Top officials from Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) warned Iranian diplomats over the weekend that they were courting danger by diplomatically engaging the United States. A statement issued by the IRGC was not very subtly directed toward “those who favor interaction”:

“Historical experiences make it necessary for the diplomatic apparatus of our country to carefully and skeptically monitor the behavior of White House officials so that the righteous demands of our nation are recognized and respected by those who favor interaction,” a statement from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said, published by Iran’s Tasnim news agency on Saturday.

Newly inaugurated Iranian president Hassan Rouhani is traveling this week to the United States for what is expected to be a diplomatic whirlwind. Analysts, meanwhile, are struggling to figure out just how much breathing room Rouhani will have.

Iran’s foreign policy is set by the country’s Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has been very explicit and precise that he will permit Rouhani to negotiate with the West, but not if such negotiations approach making fundamental concessions:

We believe in engagement with the world. But in engaging with world, we should know who we are dealing with, otherwise will be defeated by his deception. Americans say that they want to negotiate with Iran…At the beginning of this [Persian] year, I said that I am not optimistic. I don’t ban negotiation on specific issues – like Iraq and some other issues – but my past experiences do not make me optimistic. Americans are untrustworthy, irrational, and dishonest. In the last four months since I have said this, American officials’ positions have again confirmed it… The enemy may stop you and tell you that you should not move further. Compromise does not mean that you should accept and retreat…The skillful diplomacy is to continue your path without letting him stop you; otherwise, if agreement and mutual understanding was about submitting to the enemy’s demand to step back, this would have been a loss.

Earlier this year Khamenei explicitly forbade the eventual winner of Iran’s June presidential election from making concessions to the West. Ali Akbar Velayati, a top advisor to Khamenei on nuclear issues, told the Associated Press that – because Khamenei is ultimately in charge of Iran’s nuclear policy – Rouhani’s government would follow “the same trend strategically as the former government. Iran, he said, would “have to talk with a different language” and pursue the “same purposes but a different language.”

Last week a senior Iranian official ruled out the possibility that Tehran would curb its enrichment program.

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