Iran Regime Fractures as Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Hardliners Clash Over US Strategy

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 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. However, 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 cautioned that even a surface-level overlap between Mr Ghalibaf's recent positions and those of western-orientated forces risked feeding that impression.

Mr Ghalibaf responded 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, adding that its purpose was to advance national interests, secure Iran’s rights and consolidate the achievements of resistance. “Talk when necessary, and fight when necessary,” he stated.

The Speaker also pushed back against efforts to draw political conclusions from his comments, warning against hasty interpretations that could weaken the negotiating team. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has shifted from military action towards economic pressure, imposing tougher sanctions on countries that continue trading with Iran and stating 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. President Masozd Pezeshkian has argued that Tehran should seek to end the war while it remains in a position of strength, while the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Mohsen Rezaei, has taken a harder line, warning that not a single drop of oil will be exported if the economic war continues.

As diplomacy gathers pace following sweeping US sanctions, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman is due in Tehran to discuss de-escalation and efforts to restore a diplomatic channel between Iran and the US. Doha is pushing for freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, while Iran has discussed commercial traffic arrangements with Oman, highlighting deep internal disagreements within the Iranian regime over the way forward.