Wartime Diplomacy in Conflict Zones: A Discourse Analysis of Abbas Araghchi’s Statements During the 2025 Iran–Israel War

The paper analyses the diplomacy discourse of the Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, in 2025 in the course of a two-week conflict between Iran and Israel, which constituted a major shift in regional geopolitics. Within a critical discourse analysis (CDA) model, the study explores how Araghchi’s public speech act constitutes ideological positioning, national identity and degree of diplomatic legitimacy at moments of warfare. The study is inspired by the Van Dijk and Fairclough critical discourse analysis approaches to discourse and analyzes a number of speeches, interviews and press releases produced by Araghchi over the period April 2–15, 2025. It examines his rhetoric, intertextuality and the calculated deployment of modality and agency in his language. The results show that a calibrated discursive framework combines resistance narratives with references to international law, frames Iran as a victim but also actor of deterrence, and redraws—to a large extent implicitly—regional allegiances. The analysis also reveals a two-tiered rhetorical strategy -a domestic one aimed to instil national cohesion and an international one addressed to international audiences, aimed at justifying Iran’s military and diplomatic standing, respectively. This discussion is inspired by my case study, and it is relevant for the study of political linguistics because it illustrates how language is instrumentalised as an element of power play when crisis breaks out, a point that is especially topical in the case of the turbulence-prone diplomacy of the Middle East.