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Statements from Iranian officials over the past week reveal a regime increasingly trapped in paranoia and hysteria. While addressing different issues—nuclear negotiations, internal divisions, media control, and national security—they all expose a ruling elite that feels vulnerable and besieged. The language of Iran’s top clerics and officials is not that of a stable government but of a fragile regime on the defensive, fearful of losing control over its own ranks and the country.
On February 18, Ahmad Khatami, a senior cleric in the Assembly of Experts, dismissed any possibility of negotiations with the United States, saying “Negotiation means give-and-take. Negotiating with the U.S. will not lower the dollar. It will definitely make the country’s problems worse.”
On February 14, Khatami’s rhetoric was even fiercer, taking direct aim at Donald Trump, calling him “a madman” and insisting that the “maximum pressure campaign has been ongoing for 45 years and has achieved nothing.” He ranted against Trump’s designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization, claiming Iran’s armed forces were “fearless warriors” and leading his audience in chants of “Death to America, Death to Israel, Death to the Hypocrites.”
Khamenei’s Speech Reveals His Deepest Fear: The #Iranian Peoplehttps://t.co/pcr6apDfMu
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) February 18, 2025
Ahmad Alamolhoda, the Supreme Leader’s representative in Mashhad, followed a similar script on February 14, warning that “America is the devil” and insisting that any talks with Washington are nothing but a “trap.” His argument was self-contradictory. He claimed that Iran is “the most negotiation-friendly country in the world”—except when it comes to the U.S. What this actually reveals is not strength, but fear. A government that believes it will collapse under the pressure of a simple conversation is not one that trusts its own foundations.
The regime’s paranoia extends beyond foreign threats. On February 20, Judiciary Chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i warned of “infiltrators” within the government, lamenting that some factions use “revolutionary rhetoric to attack others” while others oppose any form of modernization. When the head of the judiciary openly admits that both extremists and so-called reformists are undermining each other, it is clear that factionalism is tearing the regime apart from the inside.
As if the paranoia wasn’t already high, on February 14, Alireza Nadali, head of the “Religious Committee” of Tehran’s City Council, admitted to the existence of a secret surveillance program involving “3,000 seminary students monitoring 700 mosques, 2,150 schools, and entire neighborhoods to identify students and families.” This program had been hidden from the public until it was revealed in a budget dispute. The fact that Tehran’s own city government sees the need to spy on ordinary families shows how deep the regime’s fears run.
#Iran’s Leadership Unites Behind #Khamenei’s Hardline Stance Against U.S. Negotiationshttps://t.co/cNKeSgWHql
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) February 9, 2025
The clerical rulers have also turned their anxiety toward cyberspace. On February 20, Mohammad Karbasi, head of the Morality Enforcement Headquarters in Qom, called social media “the most dangerous soft threat” facing Iran, warning that “lifting censorship on foreign platforms amounts to fully arming the enemy.”
The same panic was evident in the statements of Mohammad Eslami, head of the regime’s Atomic Energy Organization, who lashed out at the Iranian Resistance for exposing the regime’s nuclear program. “For 20 years, they’ve been making accusations that we are building nuclear bombs. They’ve inspected everything—yet they won’t drop this claim!”
On February 19, Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the IRGC’s Aerospace Force, responded to concerns about the regime’s growing weakness with a bombastic declaration: “They say Iran has weakened—where has it weakened? This is part of the psychological warfare they wage against us.” He went on to dismiss fears of military attack, saying, “Some say if we don’t negotiate, they will attack. No one should worry. Just as the operations ‘True Promise I and II’ were fulfilled, ‘True Promise III’ will definitely be carried out.”
#Iran's Regime Infighting Escalates Amid #Economic Crisis and International Tensionshttps://t.co/QaeyKbnTc7
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) February 19, 2025
The so-called “True Promise” operations refer to the regime’s retaliatory missile strikes, which Tehran portrays as grand strategic victories. His statement essentially promises further escalation, exposing the regime’s reliance on militaristic posturing as a distraction from internal failures.
In the same speech, Hajizadeh went further, boasting, “If we reveal a new missile city every week, we won’t run out for two years—there are that many.” He described Iran’s missile production as a “three-shift operation that has never stopped since 1983.” The statement is revealing not just in its aggressive tone, but in the fact that the clerical dictatorship continues to prioritize military expansion over economic stability. While ordinary Iranians struggle with economic collapse, runaway inflation, and food shortages, the regime takes pride in building more missiles.
The louder Iranian officials shout about foreign conspiracies, internal infiltrators, and the supposed strength of their government, the clearer it becomes that they are losing their grip. When a government sees simple negotiations as a lethal threat, internet access as an act of war, and its own officials as potential traitors, it is no longer governing—it is merely trying to survive. The clerical dictatorship in Tehran is entering a phase where fear dictates its every move, and history has shown that regimes ruled by fear do not last forever.