Iran’s president invoked a defining Iran-Iraq War symbol as U.S.-Iran talks continue, a signal an expert described as high stakes and resistant to compromise.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has cast Iran’s confrontation with the U.S. and Israel in the language of the Iran-Iraq War, invoking one of the Islamic Republic’s most powerful symbols of resistance as negotiations with Washington continue.
The message, posted May 24 on X to mark the anniversary of Iran’s 1982 recapture of Khorramshahr from Iraqi forces, came as President Donald Trump said a deal with Tehran was “largely negotiated” while warning that the U.S. would either sign what he called “a great and meaningful” agreement or walk away.
Iran has indicated broad agreement with Washington on some points, but has also said a final deal is not imminent and that talks over remaining details are still underway.
In his post, Pezeshkian said, “Khorramshahr today is Iran, the Persian Gulf, and the Strait of Hormuz,” adding that “resistance, self-sacrifice, and repelling aggression are rooted in the culture of this land.”
Dr. Omar Mohammed, director of the Antisemitism Research Initiative Program on Extremism at George Washington University, told Fox News Digital that the timing and imagery were central to the message. Khorramshahr, a southwestern city captured by Saddam Hussein’s forces early in the Iran-Iraq War and later retaken by Iran, has long stood in Iranian political memory for endurance, civilian sacrifice and defiance of invasion.
“This is one of the Islamic Republic’s foundational mythological moments — civilian resistance, mass sacrifice, repelling an ‘aggressor army,’” Mohammed said. He said Pezeshkian was extending that wartime frame to the current standoff, presenting Iran as a country under attack and casting resistance as the expected national response.
Mohammed also pointed to Pezeshkian’s reference to the Strait of Hormuz, a critical maritime route that Iranian officials have often invoked during periods of escalation. Placing the strait inside a wartime-resistance message, he said, was a deliberate signal rather than incidental rhetoric.
The remarks do not by themselves show whether Tehran is prepared to harden its negotiating position, but they underscore the political stakes surrounding the talks. Pezeshkian’s use of Khorramshahr suggests Iranian leaders are tying the diplomacy to a deeper national narrative of resistance at the same time Washington is pressing for a deal it says must be substantial or not happen at all.
For now, the negotiations remain unresolved, and the next test will be whether public warnings from Tehran and Washington narrow the path to agreement or become part of the bargaining itself.
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