Mojtaba Khamenei inherited the most powerful office in the Islamic Republic. Yet six months into his tenure, a question once considered unthinkable is surfacing in Tehran. When the Supreme Leader speaks, who still listens?

For almost five decades, the answer was obvious. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini created a system in which factional warfare could rage beneath the surface, provided everyone ultimately bowed to the Supreme Leader. Ali Khamenei preserved that arrangement for more than three decades. Presidents came and went. Clerics competed. The Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) accumulated power. Yet one principle remained sacrosanct. The Supreme Leader had the final word.

Today that principle is under strain. On August 28, Mojtaba Khamenei warned officials against creating false choices between war and negotiation, compromise and confrontation. He urged them to avoid publicizing weaknesses and declared that anything damaging social cohesion was forbidden. The message appeared designed to impose discipline on a deeply divided regime. Within hours, President Masoud Pezeshkian was making the opposite argument. He has repeatedly highlighted the devastating consequences of sanctions, war, and economic isolation. Reuters reported on August 28 that he acknowledged a 35 percent decline in foreign trade.

The contrast was extraordinary. The Supreme Leader was telling the regime to stop advertising weakness while the president described it in stark terms. His adviser and Executive Vice President Mohammad Jafar Ghaempanah went further. He argued that if abandoning uranium enrichment could prevent further American attacks on Iranian infrastructure, enrichment should be abandoned. Iran's people, he suggested, should not become martyrs merely to preserve........

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