Iran’s Suspended Diplomacy Leaves Public Paying

Former President Hassan Rouhani, former Tehran mayor Gholamhossein Karbaschi and centrist party leader Hossein Marashi are publicly urging Iran to reduce tensions with the United States, while hardliners and military commanders reject concessions. The divide leaves foreign policy caught between negotiations and confrontation as the public faces economic pressure and uncertainty.

The dispute follows months of direct conflict with the United States, repeated warnings from Washington and Israel, and several major waves of domestic unrest since 2018. Iran’s leadership has grown more sensitive to public legitimacy, the article says, even as rival factions make compromise politically dangerous. Hardliners could cast a deal as capitulation. Delaying a decision, though, leaves the costs of economic pressure and military escalation unresolved.

The price of suspended diplomacy

Hamid Aboutalebi, a former diplomat close to Rouhani, told Khabar Online this week that Iranian diplomacy is caught between immediate conflicts and the lack of a clearly defined long-term strategy. He said Tehran has failed to define diplomacy’s purpose, scope and desired outcome. Without that clarity, Aboutalebi said, Iran can’t turn battlefield developments into political gains and remains “reacting to events rather than shaping them,” especially in its confrontation with Israel and the United States.

The uncertainty extends beyond factional arguments. Many Iranians see diplomacy as a possible route to economic relief and greater stability, while officials alternate between warnings of resistance and signals that negotiations remain possible. Aboutalebi said Iran should set long-term foreign-policy goals rather than manage one crisis after another. He argued that doing so would require deeper regional integration, a structured approach to the nuclear dispute and economic partnerships that could reduce Iran’s isolation.

Tejarat-e Farda, an Iranian economic weekly, calls this pattern “suspended diplomacy”: Tehran neither moves decisively toward confrontation nor commits to meaningful negotiations. The magazine says Iranians have recognized the “tragic depth” of foreign-policy failures, producing “lethargy and despair” rather than confidence or enthusiasm. That, in its account, is the public consequence of decisions officials and political factions are weighing.

Choices deferred, costs accumulated

Writing in 2022, Tejarat-e Farda described prolonged strategic hesitation shaped by domestic political caution, regional pressures and concern that diplomatic steps might prove difficult to reverse. Political analyst Fatemeh Mosayebi said Tehran repeatedly signaled willingness to engage in dialogue while avoiding concrete commitments. Iran and Western governments, she said, remained caught in a cycle in which neither wanted to make the first major move.

The article says circumstances have changed radically in the four years since that debate: Iran has shifted from indirect regional confrontation to war with the United States, and the costs of economic pressure and military escalation have risen substantially. Yet the basic question—what Iranian diplomacy is meant to achieve—remains unresolved.

The political risks run both ways. Hardliners can use a failed compromise against their rivals; opponents of hardliners can point to the added economic or military costs of escalation. Tejarat-e Farda calls the delay a “suspension of decision” and warns that postponing difficult choices can “cost more than confrontation” when economic pressure continues without corresponding strategic gains.

Aboutalebi and Marashi are asking whether Tehran can threaten escalation, signal openness to diplomacy and defer decisions about the compromises an agreement would require. The article says Iran is preserving both possibilities. Public expectations remain at odds with geopolitical realities, and uncertainty is getting harder for officials to present as a strategy.