Iran's Leaders Stall as Calls for a US Deal Grow

Former President Hassan Rouhani, former Tehran mayor Gholamhossein Karbaschi and Hossein Marashi, secretary-general of the centrist Executives of Construction party, are among a growing number of former Iranian officials publicly urging an agreement with the United States. They argue economic pressure on ordinary Iranians has become too costly to ignore. Their call is for Iran to reduce tensions with Washington and break its prolonged diplomatic impasse, easing economic strain and allowing development to resume.

Hardliners and military commanders argue the opposite. They frame resistance to Washington and Israel as essential to Iran’s security and warn against concessions made under pressure. The standoff exposes a struggle over Tehran’s foreign-policy direction, unfolding after months of direct conflict with the United States.

The Human Cost of Indecision

This debate isn’t abstract. Many Iranians see diplomacy as a possible route to economic relief and greater stability, even as officials alternate between warnings of resistance and signals that negotiations remain possible. Iran has also experienced several major waves of domestic unrest since 2018. Eight years of pressure have left its leadership more sensitive to public legitimacy.

Tejarat-e Farda, an Iranian economic weekly, has a name for the result: “suspended diplomacy.” Tehran neither moves decisively toward confrontation nor commits to meaningful negotiations. The magazine said Iranians had come to recognize the “tragic depth” of foreign-policy failures, leaving “lethargy and despair” rather than confidence or enthusiasm. Delaying difficult choices, it warned, can “cost more than confrontation” by prolonging economic pressure without corresponding strategic gains.

A Strategy Without a Purpose

Hamid Aboutalebi, a former diplomat close to Rouhani, laid out the dilemma in an interview with Khabar Online this week. Iranian diplomacy, he said, is caught between the urgency of immediate conflicts and the absence of a clearly defined long-term strategy. Public expectations are increasingly at odds with geopolitical realities.

Aboutalebi said Tehran had failed to define diplomacy’s purpose, scope and desired outcome. Without that clarity, Iran can’t turn battlefield developments into political gains. It is left “reacting to events rather than shaping them,” especially in its confrontation with Israel and the United States. His prescription: define long-term foreign-policy goals instead of managing one crisis after another, through deeper regional integration, a structured approach to the nuclear dispute and economic partnerships that can reduce Iran’s isolation.

A Cycle Four Years Old

The hesitation isn’t new. In 2022, four years ago, Tejarat-e Farda described a prolonged strategic hesitation driven by domestic political caution, regional pressures and concern that diplomatic steps might prove difficult to reverse. Political analyst Fatemeh Mosayebi said at the time that Tehran repeatedly signaled willingness to engage in dialogue while avoiding concrete commitments, leaving Iran and Western governments in a cycle in which neither wanted to make the first major move.

Circumstances have changed radically since then. 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 question of what Iranian diplomacy is meant to achieve remains unresolved.

The politics of compromise remain treacherous. Rival factions could portray any deal with Washington as capitulation, encouraging decision-makers to delay. Hardliners can use a failed compromise against their rivals, while opponents of hardliners can point to the economic and military costs of escalation. Tehran is preserving both possibilities, but the longer it stays between confrontation and compromise, the harder it becomes to present uncertainty as a strategy.

Why This Matters:

When leaders postpone decisions, ordinary people absorb the bill: through prolonged economic pressure, the strain of repeated domestic unrest, and the risk that conflict with the United States and Israel keeps escalating without a political endpoint. The increasingly public calls from figures like Rouhani and Marashi suggest the costs of indecision are becoming harder to ignore. From a peace-and-human-rights perspective, a region where major powers manage crises rather than resolve them leaves civilians exposed, and the longer diplomacy stays suspended, the narrower the path back to negotiation may become.