President Pezeshkian: Already a lost cause?

President Masoud Pezeshkian might be the loneliest man in Iran. Just eight months into his term in office, he is already losing the support of those who once championed him. Some sympathy is warranted. In the Islamic Republic, the presidency is a thankless job — powerless in substance, yet held accountable for the nation’s crises. Real authority lies with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, while the president serves more as a scapegoat than a statesman. 

Still, Pezeshkian is not helping his own case. Elected on promises of reform, he has spent most of his time retreating. Rather than challenging the small but vocal group of hardliners, he has folded — again and again.  

Now he faces a choice: continue appeasing a hardline minority faction that will never truly accept his promises of reform or at least pretend that he cares about trying to bring about change. Even that symbolic gesture would serve him well. After all, Iranians know the real decision-maker that matters in Tehran sits in the Office of the Supreme Leader. 

If he chooses the latter strategy, he has one undeniable advantage: Khamenei and his hardline foot soldiers have no credible alternative plan for rescuing a nation teetering on the edge of political and social unrest, economic collapse, environmental catastrophe, and perhaps even war with the United States. Pezeshkian may not have much real power, but he still has a platform — and a decision to make. 

A dismal record, so far 

One of President Pezeshkian’s recent speeches perfectly encapsulates why he appears politically adrift. He spoke of “spiritual self-improvement” and “societal responsibility,” and even quoted Imam Ali, urging Iranians to embrace charity, justice, and moral clarity. Lofty words, no doubt. But Iran is not suffering from a lack of poetic rhetoric — it is suffering from mismanagement, repression, sanctions, and economic free fall. 

Rather than outlining tangible policies, Pezeshkian offered vague assurances that “every problem has a solution if unity and self-awareness are pursued.” But what are those solutions? How are they to be pursued? He did not say. Increasingly, Pezeshkian sounds less like a president and more like an out-of-touch armchair philosopher, preaching ideals disconnected from the lived reality of millions. 

This disconnect is costing him. His approval has nosedived, and rightly so. He campaigned on bold promises: easing social restrictions, lifting internet censorship, and charting a pragmatic path to end the US sanctions regime. Eight months in, he has delivered on none of these. The mandatory hijab remains the law (even if no longer as strictly enforced, because the regime fears street protests), major apps are still blocked, and the US-led sanctions grind on with no clearcut strategy from Tehran. 

In trying to fend off attacks by hardliners — who accuse him of secularism, irreligiosity, and being soft on the “American question” — Pezeshkian seems to have internalized their playbook. Instead of pushing back, he has sought to appease them. Instead of challenging the status quo, he has bankrolled it. 

As reformist commentator Abbas Abdi recently noted, Pezeshkian lacks the spine to confront the establishment forces that manipulate him. Case in point: Under his presidency, funding for hardliner pet projects has ballooned. The state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), long a mouthpiece of repression, saw its budget explode from 2.6 trillion tomans in 2020 to 35 trillion in 2025 (about $7 billion) — a twelvefold increase. Religious seminaries and propaganda institutions have received similarly large budget hikes, some seeing their allocations increase ninefold. This is not reform. It is retreat — and it is being funded at the expense of the very people Pezeshkian once promised to empower. 

Pezeshkian has also come under fire for failing to deliver on key campaign promises, sidelining reformist allies from his administration, and making questionable economic decisions — all of which have fueled perceptions of betrayal and deepened public disappointment. He is also faulted for lack of strategic staffing and underwhelming follow-through.

Khamenei’s stranglehold  

In a dramatic but revealing move, Iran’s hardline-dominated Majlis voted to oust Minister of Economy and Finance Abdolnasser Hemmati, a pragmatic figure known for advocating dialogue with the West. Ostensibly, Hemmati was dismissed for mishandling the economy, but the real story runs deeper.  

The hardliners, eager to pin Iran’s economic misery on Pezeshkian’s government, are simply playing politics. The truth is well known: Iran’s economy is in crisis not because of Hemmati or Pezeshkian, but because of two interlocking realities — a toxic foreign policy that has resulted in crushing sanctions and an economic system that remains largely outside of the government’s control, dominated by institutions loyal to Khamenei. 

Pezeshkian, in a rare moment of blunt honesty, told the Majlis that Iran is “at war” — a war, he said, more difficult than the Iran-Iraq conflict of 1980-88. He implied the only way out is through negotiations, including with the United States. But he also acknowledged that Khamenei has ruled out talks, at least for now, with President Donald Trump. 

