Even as diplomatic signals between Washington and Tehran pointed tentatively toward progress, Iran's Supreme National Security Council delivered a defiant and unambiguous message to its people on Monday, May 25, 2026: there will be no surrender and no retreat. The declaration, made by the council's secretary Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, underscores the profound gap between Iran's internal political posture and the diplomatic concessions that any final peace deal would inevitably require — and signals that hardliners in Tehran are actively working to constrain the negotiating space available to Iranian diplomats.
Zolghadr's Message: 'No Surrender or Retreat'
In a message to the Iranian people on Monday, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr — the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council — emphasized that there will be no surrender or retreat, saying: "This was demonstrated by the military field, the diplomatic field, and the people who are present on the streets with their powerful resistance and pinned the enemy to the ground."
Zolghadr stressed the importance of unity among the nation to thwart what he described as the enemies' plots. "Now more than ever, the country needs unity and cohesion so that the Americans and Zionists will also be disappointed in this regard," he said. Noting that unity and cohesion are "another field in the battle," the top security official called for a common effort to prevent any speech or action that could create internal division.
The timing of Zolghadr's statement is deeply significant. It arrived on the same day that President Trump posted on Truth Social that US-Iran peace negotiations were "proceeding nicely" and that a memorandum of understanding had been "largely negotiated" — suggesting a deliberate effort by Iranian hardliners to publicly reframe the narrative and signal domestic resolve even as backchannel diplomacy continues.
A Pattern of Defiance from Iran's Security Establishment
Zolghadr's declaration is the latest in a consistent pattern of hardline messaging from Iran's security and ideological establishment — a parallel track running alongside the more measured public statements from Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Iran's official nuclear negotiating team. A senior advisor to the Leader of the Islamic Revolution stated that the iron fist of Iran's powerful armed forces and the resolute Iranian nation will compel the United States to retreat and surrender, ridiculing Washington's approach as "inconsistent and cowardly."
This dual-track posture — pragmatic diplomats in the room, hardliners on the airwaves — has been a defining feature of Iranian statecraft throughout the conflict and mirrors the approach Iran deployed during previous rounds of nuclear negotiations. It serves a dual purpose: preserving domestic political legitimacy by maintaining a defiant public stance, while leaving room for pragmatic concessions at the negotiating table when circumstances demand.
What Iran's Negotiating Position Actually Is
Iran has made clear it will not return to or advance in negotiations with Washington unless its core demands are met, including the complete lifting of the blockade on Iranian ports, the removal of US sanctions, a definitive end to all military aggression, and compensation for damages inflicted since the start of the conflict. Tehran has also flatly denied agreeing to surrender its enriched uranium stockpile — directly contradicting American officials' claims — and has insisted the nuclear issue will only be addressed in negotiations for a final agreement, not the current preliminary MOU framework.
Iran's defiant response to the latest US proposal fueled fears that the fragile ceasefire could collapse. Tehran handed its response to the US proposal to Pakistan for delivery to Washington. Hours later, President Trump dismissed the Iranian reply as "totally unacceptable" and warned that "the ceasefire is on life support." The exchange fueled growing expectations in Iranian media and political circles that another military confrontation may be approaching, even as officials insist they remain open to diplomacy on their own terms.
The Abraham Accords Complication
Iran's internal defiance is now compounded by Trump's May 25 demand that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan join the Abraham Accords — making normalization with Israel a precondition of the peace deal. For Tehran, which has positioned itself as the vanguard of anti-normalization resistance in the Muslim world, Trump's linkage of the Iran deal to Israel normalization is ideologically explosive and domestically impossible for Iranian officials to publicly accept — even if pragmatic elements within the regime might quietly welcome the geopolitical realignment it implies.
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What the 'No Retreat' Declaration Means for Peace Prospects
Zolghadr's public declaration of "no surrender or retreat" does not necessarily foreclose a peace agreement — but it does dramatically narrow the political conditions under which one could be announced in Tehran without triggering a domestic legitimacy crisis. Any deal that Iranian diplomats bring home will need to be packaged in the language of resistance and victory, not compromise and concession, to survive the scrutiny of the very security establishment Zolghadr represents.
As Secretary of State Rubio hints at a possible deal "today or tomorrow" and Trump insists negotiations are "proceeding nicely," the real question is not whether Washington and Tehran can find a technical agreement on the Strait of Hormuz, sanctions, and the nuclear file — but whether the domestic political systems of both countries can sell that agreement to their respective hardliners as anything other than defeat. Zolghadr's Monday message suggests that challenge, in Tehran at least, remains very much unresolved.