Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Gen. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, on Monday insisted the United States “surrender” to Iran’s demands for unconditional concessions to allow for peace negotiations to begin.
“The war on Iran has already wrecked the U.S. government. But Washington flails like a desperate gambler,” Rezaei sneered in a Monday night post on social media platform X.
“FOLD YOUR HAND. STOP manufacturing FAKE NEWS about imaginary talks. Stop denying the West Asian NEW ORDER,” he wrote.
“Time to SURRENDER to the seven conditions Iran has repeatedly set out,” he demanded.
Rezaei’s tirade was prompted by President Donald Trump asserting on Monday that Iran’s military is “effectively over,” and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth describing Iran as “devastated” and “in the weakest position it’s been in a very, very long time.”
“The president has the upper hand on ANY path that he chooses to take,” Hegseth said.
Trump met with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani at the White House on Monday to discuss Qatar’s efforts to mediate peace talks between the U.S. and Iran.
On Tuesday, the Qatari Foreign Ministry said it received “positive responses” from both Washington and Tehran to its latest mediation efforts. Al-Thani also described his meeting with Trump on Monday as “positive.”
Iranian officials, however, have denied any progress toward reaching limited peace goals, such as a rumored proposal for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping in exchange for the U.S. releasing $8 billion in frozen assets.
As Rezaei said on Monday, Iranian officials are insisting the U.S. must capitulate to its “seven conditions” before further talks can be held.
These conditions include everything the U.S. agreed to in the June Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that very briefly halted hostilities before Iran broke it — plus major additional concessions, including the U.S. paying war reparations to Iran. Iran would offer nothing in return, except a vague promise to begin negotiating for peace after pocketing the money and political concessions from the United States.
Iranian officials were clearly emboldened by the Democrat victory in the U.S. midterm elections, which Tehran saw as a major victory for itself. Rezaei used exactly those words in a social media post on Saturday.
“You lost the war and the election. Vance has conceded, Rubio is heading for the exit, Hegseth is about to be fired, and the CENTCOM commander is now a podcaster!” the Iranian general gloated.
“So, who exactly in Washington do we need to get this message across to? Start a war, and you’ll face a devastating response,” he wrote.
Rezaei, 71, is a “hardliner” who was named to the top post in the Supreme National Security Council in August 2026. He was one of the founders of the IRGC, a designated terrorist organization, and he is wanted for arrest by INTERPOL in connection with a 1994 bomb attack in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.
Rezaei struck a belligerent tone as soon as he was appointed to the top military position, vowing to attack U.S. military ships and planes, as well as commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, until Iran’s demands are met.
Even in Iran, Rezaei is seen as a somewhat controversial figure because his battle plans during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s got a huge number of Iranian soldiers killed. He has been an outspoken opponent of making peace deals with the United States, including the MOU, instead insisting on American capitulation as the only basis for ending the war.
