As Trump's war grinds on, Iran's leaders are fighting over the endgame
The last time Iran stood at this crossroads, its leaders chose more war. More than four decades ago, after months of setbacks against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, a surprise offensive by young Iranian troops turned the battlefield around. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then supreme leader, could have consolidated the gain. Instead he pushed to topple Saddam and to teach future enemies a lesson: war with Iran will carry a heavy price. That decision turned a pivotal moment into a six-year war of attrition that killed hundreds of thousands and shaped the Islamic Republic's political DNA.
Now Tehran faces the same choice in a different war. After six months of US-Israeli pressure, the regime's factions all claim victory. But they are deeply split over what victory means — and whether the moment has come to negotiate.
The pragmatists, led by President Masoud Pezeshkian, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, argue that a war-battered economy, a grinding US naval blockade and ruined infrastructure are closing the window for a deal from strength. They sense a chance to consolidate Iran's gains through diplomacy, though talks have so far made little progress. Ending the 47-year confrontation with Washington, they say, is the surest way to lift domestic crises and save the system from isolation.
“The war must end at some point,” Pezeshkian said this month. “It would be better to end it today, while we are in a position of strength and dignity, and the entire world acknowledges our victory.”
The hardline camp sees things differently. Its ideology is rooted in a half-century of distrust toward Washington. To the old revolutionary guard, this war is an imposed war, much like Iraq's attack in the 1980s; the winner will be the side that can endure, not the one with more firepower. They believe Trump's war has vindicated their warnings, while Pezeshkian — a president who took office by chance after his hardline predecessor died in a helicopter crash — has only strengthened their case. His signature beside Trump's on the June ceasefire agreement has made him a target for every accusation of weakness and failure.
“They see the US as a deeply untrustworthy actor ... and have been burnt so many times by Trump himself that they think this is exactly what will happen again,” said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House in London. “In their minds, by not losing, they've won. They're not just trying to win a better deal from Washington; they're looking for internal longevity in their competition with their opponents.”
The split has become so raw that hardliners openly accuse government officials of manufacturing the economic crisis to push the public toward a deal. Some claim fuel shortages were engineered; a few allege a coup is being staged.
“Economically, are we really in a dead end, or are you just projecting a dead end?” asked hardline lawmaker Mohammad-Manan Raisi. “It has all been blamed on the war, while it is not all related to the war.”
Hardliners point to the 2015 nuclear deal with the Obama administration, which Trump later tore up, and to two US attacks on Iran that occurred while talks were underway. They argue that Iran's security has come not from diplomacy but from missiles, drones, armed regional proxies and a Shia religious narrative of resistance. They control key newspapers, state broadcasters, protest networks and powerful voices inside the military, and they believe they can outlast the American president.
“Hardliners concluded they will achieve no deal with Trump,” Vakil said. “They think they can wear him down and play for time to weaken him by extending economic pain.”
Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who came to power after his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in US-Israeli strikes at the start of the war, has remained in hiding. He appears wary of picking a side while trying to consolidate his authority. On Friday he praised the government's performance under pressure but warned officials against dwelling on the country's weaknesses, saying that would embolden enemies and demoralize allies.
With no clear word from the top, hardliners are pressing ahead. On Thursday, lawmaker Kamran Ghazanfari told parliament that supporters of a deal had turned their backs on the martyred former supreme leader. “They want to prepare public opinion to accept an agreement and a humiliating peace,” he said. “Yet the enemy has repeatedly shown that no matter how many concessions we make, no matter how much we retreat, it will never be satisfied and will continue to demand other things. It will settle for nothing less than our complete surrender.”
Trump's own behavior has complicated the calculation. Threats and signals of openness arrive in quick succession, feeding the paranoia inside Iran's system and making it harder for moderates to argue that Washington can be trusted at the table.
The stakes go far beyond the negotiating room. A shift toward pragmatists could open the door to de-escalation, revive oil exports and ease a regional crisis. A hardline victory would mean more confrontation, more pressure on Gulf shipping lanes and a longer period of uncertainty for the Middle East. Six months after the war began, the question in Tehran is no longer simply who is winning. It is whether the Islamic Republic's next phase will be defined by diplomacy or by defiance — and which faction gets to decide.