A public clash between hardline Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and a prominent ultraconservative figure has exposed growing divisions within Iran's regime over how the country should respond to the war with the US.
The dispute between Mr Ghalibaf and Hossein Shariatmadari, the editor-in-chief of the Kayhan newspaper, comes with fighting largely paused but no diplomatic breakthrough in sight.
At the centre of the debate is the future of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint for global energy supplies.
Mr Shariatmadari, a prominent figure appointed directly by late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, opened the exchange on Tuesday with a warning to Mr Ghalibaf.
In a Kayhan column, he praised the Speaker's record as a wartime commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, police chief, Tehran mayor and political official. But he warned that western-orientated groups and reformists were seizing on some of Mr Ghalibaf's recent comments on negotiations, quoting him to suggest his base was drifting from revolutionary forces towards their camp.
The Kayhan editor warned that even a surface-level overlap, “apparent, and not genuine”, between Mr Ghalibaf's recent positions and those of western-orientated forces risked feeding that impression.
Iran's Parliament Speaker
“The Ghalibaf we know,” Mr Shariatmadari said, does not tremble under enemy pressure. He advised Mr Ghalibaf to sharpen his revolutionary position to head off “exploitation and malicious interpretations”.
Mr Ghalibaf responded on Wednesday with a two-page open letter to Mr Shariatmadari.
He thanked him for what he called a “brotherly admonition”, but rejected the suggestion that advocating negotiations amounted to a retreat from the principles of resistance.
“Negotiation … has neither intrinsic value nor is it taboo. It is neither absolutely good nor absolutely evil,” Mr Ghalibaf wrote. Its purpose, he said, was to advance national interests, secure Iran’s rights and “consolidate the achievements of resistance”.
“Talk when necessary, and fight when necessary,” he wrote.
'Revolutionary position'
Mr Ghalibaf also rejected the idea that negotiating with an enemy necessarily meant backing down.
“Any rational action from a revolutionary position, any strong negotiation, or any effort to secure the rights of the people from the enemy must not be wrongly defined as compromise and passivity,” he said.
The Speaker also pushed back against what he described as efforts to draw political conclusions from his comments on negotiations, warning against “hasty interpretations” that could weaken the negotiating team.
The exchange highlights a broader debate inside Iran's regime over what comes next as the conflict moves into a different phase.
US President Donald Trump has shifted from military action towards economic pressure, imposing tougher sanctions on countries that continue trading with Iran. He has also said he is in no hurry to return to negotiations.
That has raised the stakes around Tehran’s leverage over the Strait of Hormuz, where attacks on shipping blamed on Iran have kept traffic near to a standstill.
Iran has used control over access to the waterway as a bargaining tool, and President Masoud Pezeshkian has argued that Tehran should seek to end the war while it remains in a position of strength.
“It is better that we bring the war to an end now as we are in a position of power and dignity,” Mr Pezeshkian said last week.
Mr Ghalibaf has similarly stressed the need to protect Iran’s domestic economy and political cohesion.
Sensitive moment
The head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Mohsen Rezaei, has taken a harder line.
“If the economic war continues, not a single drop of oil will be exported,” Mr Rezaei said, raising the prospect of further restrictions on energy flows that could extend even beyond the Gulf.
The competing positions come as diplomacy gathers pace after the US unveiled sweeping sanctions against Iran on Monday.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman is due in Tehran on Thursday to discuss de-escalation and efforts to restore a diplomatic channel between Iran and the US.
Doha is also pushing for freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and a return to the status quo that existed before the war.
Iran has been discussing arrangements with Oman for the resumption of some commercial traffic, while maintaining that a full reopening depends on wider issues with Washington, including sanctions relief.
The visit therefore comes at a sensitive moment, with Iranian officials offering differing views on the way forward.
Those differences will form part of the backdrop to Qatar’s talks in Tehran, with the future of the Strait of Hormuz, the economic cost of continued restrictions and the possibility of renewed Iran-US negotiations among the central issues.
Mr Ghalibaf’s letter reflects a deeper disagreement over how Iran’s revolutionary system should respond when military pressure gives way to diplomacy.
He said the disagreement “with those who, instead of relying on the power of the people, look to the hands of the enemy … is not merely tactical, but fundamental”.
