“We should make peace when the right time has come,” said Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani last week in a historical reference to Islam's second Shiite leader Imam Hassan, who clinched a peace agreement with his enemies in the seventh century.

Perhaps Rouhani did not anticipate the tremendous backlash from his opponents, who accused the moderate president of exploiting and distorting Imam Hassan’s story to justify his willingness for negotiations with the United States.

“Mr. Rouhani! Today, the absolute majority of the Iranian public demands nothing less than your dismissal and punishment,” tweeted Mojtaba Zolnouri, a hard-line lawmaker from the Paydari camp, which is shaped by the staunchest Rouhani critics known for their intolerance toward engagement with the West. Zolnouri, who also chairs the Iranian parliament’s influential National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, went further: “The supreme leader should issue a ruling on hanging you a thousand times.”

Back in July, Zolnouri and some fellow lawmakers collected signatures on the parliament floor for an impeachment bid, which could have effectively put a premature end to Rouhani’s second term. The group had to stand down after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared in a televised speech that he wants the sitting president to actively stay at the helm to the end of his tenure.