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The mere possibility that US President Donald Trump may rename the Persian Gulf the Arabian Gulf has outraged both supporters and opponents of the Islamic Republic.
Trump, speaking on Wednesday, said he had yet to decide on the matter and would announce his position during an upcoming trip to the Middle East. “I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings,” he added.
Reports—first published by the Associated Press—about potential plans to officially adopt the name "Arabian Gulf" in official US parlance have drawn sharp criticism from Iranian officials and also sparked widespread backlash across social media.
Reactions have cut across political lines, uniting unlikely voices in outrage. Iranians across the political spectrum, from Islamic Republic apparatchiks to the US-based exiled prince viewed any such move as an affront to their historical and national identity.
Common cause
Describing the Persian Gulf as “the strongest factor in uniting the Iranian people” in a post on X, reformist former vice president Mohammad-Ali Abtahi warned about a negative impact of renaming on Tehran-Washington nuclear talks.
Even those who support negotiations with the US, Abtahi said, would be forced to stand in opposition.
Veteran diaspora opposition figure Mohsen Sazegara told Iran International TV that the move could be a boon to a hard Iranian line in talks.
"Trump would provide Khamenei with a great opportunity to use Iranians’ sense of nationalism to his own benefit," he said. "(It's) the best lever Khamenei has to back out of the negotiations."
Exiled crown prince Reza Pahlavi also said in a statement: “The reported decision by President Trump to abrogate history, should it be true, is an affront to the people of Iran and our great civilization."
“But, once again, the true culprit of this shameful act is Ali Khamenei and his anti-Iranian regime who have so weakened our nation that foreign powers dare make such transgressions against Iran’s national identity and world history."
The exiled opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq also issued a statement warning that any effort to change the name of the Persian Gulf would only benefit Khamenei, giving him an opportunity to deflect from domestic dissent and redirect public anger toward a foreign enemy.
Some analysts suggest the controversy may be part of a deliberate psychological tactic to destabilize Iran’s negotiating position.
Shahram Kholdi, a Canada-based Iran analyst, pointed to Trump’s close ties with Arab states and argued the maneuver could be strategic. “Trump uses every tactic to psychologically confuse the other side and gain points,” he told Iran International TV.
Pressure to exit talks
Iran’s ultra-hardliners, who had tempered their opposition to US negotiations after Khamenei’s tacit endorsement, are now urging the government to withdraw from the talks.
Naser Mesdaghi, a journalist, urged President Masoud Pezeshkian to immediately walk away from the talks if the US deviates from historical nomenclature.
“All Iranians support this decision and will endure the hardship of sanctions and war for the sake of Iran’s integrity,” he said in a post on X.
Tehran-based commentator Ali Nasri went further, framing the issue as part of a broader disinformation campaign. “This ridiculous rumor … is the next stage of psychological warfare,” he posted on X.
"Having failed to stop the negotiations, the Israel lobby and its affiliated diaspora opposition are now trying to poison and anger public opinion at every stage.”
Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian has reacted to reports that US president Donald Trump may want to rename the Persian Gulf the Arabian Gulf.
"The Persian Gulf will remain the Persian Gulf," Pezeshkian posted on X on Thursday.
Nuclear talks between Iran and the United States are faltering over whether Iran will be permitted to enrich Uranium and fluctuating US demands, two diplomatic sources in Tehran told Iran International.
Despite Tehran agreeing to expanded inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the dispute over enrichment has cast doubt over the timing and direction of the next round of negotiations, originally scheduled to resume this week after being delayed in Oman.
“Iran has accepted strict and intensive inspections by IAEA inspectors, and the two sides have reached an understanding on verification and control mechanisms,” an Iranian diplomatic source familiar with the talks said on condition of anonymity.
“The key disagreement is over Iran’s right to enrich uranium domestically—something the American side opposes,” the source said, adding that the US team's shifting goals were complicating the negotiations.
“In every round, the Americans bring up new topics—missiles, proxies—without a consistent framework.”
A second diplomatic source confirmed that Iran had agreed to restrain its regional allies, including by asking the Houthis to temporarily halt attacks, partly to deny Israel what he called a "pretext" to obstruct diplomacy.
