As Washington and Tehran rush to try and strike a deal to end the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, the two sides are taking vastly different approaches in public messaging.
For the past several weeks, President Donald Trump has said the United States is on the verge of striking a deal on favorable terms, and downplayed the threat posed by Iran. U.S. messaging has focused on calming global markets and keeping gas prices at a reasonable level, particularly before the midterm elections.
Iran’s messaging could hardly be more different. In domestic and internationally-focused propaganda, Tehran has remained as belligerent as it was during combat operations. State news organizations and national leaders have all scoffed at suggestions that a deal is close, and pledged that the regime is ready for a return to fighting.
On Friday, as Trump implied a deal to end the war was imminent, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Ghalibaf threatened a return to war. He said Iran seizes “concessions not through dialogue, but with missiles; in negotiations, we merely make them understand.”
“The winner of any agreement is the one who is better prepared for war from the day after,” he added.
Mohsen Rezaee, a senior commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and adviser to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, went a step further, suggesting that if the U.S. naval blockade continued, Iran would have to break it through force.
“We will force America to end the naval blockade; either through negotiation, or in case of resistance, through direct action,” he said.
His comments are particularly notable as the naval front was the most one-sided loss of a historically one-sided war. The U.S. sank Iran’s entire conventional navy, much of its unconventional navy, and laid waste to naval bases across the country, all while Iran failed to score a single hit against any U.S. warship.
A return to open conflict would likely see a repeat of these lopsided losses, but Tehran publicly appears much more eager to resume fighting than its U.S. counterpart.
Part of the reason could be simple bluffing: Iran’s greatest card is its stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, and it believes it has the political willpower to wait out Trump, who is eager to decrease the economic costs ahead of the midterm elections. While the war and U.S. blockade have ravaged Iran’s already terminally struggling economy, the Guards running the country may have calculated that, though the economic damage to the U.S. is far less than to Iran, the democratic structure of the U.S. means it can’t weather as great losses as Iran can.
The ideological transformation of the Iranian government could also play a key role. Iran’s new national security chief, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, is believed to be one of the most influential figures in Iran. He’s considered one of the most extremist members of the Iranian government — the Wall Street Journal reported that former Quds Force leader Qasem Soleimani found him so radical that he temporarily quit the force in protest over his radicalism.
Rezaee is also listed as one of the most influential figures in the Iranian government and holds similarly extremist views. The group may fully believe they have the upper hand over the U.S. and are in a position to implement maximalist demands.
“The more extreme group in the IRGC are taking charge,” Saeid Golkar, an expert in Iran’s security services at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, told the Wall Street Journal last month. “That makes the prolongation of the conflict more likely.”
The outlet also outlined the rise of Mahdism in Iran’s ruling circles — an apocalyptic interpretation of Islam which views the end times as imminent. Kasra Aarabi, an expert on the Guard at United Against Nuclear Iran, said Iran’s actions suggest many of those in charge are genuine believers.
“How much of this is empty narrative, how much is true belief? If you look at their behavior, you can tell that they are guided by the principles of their ideology,” he said. “The apocalyptic doctrine of Mahdism has guided the regime’s wartime behavior, and has provided justification for actions that could otherwise be viewed as irrational.”
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Some in Tehran may also see defiance against the U.S. as the key to their survival. The war came at an all-time low point for the Islamic government, having just massacred tens of thousands of protesters to suppress the greatest threat to their power since the 1979 revolution. A focus on combating the U.S. and Israel could cause a “rally ’round the flag” effect, appealing to patriotic sentiment in Iranians otherwise angry about the government’s social and economic policies.
Trump has also projected strength in his messaging — he frequently stresses that Iran has been reduced to a nonentity militarily, and that a deal would just be formalizing the reality on the ground. Messaging from the White House in recent weeks, however, has been more focused on the imminence of a deal, showing signs of anxiety over economic costs.