When Iran’s military announced on Monday that it had ended a round of strikes against Israel, the Raja News site had something to say about it.
Iran vowed to respond directly to any further Israeli strikes, including in southern Lebanon, but that needed to be seen to be believed, the hardline news site posted on X.
Should Iran follow through on its pledge, it would provide “lasting security” for both Iran and Lebanon, Raja News claimed. That would only be achieved when the will to fight “is also decisively demonstrated on the ground”, the outlet added.
Raja News is closely linked to Iran’s ultraconservative political movement, at the extreme of right-wingers in Iran, where three months of war with the US and Israel have brought a new, harder-line leadership class to the fore.
Many of them are the more extreme members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s most powerful military force. They are willing to use military coercion more than previous generations of leaders, many of whom have been killed during the war.
The ultraconservatives “are really involved in what the IRGC does”, a political observer in Tehran said.
Raja News’ statement encapsulated the ultraconservatives’ position on how the conflict should continue. They believe themselves to be in a victorious position, willing and able to reassert deterrence through displays of military power. They oppose any negotiations with the US, let alone compromising in them over issues such as control of the Strait of Hormuz or Iran’s nuclear programme.
Who are the hardliners and what do they want?
The ultraconservatives are represented in parliament by the Jebhe-ye Paydari (the Stability Front) and their allies, including the Iran Morning Front (Jebhe-ye Sobh-e Iran) – hardline groups that have emerged out of other ultraconservative formations over the past two decades.
Iranians who oppose them describe the ultraconservatives as unwilling to tolerate any political or social beliefs that differ from their own.
“It seems weird when you don't live in a place like this,” Fereshteh, a resident of Tehran, told The National. “But they think they are right about everything.” Like others, she spoke using a pseudonym for security reasons.
Vocal ultraconservative lawmakers include Amir Hossein Sabeti of the Stability Front, who opposes negotiations with Washington. After the US attacked positions in southern Iran on Tuesday, Washington was “not even willing to keep up appearances during the negotiations and refrain from war and aggression”, he said. The outcome of negotiations is “already clear in advance to any rational person” and the armed forces would “deliver the necessary response to the Yankees on the battlefield” he said.
“He’s like the Iranian Ben Shapiro,” Kaveh, a resident of a city in central Iran, said of Mr Sabeti. He was referring to the American political commentator who opposes abortion and gun control and supports capital punishment.
Kaveh believes that a deal with the US would mean a healthier domestic economy and some level of connection to the world economic system. The ultraconservatives oppose this because it would take away their ability to monopolise a sanctioned and isolated country. “It’s simple and sad at the same time,” he told The National.
Mr Sabeti did not respond to a request for comment from The National.
Ultraconservatives' presence across state
More significant than their presence in the Iranian parliament is the ultraconservatives’ sway over the IRGC, judiciary and Supreme National Security Council, The council is responsible for overseeing Iran's defence, security and nuclear policies.
The recently appointed Supreme National Security Council chief, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, is an IRGC veteran whose willingness to preserve the system through coercion, control and military escalation appears to have few limits.
The US and Israel face “hell” in the Middle East if they act against Iran again, Mr Zolghadr said in a statement after Israel's strikes on Monday. Iran's ability to oppose Israel's actions has “changed the world's security system”, he claimed.
Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei is a known hardliner and has overseen a wartime crackdown on any form of dissent. That has resulted in the executions of several people convicted of participating in January’s countrywide anti-government protest movement, which was fatally suppressed by security forces.
Ultraconservatives use the streets to project an image of popular support with nightly pro-government rallies.
“They go round making a lot of noise and annoying people late at night,” Fereshteh in Tehran said. “They block the traffic, and sometimes people who need ambulances get stuck.”
Clashes complicate talks
The ultraconservatives have long clashed with reformist politicians who advocate greater engagement with the West and expanding civil liberties. Reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian has been on the receiving end of blunt messages from Raja News and other ultraconservatives, who criticised his push back against negative coverage on state media. “Mr President, don't strike – you're no good at it at all,” Raja News said on X.
As well as outlets such as Raja News, ultraconservatives have sway over state media. Vahid Jalili, the brother of former Paydari-affiliated presidential candidate Saeed Jalili, is a senior state broadcaster executive. Mr Jalili is one of the key long-standing regime figures who has not been killed in the war.
Critically, the hardliners have also come into conflict with other Principalist politicians – the broad name given to the political right wing that emerged in Iran following the 1979 revolution.
They include powerful figures such as the Speaker of Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has been leading indirect negotiations with the US via Pakistan. The talks aim to reach a memorandum of understanding that would extend the fragile ceasefire and pave the way for more substantive negotiations and an agreement over Iran’s nuclear programme.
Mr Ghalibaf has in recent days been messaging that negotiations and military force should coexist, in an apparent attempt to convince sceptics of the need to talk as well as fight.
“We are not going to either wage war or negotiate. Rather, we will wage war at the right time and negotiate at the right time,” he said in an audio message broadcast on Monday. “This is how we can defeat the enemy.” The goal was to achieve lasting security, not to normalise relations with the US, he insisted.