US officials contacted by Iran International declined to comment on the specifics of the talks but acknowledged the urgency and fragility of the moment.
“Time is short and we need to make progress quickly. To make that happen, the Iranians need to negotiate in good faith and sincerely desire to reach a deal,” a State Department spokesperson told Iran International.
Internal Divisions in Tehran
Meanwhile Iran too has fissures of its own on the talks dossier, with hardliners continuing to criticize the talks but negotiators still appearing determined to clinch a fair deal to avoid war.
“There’s a difference between building media credibility and childish competition for scoops,” Mohammad Hossein Ranjbaran, an adviser to Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, posted on X on Tuesday.
“Agencies and esteemed officials who receive classified reports must protect them. Leaking information to favored outlets undermines national interests,” he added, in an apparent reference to a report published the day before by Nour News, a site close to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s adviser Ali Shamkhani.
The outlet cited an anonymous source saying the fourth round of talks would focus on “humanitarian and security concerns," without elaborating, suggesting that the negotiations had expanded beyond the nuclear dossier—something never mentioned by officials involved in the talks.
A diplomatic source told Iran International that unauthorized disclosures could undermine the Iranian negotiating team.
"They are enriching uranium for one purpose: to obtain a nuclear weapon," the official US Senate Republicans account posted on X on Thursday.
"The only acceptable outcome is a complete and verifiable dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program."
Tehran and Washington are set for another round of talks this weekend, but early optimism has dampened amid deep mistrust and mutual threats of attack, making any deal unlikely to lead to a lasting peace.
The most forthright caution, curiously, has come from Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who—without referring to the current negotiations—reminded his hardline base that deals with foes are permissible if temporary.
The ultimate foe in Khamenei’s mind, of course, is America: presented more as an evil being than a country - the centerpiece of a narrative that manufactures, and is sustained by, hostility.
This narrative is, in many ways, reciprocated. Successive US administrations have portrayed Iran not just as a rival state, but the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism—a rogue actor bent on disrupting the global order.
Like Tehran’s view of America, this framing is not just rhetoric; it underpins policy, shapes alliances and narrows the space for diplomacy.
As talks resume, staunch anti-Americans in Iran warn against trusting “the Great Satan”, while the so-called hawks in the US decry any compromise with “the Mad Mullahs.”
Ingrained enmity
Despite gestures suggesting de-escalation—like the quiet removal of American flags from Iranian street protests—the hostile rhetoric has not faded. That’s because the tension is embedded not just in language, but in military posture.
The Trump administration has deployed two new warships to the region and deepened defense ties with Israel and Iran’s Arab neighbors.
Meanwhile the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen managed to strike deep into Israel with a ballistic missile landing near its main airport on Saturday.
Both sides are redrawing lines of confrontation. Diplomacy is conducted under a constant shadow of war.
"I’m issuing a serious warning: if you make one wrong move, we will open up the gates of hell on you," Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps chief Hossein Salami said on Thursday, referring to the United States and Israel.
"Sit down and stay in your place ... we have made extensive preparations."
The US government is not far off in tone. President Trump has framed the talks as a binary choice: agreement or war. “There are only two alternatives there," he told a conservative podcast on Wednesday. "Blow them up nicely or blow them up viciously."
Israel’s open threats to strike Iranian nuclear facilities and its insistence on the right to preemptive action only heighten the pressure.
In this climate, negotiations serve less to resolve conflict than to manage it. As long as each side sees the other as an irredeemable enemy—and enters talks prepared for battle—diplomacy becomes an extension of confrontation by other means.
Khamenei’s message about temporary deals may have been cryptic. But it had a clear implication: that diplomacy is a tool for crisis management, not conflict resolution.
Tehran and Washington may speak of de-escalation, but their dominant narratives remain unchanged—and the structures that sustain enmity show no signs of retreat.
Seen in this light, the ongoing talks appear to be more of a phase in a familiar cycle than an auspicious breakthrough.
Even if a deal is reached, without structural change, the hostility will likely endure—and should it unravel, military confrontation may appear a legitimate course more then ever.
