concession, a betrayal of the revolution’s core principle of resistance to American hegemony.

A statement of support for the negotiating team, released by Iran’s parliament earlier this month, received signatures from 261 of the chamber’s 290 members.

Only seven members – closely aligned with Saeed Jalili, a former nuclear negotiator, and the hardline Paydari Front – refused to sign. They represent the hard core of the Islamic Republic who consider any talks with Washington to be a betrayal of Ali Khamenei’s legacy.

Others opposed to any deal include IRGC commanders seeking revenge for fallen colleagues.

They are supported by Iran’s conservative media. Keyhan newspaper, close to the supreme leader’s office, demanded negotiations be halted immediately after Washington denied Araghchi a visa to travel to New York, calling it necessary to “punish and discipline America”.

The trust deficit exploded further after Monday’s strikes on southern Iran.

US central command said its forces conducted “self-defence strikes” targeting Iranian missile sites and boats attempting to drop sea mines near Bandar Abbas, a strategic port on the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) responded by claiming it shot down a US MQ-9 drone and fired at an RQ-4 drone and an F-35 that entered Iranian airspace, forcing them to flee.

The Iranian official said. “They say why are we still talking with them while they are bombing us? Recent incidents have made some people here oppose the talks even more.”

Members of parliament have begun publicly opposing the negotiation track.

Amirhossein Sabeti, an MP, warned that talks would lead to “our new leader’s assassination,” adding: “Didn’t war happen in the middle of negotiations before? So you want to negotiate again so war happens and our new leader gets assassinated too?”

The formulation suggests that the bar for acceptable terms has become impossibly high.

The paralysis exposes Mojtaba Khamenei’s lack of authority compared to his father. Unable to command loyalty through personal legitimacy, the younger Khamenei has empowered figures such as Mr Ghalibaf, whom he personally shielded from multiple corruption scandals, to manage the crisis.

Even some IRGC commanders feel left out of the negotiation details, causing resentment among those who should be loyal to the leadership.

Meanwhile, former commander Mohammad Ali Jafari emerged from months of silence this week to deliver an ultimatum.

He demanded no negotiations until the war ends on all fronts, sanctions are lifted, frozen funds are released, war reparations are paid, and Iranian sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz is recognised.

His reappearance signals that the deep-state institutional forces oppose any deal requiring compromise on uranium enrichment and Hormuz control.