Iran’s Top Politicians Urge an End to the War

DUBAI—Iran’s top politicians said the country needs to focus on ending the war and shoring up its crippled economy, pushing back publicly against hardliners who are taking a more defiant approach in the six-month-old conflict.

The comments by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf come as the diplomatic track remains stalled and the Trump administration has shifted to a policy of ratcheting up economic pressure via sanctions and the naval blockade of Iran’s ports.

The war and the economic strictures have piled pressure on Iran’s already spiraling economy, further sinking its currency and making it hard for Iranians to afford their daily needs. Tehran’s more moderate leaders worry the pressure will eventually undermine the country’s stability.

It is unclear, however, whether hardliners who recently levied tough new demands for reopening the Strait of Hormuz or the Trump administration, which is demanding deep concessions and called again this week for the regime’s collapse, can come to an agreement.

“The war must come to an end at some point,” Pezeshkian said Friday in comments reported by Iranian media. “It is better that we demonstrate our strength and dignity today and tell the world that we have won and that we are ending the war.”

Ghalibaf was less direct but said there will be no security if the country ignores its economic crisis.

“No matter how much military power we have, if our people are struggling and the country lacks financial circulation and economic growth, we will not achieve progress,” the parliamentary speaker said. “As someone who has experienced war, we understand the true value of peace.”

Analysts saw the comments as notable expressions of Iran’s economic distress but said that further rounds of escalation are more likely than an end to the war given the current lack of viable parameters for a deal.

Iranian hardliners have a deep distrust of the U.S. administration and have taken the lull in the conflict to prepare for more rounds of fighting.

President Trump has made his eagerness to strike a deal clear throughout the war. But the memorandum of understanding he signed in June to wind down the war collapsed over Iran’s attempts to govern traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, and talks early this month similarly stalled when the U.S. refused to do a deal that didn’t promise unimpeded traffic through the waterway.

Both deals were criticized in the U.S. as too favorable to Iran, putting pressure on the administration to take a tougher line.

“They would love to make a deal, but they’re not ready to make the right deal,” Trump told reporters Friday.

Iran analyst Hamidreza Azizi said Trump appears to be gearing up to leverage Iran’s economic troubles to demand deeper concessions. That pressure, however, makes it harder for Iran to avoid a humiliating climbdown.

“This is creating a vicious circle,” Azizi said on social media.

Danny Citrinowicz, the former head of the Iran division of Israeli defense intelligence, said Friday that neither side seems ready to make the necessary compromises.

“For that reason, despite the signals coming from Qalibaf and Pezeshkian, the probability of escalation is currently increasing rather than decreasing,” he wrote on social media, using an alternative transliteration of the parliamentary speaker’s name.