A radical hardline bloc is actively undermining diplomatic efforts, raising fears that internal sabotage could derail any potential agreement with Washington.
As negotiations between the United States and Iran enter a critical stage, a small but influential hardline faction has intensified efforts to sabotage a potential deal with Washington, fuelling President Donald Trump’s claims of divisions within the Islamic Republic. The group shares Trump’s view that the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers was a mistake - but for different reasons. Its positions are so hostile to the West, even by the standards of Iran’s conservative hardliners, that the regime’s efforts to appease it have so far failed.
And as the Islamic Republic’s new leaders project unity in the face of the gravest existential threat the regime has faced, the ultra-hardline group has ramped up efforts across the media, in parliament and on the streets to advocate against an agreement with the US, arguing that only by defeating Washington can Iran secure a favorable deal.
Known as “Jebhe-ye Paydari” - or the Endurance Front - its members are often described by observers as “Super Revolutionaries” who view themselves as guardians of the values of the 1979 revolution that overthrew the pro-Western Shah before 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 at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, told CNN. “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.”
The group’s emergence as one of the loudest forces against a rapprochement with the US over the past two months offers a glimpse into the power struggles shaping post-Ali Khamenei Iran after the former supreme leader was killed in late February, on the first day of the war. With Tehran engaged in high-stakes peace negotiations, the outcome could determine which faction prevails in the next phase of the Islamic Republic.
Over the past month, Iranian officials have tried to carefully balance negotiations with Trump while appeasing powerful factions across the country’s diverse political landscape, including the Paydari group. Inclusion of the group’s members in talks with American negotiators in Pakistan last month suggested Tehran was seeking to show internal cohesion.
Still, the group has grown increasingly vocal at home in its criticism of the negotiators, and experts say that is what prompted Trump to describe Iran’s leadership as “fractured” and in “disarray” last month.
Iran’s leaders, including new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, have issued statements projecting unity after Trump’s claim, but the hardline group has continued sowing division, accusing negotiators of disloyalty to the Islamic Republic and insubordination to Khamenei’s red lines in negotiations, including any discussion about Iran’s nuclear program.
Many within the group view even considering a deal with the US as capitulation.
“They (the US) realized that killing our leaders, commanders, and loved ones costs them nothing,” an article criticizing the talks in Raja News, which represents the Paydari Front, said. “They understood that even if they martyr our Imam (Ali Khamenei), there are still groups here willing to negotiate, shake hands with (Steve) Witkoff, (JD) Vance, and (Jared) Kushner, and smile at the killers of our martyred Imam.”
The faction is viewed as so radical that even hardliners within Iran’s conservative establishment see it as fringe. Still, members are embedded in some of Iran’s most influential centers of power and the group boasts senior figures in Iranian media, top politicians who were once leading presidential candidates, and religious authorities who have wielded influence over past supreme leaders.
It’s unclear how much support it commands, but one of its most prominent figures - former national security chief Saeed Jalili - garnered 13 million votes in the 2021 elections, finishing second. His brother, Vahid Jalili, is a top official in the state broadcaster, IRIB.
Members oppose negotiations with the US out of deep religious and ideological convictions. They have accused Iranian officials of being “cowardly” for engaging in talks that will inflict “immense damage on the Iranian nation” and their opponents have accused them of leaking incomplete details of the potential agreement to the media.
The group’s members accuse Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, of collusion, and have sought to inflame public opinion through speeches at nightly street rallies and amplified Trump’s claims of divisions within Iran.
Seven parliamentarians affiliated with the group have refused to sign a statement endorsing the negotiating team, according to Iranian media.
One lawmaker affiliated with the group, Mahmoud Nabavian, was on Iran’s negotiating team in Islamabad last month but then publicly declared that negotiating over the country’s nuclear program was a “strategic mistake.” He later called for the removal of Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi from the team.
“Given America’s history of bad faith and the presence of supporters of the humiliating JCPOA (2015 nuclear agreement) alongside Mr. Ghalibaf in the negotiations, there is no hope for negotiations and a favorable agreement for Iran,” Nabavian wrote on X on Thursday.
Following eight weeks of American and Israeli bombing that started in late February, the group has carved out a new power center through large street rallies in Tehran that have evolved into an influential bloc. Thousands of the Islamic Republic’s staunchest supporters, including Paydari members, have staged street rallies to pressure the country’s new leaders.
The group’s spiritual leader, Ayatollah Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi, who died in 2021, was one of the country’s most radical clerics. He served as a member of the Assembly of Experts, the body responsible for selecting the supreme leader, and headed one of the best-funded educational institutes in Iran, whose graduates have gone on to lead influential government institutions.
The current spiritual leader is Ayatollah Mahdi Mirbaqiri, a highly influential senior cleric who was once seen as a possible candidate for Supreme Leader. He harbors “apocalyptic views,” Azizi said, and wants to hasten the end of times by encouraging “widespread fighting” and a “comprehensive clash” with the West, according to an interview he gave state media in 2019.
And as moderate Iranians grow increasingly frustrated with the state of the country, with some facing arrest and others choosing to emigrate, the Paydari group has capitalized on a younger generation of “revolutionary” Iranians who, after repeated attacks by the US and Israel, have become even more uncompromising in their loyalty to the Islamic Republic.
“The Paydaris were quick to capitalize on the younger and ideologically-oriented people now on the streets,” Azizi said. “They try to represent themselves as manifestation of an idea introduced by (former supreme leader) Ali Khamenei to create a generation of young, pious revolutionaries capable of carrying on the Islamic Republic’s legacy.”
Increasingly isolated, the group’s growing visibility and attempts to sow division have sounded alarm bells among many in the country, with efforts to isolate it picking up steam.
Iran’s political spectrum has long been divided, with its leaders clashing over state policies and varying approaches to the West. Yet Iran hardline faction has become so divisive at this critical moment that even rival Iranian politicians have united against it, and it has drawn sharp criticism across Iranian media, among political commentators, and on the streets.
“It seems to have really backfired,” said Mohammad Ali Shabani, editor of Amwaj.media, a news site that focuses on Iran and the region. “They’re making a lot of noise and are perceived to have helped Israel and the US in portraying Iran as caught in major internal division … but the fringe radicals are getting pushback from every direction and have grown increasingly isolated.”
Shabani argues that hardliners are not opposed to an agreement with the US, but rather want to be the ones striking the deal in order to gain influence and realign power structures within the country.
“They’re saying if we keep fighting, we can force the US to capitulate and then dictate the terms,” Shabani said. “Nobody in Iran is against a deal. It’s about the tactics of how to reach a deal, and who gets to make it.”
The Iran-US negotiations are now caught in a precarious standoff where internal sabotage threatens to derail external diplomacy. The ultra-hardline Endurance Front has successfully mobilized street protests and parliamentary resistance, exploiting the power vacuum following Ali Khamenei’s death to challenge the new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s authority. While the faction aims to force Washington to capitulate through continued confrontation, their tactics have inadvertently unified political rivals against them. This internal fracture suggests that any future agreement will require Tehran to firmly suppress radical dissent, otherwise, the regime risks further legitimizing opposition narratives of governmental weakness and instability in the eyes of both domestic moderates and international partners.
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