Iran touts underdog victory after confronting two nuclear powers

Iran’s leaders have turned the war and the negotiations around it into a domestic triumph story, plastering Tehran with posters that celebrate national unity and victory over a global superpower. The imagery leans on Revolutionary Guardsmen, a blockaded Strait of Hormuz and military pageantry, while state television shows women without headscarves and the authorities stage gun-training sessions and mass weddings to project an image of a nation that not only endured U.S. and Israeli strikes, but came out defiant.

That message is aimed well beyond hardline loyalists. The government has shifted away from the old revolutionary language of martyrdom and, instead, is using Persian national symbols and historical references that were once viewed with suspicion inside the Islamic Republic. The point is to persuade waverers and a wider public that the state has restored control and normalcy, even as the economy remains under severe strain and a tightened security apparatus seeks to prevent renewed unrest after the crackdown on protests. Analysts quoted by Reuters said the campaign is designed to tell Iranians that the authorities are united and that they do not butcher their own people, even if many citizens remain unconvinced.

The diplomatic substance behind the victory narrative is more complicated. On May 2, Iranian officials said Tehran had put forward a proposal that would reopen shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and end the U.S. blockade before the nuclear file is tackled later. The plan would end the war with guarantees that Israel and the United States would not attack again, then move nuclear curbs into a later stage in exchange for sanctions relief, while pressing Washington to recognize Iran’s right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. Tehran later broadened the package to include an end to fighting on all fronts, including Lebanon, and reparations for war damage.

That sequencing matters politically inside Iran because it lets the leadership downplay concession while highlighting leverage. President Donald Trump said on May 23 that negotiators were “getting a lot closer” to a deal, and Reuters reported that Iran, the United States and mediator Pakistan all said progress had been made. For Tehran, the domestic sell is clear: if the nuclear issue is deferred and the Strait reopens on Iranian terms, the regime can present an ambiguous settlement as proof that resistance forced two adversaries back to the table, even if the compromise is real and the risks at home remain high.