Iran’s internal politics have sharpened into a potentially destabilising contest as hawkish elements press for punitive action against former president Hassan Rouhani amid mounting U.S. military pressure in the region. Public rhetoric from hardliners has hardened into rare and explicit calls — including proposals to execute Rouhani — reflecting a volatile mixture of nationalist outrage and factional scoring at a moment of external threat.
The immediate backdrop is a stepped‑up American deployment to the Persian Gulf and nearby waters, including carrier strike groups and missile‑capable escorts, accompanied by unusually blunt warnings from the U.S. administration. That external pressure has not unified Iran’s polity; instead, it has amplified an existing rift between hardliners who favour confrontation and reformists who push for diplomatic de‑escalation.
Hardline voices now argue that negotiations merely buy Washington time to strengthen its military posture and that only forceful resistance will protect Iran’s sovereignty. These factions have framed outspoken reformists and former officials such as Rouhani as traitors whose alleged conciliatory stance threatens national survival, a narrative that has fed efforts to criminalise and even physically eliminate political opponents.
Reformist currents, by contrast, continue to advocate diplomatic engagement and strategic flexibility to avoid catastrophic conflict. Rouhani’s calls for change and measured diplomacy are presented by his supporters as a pragmatic response to overwhelming material asymmetry with the U.S. and a way to preserve economic and social space at home; to hardliners they read as capitulation.
At the centre of the tug‑of‑war is the Supreme Leader, whose endorsement can decisively tilt internal calculations. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s health and political longevity are frequently debated in Tehran; his capacity to balance competing power blocs and repress extra‑institutional violence will determine whether the dispute remains rhetorical or becomes existential for the regime.
If confrontation with Washington or Israel escalates into kinetic incidents, hardliners are likely to consolidate power by invoking national unity and emergency measures, shrinking the space for reformist policy and legal protections. Conversely, a successful diplomatic thaw would bolster reformists but risks provoking a backlash from conservative security elites who see negotiation as a strategic weakness.
The regional dimension compounds the domestic stakes. Increased Israeli activity and signals that the United States might take military action create incentives for Iran’s hardline commanders to seize the initiative abroad to shore up legitimacy at home. That dynamic risks entangling proxies and allies across the Levant and Gulf in a broader confrontation with unpredictable spill‑over effects.
For international audiences, the significance is clear: factional crises within Tehran occur not in a vacuum but against a fraught security environment. Whether through escalation, negotiated restraint, or a brittle compromise struck by the Supreme Leader, Iran’s internal politics will shape near‑term risks to regional stability, the trajectory of nuclear diplomacy, and the prospects for sanctions relief or renewed isolation.