Factional Fighting Heightened in Iran Over Negotiations With the US

iran flag

Until May last year, the fundamentalists in Iran had total control over the presidency, and the country had a strong standing against Israel through its allies in the region. However, the situation unexpectedly changed after the helicopter carrying President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and other companions crashed on May 19, 2024.

Despite the government’s latest announcement that the crash was due to bad weather conditions, speculation on sabotage is still ongoing. Observers think the regime wanted to save face by claiming that the crash was due to weather conditions by not admitting the “deliberate downing” of the helicopter. Critics question why the dense cloud mass only had to do with the middle helicopter and not the other two choppers.

Replacement of the President became problematic for the regime because, in the past few elections, voter participation had turned low. Hence, the regime managed to select Masoud Pezeshkian from the reformist faction, who has multi-ethnic background, to increase participation from the ethnic population. Pezeshkian’s ethnic background helped him to win the presidency in competition with Saeed Jalili, the primary candidate from the fundamentalists’ camp.

Since August 3, 2024, when Pezeshkian came to office, the country has continuously become weaker both economically and politically. Domestically, inflation remains very high at an annual rate of 32% and about 3% monthly. The national currency has dropped to new lows versus the dollar. The rial has declined from approximately 767,550 rials per dollar in July 2024 to 84,0000 per dollar, or about 9,4% till January 31, 2025. Iranians’ dissatisfaction with the theocratic regime has been rising.   In the international scene, Iran’s allies have badly been weakened in Syria and Lebanon. Iran has lost the leaders of its three major regional allies, Syria, Hamas, and Hezbollah. Furthermore, the Trump administration intends to continue its previous “maximum pressure” against Iran. Hence, Iran now relies on its nuclear program to deter the Western imperialism threat against it. At the same time, Trump intends to force the regime to negotiate on halting its nuclear program, which may result in Iran experiencing the fate of Libya after Gaddafi’s government surrendered its nuclear facilities. Yet, according to Politico, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has urged President Donald Trump to go after Iran with force. Graham doesn’t believe negotiations will stop Iran from manufacturing nuclear weapons.

During his presidential campaign, Pezeshkian said that he wanted to implement the religious Leader Ali Khamenei’s orders and did not have any initiative or plan of his own. That meant people’s votes for him were irrelevant. Furthermore, Pezeshkian had said he would form a national unity government composed of all political groups but later formed a government against the radical groups. Currently, his government seems to be extending the administration of Hassan Rouhani’s policies. He thinks the only way to resolve Iran’s problems is to engage with Washington.

Pezeshkian has said he would negotiate with the US on Iran’s nuclear program to remove the sanctions on Iran so as to attract foreign investments and revive Iran’s economy. However, negotiation with the US has encountered a harsh reaction from the fundamentalist faction and heightened fighting between the two factions,

Factional Fight over Negotiations

Various names have been used to demarcate political factions in Iran, including conservatives, fundamentalists, hardliners, reformists, moderates, radical Islamists, etc. However, these factions do not represent any distinct class. The workers and impoverished people in Iran constitute the lower class versus the high-status and the wealthy, who are upper class. But who is leading who? Fundamentalists get support from the lower class. The reformists are supported by the upper class, and they favor reform, and some of them act as compradors for the Western powers. Nonetheless, most Iranians do not belong to these factions and oppose theocratic government in Iran.

Reformists consider resistance to Western domination futile. They believe the Islamic Republic has no choice but to compromise with the West for its survival and development, especially now that the US and Israel are threatening to attack Iran. Another pro-West argument for negotiating and compromising with the US is that they refer to the nation’s dissatisfaction with the difficult economic conditions and conclude that the people are no longer prepared to resist the US economic pressures. However, the neoliberal policies prescribed by reformists, such as freeing the exchange rate and the continuous devaluation of the national currency, unbridled privatization, and suppressing wages and salaries, have been the causes of this dissatisfaction in the past.

Fundamentalists say sitting at the negotiating table with the West from a position of weakness at present is equivalent to defeat. If Iran negotiates now with the US under weakness, nothing but humiliation will result. They believe Iran must resist the US pressures and, at the same time, strengthen its relations with the East, specifically with China and Russia, to make the sanctions ineffective.

