Tehran's familiar battle lines return over deal with US
Behrouz Turani
Iran International
Hardline opposition in Iran to the Islamabad MoU increasingly resembles the reaction of ultraconservatives to the 2015 nuclear deal.
Iran International
Hardline opposition in Iran to the Islamabad MoU increasingly resembles the reaction of ultraconservatives to the 2015 nuclear deal.
The parallels now extend beyond the critics themselves: a message attributed to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei on Thursday offered cautious backing for the agreement while signaling reservations about its terms, recalling the balancing act performed by his father during the JCPOA debate.
When then–Foreign Minister Javad Zarif returned to Tehran after the JCPOA was announced in Vienna in July 2015, vigilante groups gathered at the airport, threatening to lynch him on arrival.
Eleven years later, similar militant factions in Tehran and Mashhad have been heard chanting death threats against chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, denouncing them as “traitors” and “mercenaries of the United States.”
The comparison is striking despite the very different nature of the two agreements.
The JCPOA was a comprehensive, multilateral non-proliferation accord negotiated in peacetime. The June 2026 MoU, by contrast, is a rapid bilateral framework designed to halt a destructive war, reopen the Strait of Hormuz and create a 60-day window for broader negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program.
In 2015, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei ultimately shielded Zarif and his team, praising their “services to the nation and Islam” despite earlier criticism. A decade later, Mojtaba Khamenei appears to be performing a more cautious version of the same role.
In doing so, he echoed a familiar formula: approving diplomacy while distancing himself from its potential costs. He said he had authorized the agreement despite reservations in principle, after receiving assurances that Iran’s rights and the interests of the “Resistance Front” would be protected.
Hardline outlets and figures have recycled much of the same language deployed against the JCPOA, warning of “capitulation,” “retreat” and repeated “betrayals,” while more pragmatic and reformist-leaning voices defend the MoU as a system-approved effort to secure economic relief and end the war.
Notably, some of the loudest opponents of the Islamabad MoU, including ultraconservative MP Mahmoud Nabavian and Kayhan editor Hossein Shariatmadari, played a similar role in 2015.
Ultraconservative factions continue to accuse negotiators of falling into a Western trap. Elements within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) view provisions requiring a freeze on enrichment levels and the return of IAEA inspectors to damaged facilities as an unacceptable concession.
The parallels are not exact, but the political script has proved remarkably durable. In both periods, opponents of diplomacy have framed engagement with Washington as a threat to national sovereignty and security.
The JCPOA sought to resolve a long-running nuclear dispute through a detailed and legally complex framework. The Islamabad MoU is a temporary political arrangement intended to stop active hostilities and create space for further negotiations.
Yet some critics on both sides have approached it through the same lens that shaped the debate over the JCPOA.
Similar concerns surfaced at the ongoing G7 summit in France, where several European leaders urged President Trump to adopt a tougher stance toward Tehran and ensure that any future agreement contains sufficient safeguards against the potential weaponization of Iran’s nuclear activities.
Trump may feel free to dismiss such concerns, believing European governments have offered limited support for his campaign against Tehran. Ghalibaf, by contrast, is clearly attempting to persuade domestic hardliners to accept the agreement.
Addressing the Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, he declared: “All of us must take over the trench that was held by the battlefield warriors, stand firm, lift the people out from under economic pressures, and build the country with power.”
Mojtaba Khamenei’s statement appeared designed to contain opposition from within the conservative camp. While emphasizing that he had approved the agreement only after receiving specific assurances from Iranian officials, he portrayed the decision as a conditional endorsement rather than a strategic shift, signaling to critics that support for the memorandum should not be mistaken for acceptance of broader concessions to Washington.
By invoking the language of wartime sacrifice while defending a diplomatic agreement, Ghalibaf appeared to be making a familiar argument: that negotiation, however unpopular among hardliners, may sometimes be necessary to preserve the very system they seek to defend.
Tehran’s unveiling of a towering statue depicting the Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling before pre-Islamic Persian King Shapur I has renewed criticism of the Islamic Republic’s appeal to nationalist sentiment following the June war with Israel.
For over forty years, the theocracy purged ancient Persian history from schoolbooks, replacing it with post-Islamic narratives. But after the 12-day conflict with Israel, officials have turned to the distant pre-Islamic past to rally a divided society.
From murals of ancient kings and soldiers to patriotic songs added to Shi’ite mourning ceremonies performed before Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Tehran now embraces imagery once deemed heretical by its own revolutionary ethos.
'Kneel before Iran' campaign
Tehran’s Revolution (Enghelab) Square was the scene of an unusual spectacle on Friday as officials unveiled a massive bronze statue depicting Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling in submission before Sassanid King Shapur I, commemorating Iran’s victory at the Battle of Edessa (260 AD).
The event was held under the slogan “Kneel before Iran,” part of what authorities describe as a campaign to project “national unity and historical pride” following the June war with Israel.
Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani, a staunch ultraconservative, said on X: “Enmity with Great Iran can only end in kneeling before this historic nation.”
Municipal official Davood Goodarzi said the installation would be accompanied by visual displays depicting “other victories of Iranians over foreign aggressors,” including the defeat of British forces by local commander Rais-Ali Delvari, Mirza Kuchak Khan’s resistance against Russian troops, and Surena’s triumph over Rome at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE.
The goal, Goodarzi said, is “strengthening concepts such as national dignity, social unity, and Iranian identity.”
The statue, he said, would remain temporarily at Revolution Square before being moved to a city gateway “where it will stand as the first emblem of Iran before diplomats and foreign visitors.”
Unveiled women were allowed to attend the unveiling ceremony—an uncommon scene at events organized by Tehran’s ultra-hardline municipality.
The turn to the pre-Islamic past
The sharp reversal also recalls remarks once made by Khamenei. In a 2011 speech, he asserted that “all the great military victories of this nation came after Islam,” dismissing pre-Islamic accounts as “things that are not documented.”
In 1987, he had said that prophets triumphed over kings such as Cyrus and that “nothing remains of these monarchs in history but names remembered with derision.”
Nevertheless, pro-government social media accounts have now gone so far as to circulate posters equating Khamenei himself with Shapur, showing him standing with a staff as Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump kneel before him. The caption reads: “You will kneel before Iran.”
'Hypocrisy'
Pro-government figures have hailed the move as a patriotic success. Conservative political reporter Hossein Saremi posted: “Today’s grand Iranian gathering showed that people and the state share one essence: Iran itself. Nothing can take our homeland away.”
Others, however, called the spectacle “hypocrisy.” Journalist Gholamhossein Pashaei wrote on X: “Every year you close Pasargadae to stop people from celebrating Cyrus Day, yet you unveil Shapur’s statue in Enghelab Square with drums and fireworks during Fatimiyya (mourning period)!”
Dissident commentator Hamid Asafi called the ceremony “a perfect snapshot of the Islamic Republic’s contradictions.”
On Telegram he wrote: “A week ago they closed Cyrus’s tomb out of fear of the crowds, and now they glorify Shapur in the same breath. The Islamic Republic fears living history but poses for selfies with its corpse.”
He added: “They know people no longer respond to rosaries and sermons. That’s why they’ve brought history back to the stage—in a controlled costume. If they can’t erase the past, they’ll try to own it.”
The irony deepened as UNESCO formally recognized Cyrus’s Charter as one of the earliest human-rights documents.
President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X: “Iran, the cradle of dialogue, justice, and coexistence, can still inspire peace today.”
Users swiftly replied, questioning how such pride could coexist with a government that blocks access to Cyrus’s tomb each year to those wishing to visit it on his birthday.
