Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers followed two years of work by the state-run media preparing the public for the possibility of an agreement. Before Hassan Rouhani was elected president in 2013, media outlets affiliated to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, regarded both any “retreat” from uranium enrichment and talks between the foreign minister of the Islamic republic and the United States secretary of state as “red lines” that Iran should not cross.

But when Rouhani’s team began a new round of talks, both red lines were crossed. This needed to be explained to the public and particularly to strong supporters of the regime.

From the start, most media outlets under the control of the leader, including state-run radio and television networks, based their reporting on two assumptions drawn from Khamenei’s public statements.

The first was that nuclear talks between Iran and the US did not imply relations between the two countries were normalising. The talks’ purpose was to attempt a settlement over one issue, Iran’s nuclear dossier, and nothing more.

Within this context, many media outlets showed hostility to any signs of friendliness between the negotiators – including, famously, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, and John Kerry, US secretary of state, taking a stroll together along the Rhone river in Geneva.

The second assumption was that Iran’s change of position did not mean it had been forced to retreat by economic sanctions. It was not easy to maintain this argument because stringent US and European Union energy and financial measures introduced in 2012 halved the country’s exports, but given Khamenei’s determination to maintain an image of standing firm against any western pressure, there was little choice.

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Downplaying the effect of sanctions had already proved a challenge towards the end of the previous administration of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when official media outlets had chosen to blame the government’s mismanagement and corruption for worsening economic conditions. This had gone against their previous approach in presenting Ahmadinejad’s administration as an outstanding model, but media affiliated to the leader seemed to conclude that the political damage would be less than acknowledging sanctions had created an economic crisis.

From mid-2013, when Rouhani came to office, the media laid the groundwork for either success or failure in the nuclear talks. Anticipating the possibility of failure, they focused on the leader’s “pessimism”.

Khamenei stressed on many occasions his doubts that talks with the US would lead to a resolution of the nuclear issue and the lifting of sanctions, even though he did not oppose Rouhani’s efforts to negotiate.

Some media outlets close to Khamenei emphasised that any officials who were too hopeful about the talks would come to realise their error. Some, such as Kayhan daily, whose managing director is appointed by Khamenei, even stressed that the leader had accepted talks only to prove reaching agreement with the west was impossible.

A group of more hard-line conservatives, calling themselves “the concerned”, went further in accusing the Iranian negotiators of undermining “national dignity”. Media outlets close to this group – such as the Fars News Agency, which is affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards – portrayed sanctions as completely unimportant and Iran’s uranium enrichment as a vital symbol of national interest. From their perspective, any concessions would signal failure or naivety, even if they led to sanctions being lifted.

Although this did not match the official position, Khamenei gave no indication he was uncomfortable with their position. This was possibly because the leader did not wish the talks, even if they led to the lifting of sanctions, to result in any strengthening of a view that wider talks with the US were desirable.

Probably the best-known phrase of Khamenei used by the state-run media during the talks was “heroic flexibility”. The leader adopted the term shortly after Rouhani was elected and was preparing to travel to New York for the annual UN General Assembly. The leader wanted to make clear that the Islamic republic remained a “revolutionary” regime that would not surrender to pressure.

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A group of conservative news outlets affiliated to Khamenei strived to show that whatever nuclear agreement Iran reached, it would not mean a retreat by the leader. They suggested, for instance, that Iran’s agreement with more international controls on its nuclear programme would only constitute a tactic to show how wrong the west was about the goals of the country’s nuclear programme.

At the same time, these very outlets also showed sensitivity - that Rouhani’s administration should not take the credit if talks succeeded. So while maintaining a critical outlook towards the nuclear talks, they argued that any progress made in the talks would be due to Khamenei’s position.

This approach was simultaneous with the leader’s drive to avoid accepting any responsibility for a retreat in the nuclear programme. A week after a framework agreement was announced in Lausanne in April, Khamenei said the congratulatory messages that some government officials were sending him were “meaningless” because no important event had yet taken place, and the leader even claimed he was unaware of the details of the talks. Since the final nuclear agreement on 14 July, Khamenei has praised the negotiators’ efforts but refrained from defending the agreement.

Hence the leader has an odd kind of responsibility for the outcome of the talks. Media outlets affiliated to him have attributed any concessions (on enrichment or other issues) to Rouhani’s administration, and any successes (on sanctions) to the leader. This will continue as the deal moves towards implementation.

Hossein Bastani is journalist at BBC Persian Service

