As negotiations between the United States and Iran enter a vital stage, a small however influential hardline faction has intensified efforts to sabotage a possible cope with Washington, fuelling President Donald Trump’s claims of divisions throughout the Islamic Republic.
The group shares Trump’s view that the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers was a mistake – however for various causes. Its positions are so hostile to the West, even by the requirements of Iran’s conservative hardliners, that the regime’s efforts to appease it have up to now failed.
And because the Islamic Republic’s new leaders venture unity in the face of the gravest existential risk the regime has confronted, the ultra-hardline group has ramped up efforts throughout the media, in parliament and on the streets to advocate in opposition to an settlement with the US, arguing that solely by defeating Washington can Iran safe a good deal.
Known as “Jebhe-ye Paydari” – or the Endurance Front – its members are sometimes described by observers as “Super Revolutionaries” who view themselves as guardians of the values of the 1979 revolution that overthrew the pro-Western Shah earlier than imposing an authoritarian regime rooted in Shia Islamist ideology.
“They view resistance against the United States and Israel as an eternal fight,” Hamidreza Azizi, a visiting fellow on the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, instructed NCS. “They believe in a Shia state that needs to continue until the end of times and are quite fanatic when it comes to that religious ideology.”