Imam Hussein University, which is affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has issued two separate public statements in a week warning officials in Hassan Rouhani's administration about its foreign policy and the nuclear negotiations. The statements came shortly after a public visit by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader who addressed the college in front of some of the IRGC’s top commanders.

The June 1 letter signed by the school's “professors, students and staff” used the occasion of anniversary of the death of the Islamic Republic's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, to review his last message about foreign policy to draw parallels in dealing with “world powers,” specifically, the United States.

The letter, which was not addressed to anyone in particular but referenced “some friends of the revolution and officials of the Islamic Republic,” stated that Khomeini viewed Iran’s lack of progress a specific plan of the United States and the United Kingdom. Therefore, anyone who has optimism toward these countries has a “simplistic” view of world events.

The letter accused some officials of advocating a policy that “is opposed to the fundamental principles of Imam [Khomeini] in foreign policy” and ignores “the daily crimes of Israel, America and Saudi Arabia.” The letter rejected that a hard-line foreign policy would allow the West to create an image of Iran seeking war or would increase Iran phobia in the West. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has on various occasions criticized the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad administration for its harsh rhetoric, blaming him for increasing Iran’s international isolation and adding to a negative world image of Iranians.