{"id":347089,"date":"2026-08-03T21:38:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T20:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=347089"},"modified":"2026-08-03T21:38:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T20:38:00","slug":"knives-out-in-tehran-what-the-regimes-own-deputies-admitted-on-live-television","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/iran-a-world\/knives-out-in-tehran-what-the-regimes-own-deputies-admitted-on-live-television\/","title":{"rendered":"Knives Out in Tehran: What the Regime’s Own Deputies Admitted on Live Television"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Hamshahri
Hamshahri TV debate, July 2026: MPs Mohammad-Mehdi Shahriari (left) and Amir-Hossein Sabeti (right) publicly tear into each other\u2019s arguments on war and negotiations<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Three-minute read<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

There is a kind of political theater that appears only when a system stops believing in its own future. Hamshahri TV<\/a> appeared to stage this discussion to project an image of a strong, united regime: two deputies of the clerical regime’s parliament \u2014 Mohammad-Mehdi Shahriari of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee and Amir-Hossein Sabeti from the Paydari Front<\/em> \u2014 sat down to discuss war and negotiations and spent two hours dismantling each other, and with each other, the regime. Yet the two-hour program produced precisely the opposite effect. Instead of demonstrating unity and strength, the two men tore apart each other\u2019s arguments and, in the process, exposed the deep divisions at the heart of the regime and the severe weakness those divisions reveal.<\/p>\n

Some people in Western capitals will want the familiar script: a “pragmatic” camp against a “hardline” one, with the lesson that the first must be rewarded. That reading is a fabrication. Nothing here resembles the loyal disagreement of a democracy, where rivals contest policy and still share a floor. The cameras captured two factions of one apparatus accusing each other of treason, of foreign money, of destroying the state \u2014 men fighting over wreckage each suspect will not survive the next war.<\/p>\n

The regime\u2019s internal rift has now reached the very office on which the entire system rests. In a televised program\u2014 something once unthinkable \u2014 even the authority of the Supreme Leader was openly called into question. Sabeti had publicly claimed that the Islamabad accord was \u201cimposed\u201d on him. Shahriari immediately described the statement as \u201can open insult to the Leadership\u201d. Yet Sabeti refused to retreat: \u201cIt is something I have said, and I am saying it again now. It is not an insult; it is the truth.\u201d In a system built on the supposedly absolute authority of the velayat-e faqih<\/em>, a parliamentary deputy can now declare on television that the Supreme Leader was overruled<\/a>. What was once an untouchable taboo has become part of the regime\u2019s public infighting \u2014 a striking measure of how far its internal divisions and erosion of authority have advanced.<\/p>\n

\n

"As internal factions wage intense political warfare over tactical #MoU<\/a> concessions and hereditary succession, the fundamental crises driving the historic wave of popular uprisings since 2017 remain entirely unaddressed," writes Dr, @MasumehBolurchi<\/a>. https:\/\/t.co\/L5sGY8fPAp<\/a><\/p>\n

— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) June 16, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n