ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iran’s former foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in an undated video that Tehran views neighboring countries, including Iraq, through a security lens, allowing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force to dominate its regional policy and determine who represents Iran in key neighboring states.
Zarif’s comments are likely to deepen divisions within Iran’s political establishment. A former foreign minister and briefly vice president for strategic affairs under President Masoud Pezeshkian, Zarif remains one of Iran’s most recognisable diplomatic figures abroad and an influential voice in the country’s political debate.
“If our view of the region is threat-oriented, then our ambassadors must be representatives of the Quds [Force]. If our view is opportunity-driven, then our representatives must be merchants and businesspeople,” Zarif said.
“Why are our ambassadors in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq representatives of the Quds Force?” Zarif asked. “Because we see them as a threat!”
The candid remarks come five years after a controversial 2021 interview in which Zarif discussed the eight-year presidency of Hassan Rouhani and the balance of power between diplomacy and Iran’s military establishment.
The interview, conducted with Iranian economist Saeed Leylaz for an oral-history project and not intended for immediate publication, was leaked in April 2021. In it, Zarif complained that diplomacy was routinely subordinated to what he called the “field” - a reference to military operations - and described the enormous influence wielded by then-Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani over Iran’s regional policy.
Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike near Baghdad International Airport in January 2020.
At the time, late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei criticised Zarif without naming him and said he was saddened by the remarks. “Some of these comments are a repetition of the hostile talk of our enemies,” he said, describing them as a repetition of American rhetoric.
Zarif’s latest comments quickly drew fire from Raja News, an ultraconservative outlet closely associated with the Paydari Front, which accused him of once again attacking the IRGC Quds Force.
“Years after the release of Javad Zarif’s insulting audio recording against the Quds Force and Qasem Soleimani, he has once again targeted the pillar of the Islamic Republic and the axis of resistance in the region, describing the presence of revolutionary ambassadors coordinated with the Quds Force in regional countries as a ‘threat-driven policy,’” Raja News said.
In the video clip, Zarif also referred to past insults directed at Saudi Arabia by figures within the Iranian establishment, saying they should remember that Khamenei had sat with Saudi Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman during his visit to Tehran in 2025.
Prince Khalid met Khamenei in Tehran on April 17, 2025, delivering a message from Saudi King Salman during one of the highest-level Saudi visits to Iran in years.
Raja News went further, suggesting Zarif’s remarks could warrant judicial action.
“We must wait and see whether the judiciary considers Zarif’s renewed insult against the IRGC Quds Force a matter requiring investigation, or whether this case too will be set aside without action, like Hassan Rouhani’s case despite its hundreds of thousands of complainants,” the outlet said.
Zarif has spent much of his political career defending the Islamic Republic abroad, but his repeated criticism of the Quds Force’s influence over foreign policy has put him at odds with some of the country’s most powerful hardline factions.