However, fundamentalists have significantly lost most of their constituency. Their political base has shrunk to about 20% of the population supporting them. In contrast, reformists, despite winning the election, do not have a large political base. Some of those who voted for Pezeshkian actually wanted to go against the fundamentalists. Khamenei tries to balance the two factions to preserve his regime and possibly make his son Mojtaba his successor.

In the meantime, anti-clerical rule is once again on the rise. Two Supreme Court Islamic cleric judges, Mohammad Moghiseh and Ali Razini, were killed by the court butler in their office in Tehran on January 18, 2025. Another Judge, Mohammad Miri, was injured. The attacker committed suicide.

Pezeshkian at the United Nations

In September 2024, Pezeshkian came to New York City to attend the 79th session of the United Nations annual General Assembly meeting.   He was accompanied by some members of his administration, including Mohammad Javad Zarif and Abbas Araghchi, who had negotiated the defunct nuclear deal in 2015. On September 23, Pezeshkian, at a press conference with American media representatives, said, “We are ready to give up all our weapons, provided that Israel does the same.” The words he used in his talks regarding Israelcaused backlash at home and were not consistent with the views of clerics in Tehran, who consider the necessity of the destruction of the illegal Zionist regime in the region.

In the meeting with officials of the American media, he said, “I don’t know politics”, and “I don’t understand politics.” Daily Kayhan wrote: “Evidence shows that Mr. President does not have much expertise in politics. At the same time, being knowledgeable of politics and being aware of the rules of political affairs is one of the most important conditions that should exist in a president. According to the current laws, the President is selected out of the country’s political men.”  The President’s lack of expertise and naïve views in international affairs led to an embarrassing situation for a regime that considers itself a revolutionary government.

Yet, on September 24, 2024, Pezeshkian, in his speech at the UN General Assembly, stated that the Iranian government is ready to “engage with all parties to the JCPOA.” After his speech at the UN, a ceremonial dinner of his delegation was held at the expensive “Millennium Hilton” hotel in New York. Some of the invited guests were well-known lobbyists of the Islamic Republic in America. A few of them work for the International Crisis Group (ICG), a think tank organization that George Soros initially funded its establishment and continues to support. The Crisis Group played an essential role in imposing the disastrous JCPOA on Iran, which cost the nation billions of dollars and resulted in no benefits. ICG aims to bring about a new shape of the Islamic Republic that can join the world capitalist system. Iranian compradors led by Mohammad Javad Zarif are working on such a plan.

Because of his lack of knowledge of politics and international affairs, Pezeshkian appointed Mohammad Javad Zarif as his strategic vice president. However, the Parliament members criticized Zarif’s appointment because his children are US citizens. Shortly after, Zarif resigned but later returned to work by participating in government meetings. Pezeshkian claimed that he had obtained permission from the heads of the other two branches to retain Zarif in his position. The members of parliament had voted on and approved the case of Zarif’s illegal appointment, which must be referred to the judiciary to act for his removal. 154 MPs sent a letter to the parliament head, Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf, asking him to pursue the case through the judiciary to remove Zarif from his position. However, Ghalibaf, a family relative of the religious Leader Ali Khamenei, refused to implement the MP’s request, apparently by Khamenei’s order. That meant the parliament abandoned its parliamentary oversight.


Zarif at the World Economic Forum

Yet, the situation became more intense when Zarif attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January 2025. In an interview with Farid Zakaria, Zarif tried to demonize the fundamentalists by discussing some issues they have advocated. Included was Hejab, which is a symbol of the fundamentalist’s domination over women. Zarif said the Islamic Republic tolerates the lack of veiling. He also made an implicit reference to Hamas’s October 7th operation against Israel, stating that the attack had destroyed the chance of reviving the 2015 nuclear deal. Subsequently, the National Security Committee of Parliament has called for his dismissal.

Akbar E. Torbat is the author of “Politics of Oil and Nuclear Technology in Iran,” Palgrave Macmillan (2020). Farsi translation of the book is available here

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