Some Iranian ultraconservatives, such as MP Mahmoud Nabavian, have been pounding out messages on X, claiming that no deal will be good enough unless it satisfies maximalist demands over Iran's continued control over the Strait of Hormuz, unfreezing of billions of dollars of funds held abroad and allows sanctions relief before significant commitments from Iran’s side.
Among a potential agreement’s “fundamental flaws”, Mr Nabavian said this week, are tying Iran’s receipt of benefits to talks progressing towards a final agreement “whose timing is unclear” and “relinquishing control over managing” the strait.
Military escalation not negotiation
The IRGC’s leadership also appears more willing to escalate military action than engage in negotiation, as seen in the past two weeks with volleys of strikes exchanged between Iran and both the US and Israel. IRGC commander-in-chief Ahmad Vahidi succeeded Mohammad Pakpour when the latter was killed in an air strike at the beginning of the war, and he opposes Mr Ghalibaf on engaging with the US.
“There is a division between Vahidi and his inner circle and members of Iran‘s negotiating team over Iran’s negotiation policy,” the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War reported in April.
All of this leaves Iran’s negotiators in a difficult position. They need to appease the ultraconservatives to a certain extent, while US President Donald Trump has warned that not reaching a deal would lead to a resumption of full-blown war. The maximalist Iranian demands are unpalatable to the US, which wants Iran to open up the Strait of Hormuz and make commitments over its nuclear programme.
While the ultraconservatives claim a “bring it on”-like confidence around the prospect of renewed conflict, in reality, another round of intense fighting would deal a further blow to Iran’s already crippled economy. It would further fuel social anger at authorities who many Iranians already feel cannot meet their needs. It would also further strain Iran’s relations with neighbours in the Gulf, Turkey and Azerbaijan, all of whom have opposed conflict and advocated for a diplomatic exit.
The ability of hardliners to completely control the course of any negotiations should also not be overestimated, analysts say.
“They're making quite a lot of noise,” a second political observer in Tehran told The National, on condition of anonymity. “But in the actual decision-making arena, hardliners rarely get what they want.”
It is difficult to be sure how much the ultraconservatives represent a barrier to reaching even the initial memorandum of understanding, according to Raz Zimmt, director of Iran research at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
The current Iranian leadership, especially supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, wants to see that any memorandum of understanding has the support of the regime’s ideological base, “of which the Stability Front is an important component”, Mr Zimmt told The National. “In the context of war, the regime does not want to risk messing with internal cohesion by provoking criticism from Iran's ultraradical factions.”
At the same time, if Iran’s main centres of power reach consensus on a deal, “it is not clear how much radical figures such as Saeed Jalili can actually do to derail it”, he added.
Attempts to control Iranians’ lives
Hardline radicals often represent how Iran is portrayed to the wider world – a conservatively dressed society that shouts “death to America”, burns Israeli flags and opposes a nuclear agreement with the US. They attempt to enforce strict social restrictions on Iranians, including over how they dress, who they socialise with, what media they access, and how they live their lives.
It is hard to gauge exactly how much support they have in society, where many Iranians rail against the stereotypical images of ultraconservatives often used to portray their country abroad. Anecdotally, many anti-regime Iranians say government supporters overall make up less than 25 per cent of the country’s population. Those espousing the ultraconservative view are even fewer.
Hardline candidate Saeed Jalili lost the 2024 presidential election to reformist Mr Pezeshkian, winning around 13.5 million votes to Mr Pezeshkian’s 16.3 million. The turnout was around 40 per cent, the lowest of any modern presidential election in Iran, indicating significant apathy towards the political system. Strict regulations ban many candidates from running in the country's elections.
Many Iranians see the ultraconservatives as everything that is wrong with their country. They loathe their brand of nationalist Islam, which they see as depriving ordinary Iranians of social and political freedoms, as well as from connection with the world, while enriching and empowering a conservative elite.
Moderate is all relative, and many Iranians also oppose the less hardline conservatives, as well as the reformists, who they see as upholding an oppressive system of government and failing to reform it. During the war, Mr Pezeshkian’s government ministers have been sidelined from decision-making. His statements are largely confined to confronting domestic issues such as ensuring food and medicine supplies, and encouraging Iranians to conserve energy to minimise shortages.
Some Iranians flout the rules and social codes that ultraconservatives attempt to impose. Many women have in recent months stopped wearing the compulsory hijab and modest clothing, and connect to internet sites banned inside Iran through virtual private networks. Last year, authorities widened restrictions on walking pet dogs. Hardliners see keeping the animals as a western import and harmful to Islamic values. Many Iranians ignore the curbs.
But they still report significant efforts by hardliners to control their behaviour. Loudspeaker announcements in recent days have repeatedly warned women that wearing the hijab is “mandatory in all spaces”, women’s rights activist Najmeh Vahedi said in an Instagram post on Tuesday.
“This government, in all conditions and situations, whether in war or in peace, is the only group that has the energy and forces to control and humiliate. We women do not agree with the values of this government,” she said.
For Fereshteh, the ultraconservative mindset blooms from a blindness to the hurdles it places in Iranians' lives. “They don't ask themselves: 'Why do we have to be isolated from the world? Why do we have to live under sanctions. Why does our currency have to be worthless? Why can't we live like in other countries?'”
