The US and Iran have returned to the brink of conflict after an exchange of strikes on July 7, just three weeks after the two sides had signed a framework deal to end their hostilities. In comments made ahead of the Nato summit in Turkey, Donald Trump declared the ceasefire “over” and added that further talks would be “a waste of time”.
This development will be welcomed by some members of the Iranian political system who have resisted the agreement. The vice-chairman of the Iranian parliament’s National Security Commission, Mahmoud Nabavian, for example, warned in June that the deal would turn Iran into a “colony of the United States”.
Iranian MP Kamran Ghazanfari, meanwhile, referred to government claims that Iran had won the war as a “blatant lie”. He accused the Iranian parliament speaker and chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, of keeping parliament closed to protect the government and negotiators from criticism.
Nabavian and Ghazanfari are part of what is known in the west as the “hardline” faction of Iranian politics.
Hardliners are usually defined as members of the Iranian elite who defend the religious principles of the 1979 revolution and reject social liberalisation and diplomatic engagement with western nations. However, in reality, the stance of hardliners is more varied than the label suggests.
The hardliners are a loose alignment of several constituencies. These include the Paydari Front in parliament, to which Nabavian and Ghazanfari belong, as well as sections of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the economic conglomerates linked to it.
They also include the Friday prayer network of state-appointed clerics, as well as members of the Iranian judiciary and political circles around Saeed Jalili and other influential figures. Jalili served as secretary of Iran’s top security policymaking body, the Supreme National Security Council, from 2007 to 2013.
These groups carry distinct economic and political interests alongside their revolutionary commitments. IRGC commercial circles, for instance, have played a key role in the smuggling routes, currency arbitrage and informal trade networks that have flourished while Iran has been cut off from global financial systems.
A coalition, not a bloc
Where the hardliners are most aligned is on the nuclear file, maintaining the belief that Iran should develop a nuclear deterrent. They have also traditionally opposed direct engagement with Washington. But on various other foreign policy and domestic issues, hardliners have demonstrated flexibility.
Iran’s Beijing-brokered rapprochement with Saudi Arabia in 2023, for example, was endorsed and implemented by the hardliner-dominated government of Ebrahim Raisi. This rapprochement restored diplomatic relations between the two countries after seven years of severed ties and proxy confrontation.
IRGC commanders also accepted the deal, despite their longstanding ideological hostility to Saudi Arabia’s US-aligned Sunni monarchy. At that time, they calculated that regional deescalation served their interests better than continued proxy conflict in Yemen and the broader Middle East.
On social policy, hardliners are openly divided. Iran’s morality police was disbanded in December 2022 after protests following the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested for allegedly violating mandatory hijab laws. The disbandment was announced by Iran’s general prosecutor, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, who is himself a hardline cleric.
Within days, however, Iranian state media reported that no formal decision to disband the morality police had been taken. Under the chief justice, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, the judiciary continued to prosecute women and businesses under the hijab law through 2023. And Paydari parliamentarians publicly demanded that enforcement continue.
In April 2024, the authorities then launched the Noor plan with explicit backing from Mohseni-Ejei and the Paydari Front. The plan intensified hijab enforcement. However, implementation has been uneven. Crackdowns have lasted weeks before easing, provincial cities have applied the plan inconsistently and local prosecutors have given businesses contradictory instructions.
The IRGC has also been split. Elements of Iranian intelligence and law enforcement, whose authority was formally expanded under the 2023 hijab and chastity bill, have backed sustained enforcement. But some current and former commanders have expressed concern about the operational limits of heavy-handed crackdowns.
Raising the cost
Where the hardliners have historically been most effective is in constraining Iran’s room to negotiate with the US – whether through legislation, institutional vetoes or by making engagement politically difficult.
In 2015, for example, Iran signed the joint comprehensive plan of action (JCPOA) with the US and other world powers. Under this agreement, Iran agreed to limit its nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.
Iran’s Guardian Council, a 12-member clerical and legal body that vets all legislation in the country, subsequently blocked ratification of two conventions by the Financial Action Task Force, the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog. They believed compliance with global rules to stop money laundering and terrorist funding would weaken Iran’s regional influence.
The move ensured international banks would not process Iranian transactions even after sanctions were lifted, depriving the JCPOA of much of the economic relief Iran’s pragmatist president at the time, Hassan Rouhani, had promised.
Hardliners also contributed to the breakdown of diplomacy between Iran and the US in 2024 and 2025. Kayhan, a newspaper aligned with the Iranian supreme leader’s office, ran editorials accusing the negotiating team of treason. The judiciary also maintained pressure on advisers around the talks.
However, there are signs that the balance is changing. The Supreme National Security Council apparently approved the recent peace deal with the US before it was authorised by Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei. According to reports, the deal passed with a majority well above the required three-quarters threshold. Some accounts suggest all but one member voted in favour.
The parliamentary picture has also shifted. Ghalibaf, who has been leading the negotiations, secured 235 votes to extend his speakership in May. The Paydari-backed challenger took only 29 votes. The question now is not whether hardliners will derail diplomacy, but which factions have concluded that obstruction costs more than it pays.
Farhang Morady does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.