In Tehran, appointments to the Supreme National Security Council are rarely bureaucratic reshuffles. They are signals — about fear, factional power, and the threats the regime believes it is about to face. The return of Mohsen Rezaei, one of the oldest surviving figures of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is therefore more than another personnel change. It is a window into the security mentality of a regime increasingly preoccupied with Israel, its battered regional network, and ultimately its own survival.

The purpose of the Supreme National Security Council is to secure the national interests and safeguard the mullahs’ regime and Khomeini’s upheaval, which, in the wintry, springless season of 1979, brought the Islamic caliphate — or Shiite clerical dictatorship — to power under the name of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The council makes decisions on the regime’s foreign policy and its defense and security affairs. Its members are senior political, military, and intelligence officials of the regime.