In doing so, Pezeshkian carefully but unmistakably laid responsibility at the feet of the supreme leader. This was not a revelation to the Iranian public, but hearing it stated openly is the sort of approach a courageous president in this political system would take. 

Despite Khamenei’s recent declaration that negotiations with Washington are “neither wise, nor honorable, nor effective,” quiet talks between Tehran and Washington are ongoing. Both sides are preparing for the possibility of a deal. Pezeshkian, by publicly stating the obvious, is nudging Khamenei toward the inevitable — open engagement with the West. 

Still, the hardliners continue to play politics. Instead of admitting that it is Khamenei who has approved probing of a possible deal with the Americans, they use Pezeshkian’s open willingness to talk to Washington as a reason to target him. One Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-affiliated outlet even cited the American treatment of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — and the Trump administration’s chaos — as proof that talking to Washington is futile. “If the Americans betray their allies,” they asked mockingly, “what would they do to Pezeshkian in the White House?” 

But the noise masks a deeper truth: Behind the scenes, even Khamenei and the hardline faction know Iran cannot survive without a shift in foreign policy. The real question is how long they can delay the inevitable — and whether Pezeshkian will continue to tiptoe around the truth or finally take his case directly to the people, as he has so far refused to do. 

Although Khamenei’s recent remarks opposing talks with the United States may sound categorical, they function more as a tactical maneuver than an outright veto. His words serve to apply pressure and control the narrative before negotiations can even begin, if they ever do. But President Pezeshkian has already become a casualty of this preemptive posturing. 

Hardliners have seized on Khamenei’s comments to demand that Pezeshkian abandon any efforts at dialogue with Washington. Instead, they urge him to become a “national hero” by resisting the West entirely. Their argument? That Trump is merely baiting Iran, seeking not dialogue but the eventual dismantling of the Islamic Republic itself. In this climate, any attempt by Pezeshkian to engage with the US will be portrayed as betrayal and serve as political ammunition for his opponents. 

Khamenei’s stance does not just complicate diplomacy. It undermines the very foundation of Pezeshkian’s presidency, which was built on a platform of re-engaging with the world and ending Iran’s economic isolation. Without negotiations, those campaign promises are little more than empty slogans. Already, rumors suggest that Pezeshkian, battered by internal resistance, will not seek re-election in 2028 or might even resign before then. 

Pezeshkian and his allies — notably former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif — are politically astute enough to avoid publicly challenging the supreme leader. As a result, if talks with the Americans are to happen at all, they will have to occur behind closed doors, far from the spectacle of public politics. 

Khamenei also in a tough spot

But Khamenei, too, is under mounting pressure. Every time he rails against negotiations or doubles down on “resistance,” the Iranian rial loses value. The economy reacts immediately, with inflation rising and public frustration deepening. Ironically, one of Pezeshkian’s few sources of leverage is to allow this economic deterioration to continue.

Khamenei’s recent Nowruz address marking the start of the Persian new year was as revealing as it was contradictory. For a man who claims his regime is driven by “divine will” rather than “earthly ambitions,” his speech was steeped in concern for material conditions. And rightly so. The supreme leader is acutely aware that Iranians are furious over their declining quality of life, and no amount of talk about spiritual endurance can soothe their anger. 

Declaring the new year the “Year of Investment for Production,” Khamenei emphasized the need for “economic resilience” and openly acknowledged that the previous year had been difficult — even comparing it to 1981, a year when Iran was teetering on the edge of civil conflict. Though he made obligatory references to Gaza and Lebanon, his focus was unmistakably domestic: Iran’s economy is in deep trouble. 

And yet, the speech offered little beyond slogans. Khamenei instructed the government to “remove barriers to production” and urged the public to direct their capital away from speculative markets like gold and currency into “productive sectors.” But what exactly are these productive sectors? And more importantly, why would the public risk investing in them when the same regime suffocates innovation and remains hostile to the outside world? 

The hard truth is that Pezeshkian’s government cannot deliver economic reform while Khamenei clings to his ideological obsessions, namely, hostility toward the US and Israel. So long as this posture blocks any possibility of sanctions relief or international reintegration, talk of investment is empty. 

Khamenei’s Nowruz message, therefore, may set the official economic tone for the year, but it lacks any real roadmap. There was no signal that Pezeshkian will be empowered to act, no sign of a shift from rhetoric to realism. Once again, Iran’s supreme leader has opted for lofty declarations over practical solutions — slogans in place of strategy. Pezeshkian should speak up, and more loudly than ever, if he wants Iranian voters not to regret their choice any more than they already do.

 

Alex Vatanka is a Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute.

Photo by Iranian Presidency/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images