When leaders of Iran were negotiating with the US, leading to the signing of the MoU, Tehran saw reverberations of a soft coup that never materialised. Some of the Islamic Republic’s most hardline factions came to believe that a soft coup was underway, according to a CNN report. Their suspicion was directed not at foreign powers but at Iran’s own visible leadership -- President Masoud Pezeshkian, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi -- who negotiated the agreement with the United States after the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. CNN’s account suggests that while diplomats were pursuing a deal abroad, an increasingly bitter contest over authority was developing at home.
The CNN report shows how influential figures within the Islamic Republic became convinced that a soft coup was happening and began mobilising against what they saw as an attempt to reshape the political order.
