Former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has proposed putting the question of continued conflict with the United States to a national vote, according to multiple South Korean news outlets including MBC 뉴스 and Yonhap.
The proposal, reported on Tuesday, comes amid growing domestic debate over the prolonged confrontation with Washington. Rouhani argued that the Iranian public should decide whether the country should keep fighting for another two decades, framing the referendum as a path to an honorable end to hostilities, per the reports.
The suggestion has triggered immediate pushback from hardline factions within Iran’s political establishment, who oppose any public vote on the matter, according to News1.
Rouhani’s remarks mark a rare public challenge to the current government’s stance on the US conflict. As a former president who served from 2013 to 2021, he retains significant political weight, and his call for a referendum signals that the war’s toll is becoming a mainstream topic of discussion in Tehran.
The reports from South Korean media, including Kyunghyang Shinmun, describe Rouhani’s intervention as a blunt question aimed at unsettling hardliners: whether the nation truly wants to continue a war with America indefinitely.
No details have emerged on how Iran’s current leadership has formally responded, or whether any referendum mechanism is under consideration. The proposal appears to be a political statement rather than a concrete legislative initiative at this stage.
What to watch next is whether Rouhani’s gambit gains traction among the Iranian public or remains isolated in political circles, and how hardliners in parliament respond to the former president’s challenge to their war policy.
