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Senior Iranian clerics and regime officials are rejecting renewed talk of negotiations with the West, not only as a matter of ideology but out of alarm that any step seen as a concession will further weaken their military and proxy forces at home and abroad. They warn that moves to disarm Tehran’s regional militias, curb its influence, or signal compromise to world powers will deepen the crisis of morale already gripping the regime’s base—at a moment when simmering public anger makes the threat of a nationwide uprising more real than at any point in decades.
On August 8, Ahmad Alamolhoda, Friday Prayer Leader in Mashhad and a close ally of the regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, dismissed calls for diplomacy outright. “They bombed us in the middle of the negotiation table,” he said, invoking the 12-day-war. “Handshakes and smiles don’t help. This enemy seeks nothing less than our destruction and the disintegration of our country.”
Alamolhoda’s remarks underscored a recurring theme in the regime’s postwar rhetoric: the idea that compromise leads to weakness, and that the real danger lies in erosion of resolve both at home and among allied forces abroad.
#Iranian Intelligence Chief Admits to Deep Infiltration Crisis Amid Internal Power Struggleshttps://t.co/0kMUt4bUJM
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) July 21, 2025
That fear was even more explicit in the comments of Ghorbanali Dorri-Najafabadi, Friday Prayer Leader in Arak, who warned that Syria was “lost” to Iran’s influence and accused Washington of orchestrating efforts to dismantle Tehran’s forward defenses. He cited reports that Lebanon’s government, under U.S. pressure, intends to disarm Hezbollah—“their lifeline,” as he put it—and that Iraq faces similar demands to neutralize the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a militia network modeled on the Islamic Revolutionary Guards. “The U.S. has delivered its sinister plan to the Iraqi government,” Dorri-Najafabadi said, claiming even the Iraqi parliament’s planned recognition of the PMF was being undermined.
Ali Akbar Velayati, Khamenei’s senior adviser, echoed the alarm in a call with former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Both warned that the disarmament of Hezbollah and the PMF would set the stage for further rollbacks of Iranian influence. “We will never allow such schemes to succeed,” al-Maliki vowed.
The unease is not limited to the regional front. Inside Iran, senior officials are scrambling to counter the public perception—rooted in heavy battlefield losses—that the regime’s forces suffered a strategic defeat in the 12-day war, fearing that such acknowledgment would further sap morale among their ranks.
#Khamenei Spins Narratives to Boost Low Morale Amid #Iran’s Mounting Criseshttps://t.co/zEOHf5dAQf
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) January 23, 2025
On August 8, Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei told officials in North Khorasan province that “the enemy” must not be allowed to plant the idea that Iran lost. “We won,” he insisted, arguing that Israel was ultimately forced to seek a cease-fire despite its superior firepower. He framed the war as a moment that elevated the “dignity and standing of the Islamic Republic,” repeating language that has become standard among top military commanders.
Ejei’s remarks fit into what appears to be a coordinated messaging campaign from the highest levels of power—one aimed at fortifying the official narrative of victory while legitimizing a tighter domestic security climate. His warning about “infiltration” and “spies” was paired with calls for swifter prosecutions, and even a pledge to pursue Afghan nationals in Iran accused of working with Britain. Such measures serve a dual purpose: rallying public opinion against foreign enemies and discrediting internal dissent as an extension of those enemies’ plots.
Viewed together, these statements reveal a leadership preoccupied with the erosion of assets that underpin its survival strategy. The militias in Lebanon and Iraq are not merely foreign policy tools; in Tehran’s calculus, they are strategic buffers and bargaining chips, built over decades at great cost. The fear is that once those buffers are dismantled, the regime will be left to face its adversaries—and its own restless population—without the shield it has long relied upon.