Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s president, will face major resistance from the country’s supreme leader and its hardliners in his bid to save the landmark nuclear deal.

Despite Mr Rouhani’s assurances that Donald Trump’s decision to back out of the agreement would not spell its end, conservative elements in Iran have already begun celebrating its demise.

During the opening session of parliament on Wednesday, a group of hardline MPs set fire to a paper US flag and the text of the nuclear deal as they chanted “death to America”.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran's government faced a big test to preserve "the dignity and the grandeur of the Iranian people" and warned against trusting foreign leaders.

Iranian MPs burning a US flag in the parliament in Tehran. credit: AFP

"Their words have no value. Today they say one thing and tomorrow another. They have no shame," he said.

Mohammad Ali Jafari, the head of the country’s Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force dominated by hard-liners which answers directly to Khamenei, said it was clear from the beginning that the Americans were "not trustworthy" and that the move would have no impact.

Mr Rouhani is hoping to receive guarantees from the UK, Germany and France, the European signatories to the 2015 deal, that Tehran could keep benefiting from the accord.

Pro-government demonstrators hold posters of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (L) and Iran's founder of Islamic Republic, credit: AFP

However, Mr Jafari predicted that the EU states, which opposed the pullout, would eventually join the US, making the "the fate of the deal is clear."

"We welcome Trump's decision on pulling out of the deal. This is not a new event and has no effective role in any field,” he said.

Mr Rouhani, a centrist, was re-elected with a landslide last year on the promise that the billions in assets unfrozen by the 2015 nuclear deal would benefit the people and end years of international isolation.

The US’s decision is a major blow for the leader’s reformist platform and plays into the hands of the conservatives who had warned of making deals with America.

Iran's president Hassan Rouhani gives a speech in the city of Tabriz in the northwestern East-Azerbaijan province credit: AFP

Analysts say Mr Rouhani will be weakened and only hardliners will gain.

“Trump has violated the international agreement by his predecessor, (Barack) Obama, under the intrigues of the Israeli prime minister and Saudi Crown Prince Bin Salman,” said Ali Khorram, a former Iranian ambassador to China and an adviser to the nuclear negotiating team. “Now he has played in the hands of hardliners in Iran.”

Ordinary Iranians will now be worrying about what decision could mean for their country.

The Iranian rial is already trading on the black market at 66,000 to the dollar, despite a government-set rate of 42,000 rials.

Some rushed out on Wednesday morning to take out US dollars, hard to come by in the Islamic Republic.

Many say they have not reaped the rewards from the nuclear deal, which they say have not trickled down to the general population.

Iran's poor economy and unemployment already sparked nationwide protests in December and January that saw at least 25 people killed and, reportedly, nearly 5,000 arrested.

Demonstrators were also angry at Iran's involvement in costly wars abroad, including Yemen and Syria.

“It is always us who suffer,” said one trader in Tehran told the Telegraph. “It is not easy living in Iran, one day your country seems like it is heading in the right direction, the next it is spun around.”

Katayoon Soltani, an accountant, told AFP: "Even without sanctions, our economy was terrible. With this decision, I don't know what will happen. All my friends want to leave Iran. This is not a place where we want to stay," she said.