Who is actually ruling Iran right now? |
Who is actually ruling Iran right now?
The new supreme leader’s absence from public view has exposed a deeper problem: Iran’s old power structure may not work anymore.
For 36 years, the question of who ultimately ruled Iran had one answer: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. While Iran has an elected president and legislature, that power is subordinate to the religious supreme leader, who has the last say over all foreign and domestic policies and is the commander in chief of Iran’s conventional military and the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Corps. Whenever the US confronted Iran, American policymakers knew it was Khamenei who would make the final decision.
Three months after succeeding his father as supreme leader of Iran, Mojtaba Khamenei has still not been seen in public. All eyes will be on his upcoming funeral to see if he appears.
With the supreme leader taking a less active role, other power players in the Iranian regime have become more independent and outspoken, jockeying for position in the new system.
It’s still unclear exactly what the new system will look like. One possibility is a less overly religious but still authoritarian and nationalistic regime.
They’re no longer so sure, however. Joint US-Israeli airstrikes on the first day of the war four months ended Khamenei’s rule, and on July 4, the former supreme leader will be given a public funeral in Tehran. And while the Ayatollah’s second son Mojtaba Khamenei formally succeeded his father as supreme leader on March 4, he has not been seen in public since, reportedly still recovering from severe and disfiguring injuries to his legs and face suffered in the same airstrike that killed his father on February 28. No videos, audio recordings, or current photographs have been issued since then — only written statements read by the anchors on state television or posted on his Telegram channel. Iranian TV networks have even resorted to airing AI-generated videos of him giving speeches.
Just how disabled Mojtaba Khamenei remains is unknown. US officials believe that Khamenei is actually alive and participating in decision-making but if he does not make some sort of appearance for his father’s funeral, it’s going to start to raise questions: Can anyone truly fill the Ayatollah shoes? Could the troubled transition from father to son lead to an Iran that is simultaneously less overtly religious but more nationalistic and authoritarian than before? And most importantly: Who actually rules Iran today?
How Khamenei transformed Iran
The unique setup of the Iranian regime — civilian leaders, but a mullah who holds ultimate power — has been a complicating factor in previous rounds of diplomatic negotiations with the United States. Even when “moderates” who favored better relations with the West were in power, any decision had to be signed off by the supreme leader, whose real views were not always immediately apparent.
Nothing has changed in the transition from father to........