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The clerical dictatorship’s own outlets are sounding the alarm over deepening splits at the top, even as influential figures unleash fresh attacks on those associated with engagement with the United States. Beneath the surface, the leadership fears that any concessions to the West at the negotiating table would further demoralize its already weakened forces and embolden a restless population ahead of potential new uprisings. The combined effect is a portrait of a power structure fraying under pressure—politically, strategically, and administratively—while scrambling to impose message discipline and criminalize dissent.
An editorial on the Supreme Leader’s website, dated August 18, urges absolute unanimity among officials and warns that any divergent messaging on “sensitive” files—especially the nuclear program—“serves the enemy.” Under the headline “Don’t load the enemy’s magazine,” it declares: “If unity and one voice on key national issues were necessary last summer, in the present circumstances they are vital and decisive.” Citing Ali Khamenei’s earlier admonition that “a single voice must be heard” from state institutions, the piece labels contrary views on enrichment and policy—“repeating the dictated list of America”—as aiding adversaries “in this wartime ceasefire,” and concludes that echoing “the enemy’s dictation” is a serious blow to regime interests.
On the same theme, Judiciary chief Gholamhossein Ejei warned officials on the same day to “watch their words and actions,” framing internal disputes as ammunition for foreign psychological operations. By stressing “unity and national cohesion” and condemning those who see “solutions in America,” Ejei tacitly acknowledges factional conflict over strategy—between those seeking a negotiated exit from crisis and those doubling down on confrontation. Calls to rally “around the axis of the Supreme Leader” read less like confident leadership than an admission that central control is slipping.
Rival Factions in #Iran Turn on Each Other as Dread of Opposition Intensifieshttps://t.co/2EKAzCkyGT
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) August 19, 2025
The knife fight over talks with Washington has turned openly punitive. A August 17 package in IRGC-aligned press and Kayhan castigates former regime president Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif—“the men who dragged Iran to the negotiating table”—for producing “nothing but the snapback mechanism and multilayered sanctions.” The coverage mocks proposals like Zarif’s call for a “non-aggression pact” and Qaem-Panah’s suggestion to negotiate “so there is no new war,” branding the peace-versus-war framing a “false binary” and dismissing its advocates as naïve or worse.
Kayhan snarls: “Who but these gentlemen, with extreme simplification, dragged Iran to a negotiation that yielded ‘the snapback mechanism’ and the return of layered sanctions and war?” In parallel, the leader’s site warns that “noisy atmospherics against officials” sow instability and “should not gift the enemy” what it has failed to win on the battlefield.
Amid the propaganda barrage, cracks widen from inside the system. Mohammad-Hasan Asafari, a former member of parliament, delivers a rare insider admission of systemic failure: unqualified appointments “have the color and smell of infiltration” and fuel popular anger; security is “so lax” that enemies can collect information by “any tool”; and filtering the internet is a dead end—“we cannot fight technology under the pretext of countering infiltration.” These statements puncture the regime’s cultivated image of total control and expose a leadership split even over how to police society.
The Real Goal of #Iran’s Negotiations: Surviving, Not Settling https://t.co/TaSPUkGx6K
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) January 29, 2025
Taken together, the texts reveal a regime consumed by three overlapping crises. First, a crisis of cohesion: the demand for “one voice” and threats against deviation underscore that elite unity is no longer enforceable by fiat. Second, a crisis of strategy: the system cannot reconcile hardline escalation with mounting pressure to negotiate, so it scapegoats past negotiators while gagging present dissent. Third, a crisis of capacity: insider testimony about infiltration, managerial incompetence, and security laxity confirms that the state’s coercive and administrative machinery is corroding from within.
The harsher the rhetoric from the power centers, the clearer the weakness they’re trying to conceal. By branding policy debate as treachery and purging space for dissent, the clerical dictatorship is not solving its fractures—it is broadcasting them.