Embracing social justice with a promise to recreate the utopian "original revolutionary spirit at the battlefields of the "Sacred Defence"", develop a "renewed and truly revolutionary Islamic Republic" for the people and “guarding the revolution and the independence of the country”, they aimed to crush the reformists as a political force, a process began by reducing power of then–President Mohammad Khatami. Controlling the parliament's majority, they soon enacted laws that made foreign investment difficult and hampered Khatami administration's efforts to negotiate with international companies. On the Nuclear program of Iran, they refused to ratify the Additional Protocol that Hassan Rouhani had negotiated with EU-3. They also demanded to pull out of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, an action which was not permitted by Ayatollah Khamenei.