Iran hardliners demand US ‘pays the price’ before war ends, emboldened by GOP defeat - report

Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei warned against the ‘slightest inclination towards submission,’ a message hardliners believe was aimed at Iran’s negotiators, CNN reported.

Iranian hardliners are seizing on President Donald Trump’s midterm defeat to push for a tougher line in negotiations with Washington, demanding that any end to the war come with a “new world order” that favors the Islamic Republic, CNN reported on Sunday.

Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei warned on Wednesday against the “slightest inclination towards submission,” a message hardliners believe was aimed at Iran’s negotiators. 

A column in the hardline outlet Raja News argued that the US should not be given a “way out” before it “pays the price” for attacking Iran.

The rhetoric hardened after Trump acknowledged that the war was partly to blame for Republican losses, and Vice President JD Vance wrote on X that “the reason we lost is the war.”

Will Iran harden its stance in US talks?

“The Iranian leadership sees the recent election results as a vindication of its strategy against the US,” Hamidreza Azizi, a senior Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group, told CNN. “The Iranians see no reason to offer Trump any nuclear concessions.”

Eight months in, the war has settled into a stalemate, with Qatari mediators trying to bridge the gaps between the sides.

The US has struck Iran’s Qeshm Island several times over the past week, though both sides have played down the strikes in an apparent effort to keep talks alive.

“Now we’re making a decision: do we want to go further? I would rather not destroy the rest of the country if possible, but maybe I’ll have to,” Trump told reporters on Thursday.

Tehran has set seven conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, including ending the war “on all fronts,” compensation, the withdrawal of US forces and the lifting of sanctions.

In his message, Khamenei said the war was laying the “groundwork for a new world order.”