PARIS – Iranian officials have kept a united front in the Middle East war and there appears for now to be no major split within the leadership, even though factional disagreements exist and the complete absence from public view of key decision-makers creates confusion, analysts said.
Announcing an extension of the ceasefire in the war against the Islamic republic, US President Donald Trump said on April 21 that the move was partly “based on the fact that the Government of Iran is seriously fractured, not unexpectedly so”.
Iran’s leadership has undergone immense upheaval since US and Israeli forces began striking the country on Feb 28.
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) chief Mohammad Pakpour were killed on the first day of the conflict, as well as top security official Ali Larijani in March.
Yet, their successors have remained largely invisible.
Mr Khamenei’s son and successor Mojtaba has yet to appear in public after being named, and both new IRGC chief Ahmad Vahidi and new security chief Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr have restricted themselves to written condolence messages for colleagues killed in the war.
But high-profile figures who have survived the war in their posts – notably Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and President Masoud Pezeshkian – have largely backed a unified policy of pursuing diplomacy with the US to end the war without offering concessions.
“I imagine there are some differences between major power centres and political currents,” said Mr Farzan Sabet, a managing researcher at the Geneva Graduate Institute.
“But it’s not clear that these differences and internal debates mean there is a major conflict happening within the Iranian leadership or that they are seriously fractured. They appear to maintain their overall cohesion and ability to make decisions and act on them,” he added.
In the absence of Mr Mojtaba Khamenei, Mr Vahidi and Mr Zolghadr, the frontman of both the war effort and diplomacy has been Mr Ghalibaf, a former commander of the IRGC and national police chief who has also held civilian posts such as Tehran mayor and now, Parliament Speaker.
Mr Ghalibaf earlier in April led the Iranian delegation for talks with the US in Islamabad, meeting Vice-President J.D. Vance in the highest-level Iran-US encounter since before the Islamic Revolution.
On April 16, Mr Ghalibaf also met Mr Asim Munir – the army chief of key mediator Pakistan – in Tehran.
Despite prolific posting on social media platform X in English and Persian, Mr Ghalibaf has rarely been seen in public in Iran during the war.
Late last week, however, he gave a lengthy interview to state TV where he defended pursuing diplomacy in what may have been a response to hardline criticism.
Dr Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House in London, said: “This system does have factional divisions that are reflected in tactics against the Trump administration and negotiations, but these are not generally aired publicly.”
She told AFP: “There’s no solid public evidence confirming a major internal split at the top of Iran’s leadership right now, so the claim should be treated cautiously.
“It makes sense that Vahidi and Mojtaba Khamenei have not been seen because Tehran is still worried about Israeli assassinations.”
But politics in the Islamic republic – a theocracy with a supreme leader appointed for life but also a directly elected Parliament and president – has never been entirely monolithic, with hardliners and more moderate forces vying for position since the ousting of the shah in 1979.
Professor Thomas Juneau from the University of Ottawa said there is “no public evidence that the Iranian leadership is seriously fractured” but added: “I have no doubt that behind the scenes, there are important and difficult debates within the Iranian leadership, both on next steps and on succession issues.”
He emphasised that it is “the norm, not exception” that there is closed-door debate within the top echelons of the Islamic republic, especially at a time of such stress.
“There is most likely a high degree of paranoia as a result of the heavy Israeli intelligence penetration”, which had led to the killing of its leaders, he said.
The situation has been more confused since the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was leader since 1989 and had the final say on all major issues, making his stance clear in regular televised speeches.
Geneva Graduate Institute’s Mr Sabet said: “Mojtaba Khamenei appears to maintain broad oversight of decision-making, but nowhere near the same level of day-to-day management as his father, probably due to a combination of security concerns and physical incapacitation.”
This means the IRGC ideological army under Mr Vahidi “now more nakedly exercises power”, he added. AFP
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