It’s not entirely clear who in Iran is the final decision maker when it comes to making a deal with the United States to formally end the war and move toward a day-after plan.
Iran’s Assembly of Experts selected Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his father, Ali Khamenei, as the Supreme Leader of the country in early March after the elder Khamenei was killed in the opening strikes of the war. But the younger Khamenei has not been seen publicly since he was appointed more than a month ago, though he was reportedly injured in the strikes that killed his father.
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Mojtaba Khamenei’s absence from public life has raised speculation that he could be incapacitated or dead.
The elder Khamenei was one of several senior members of the regime and military killed during the conflict. Those killed have been replaced by individuals lower in ranks.
Major General Ahmad Vahidi replaced Mohammad Pakpour as commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Commander. Vahidi was previously the Minister of the Interior, and in 2022, the U.S. re-sanctioned him for overseeing the suppression of nationwide protests. He was previously designated in 2010 for his ties to Iran’s nuclear and weapons of mass destruction program, and served as the head of the Guard’s Quds Force, the group’s external operations arm.
Vahidi is believed to hold hard-line views more likely to be associated with holding out for additional American concessions in negotiations, continuing to hold the Strait of Hormuz hostage to impose economic penalties across the globe, and refusing to give up their nuclear program.
Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Abbas Araghchi and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf led Iran’s delegation in Islamabad last week and were expected to be a part of the second round of negotiations that have now been delayed. The duo is perceived as less hard-line than Vahidi, though it’s unclear if there is real distance between their viewpoints.
Araghchi and Ghalibaf appear to “have a bit more moderate stances regarding what the regime is willing to concede,” Annika Ganzeveld, an expert with the Critical Threats Project, told the Washington Examiner, adding that despite their apparent willingness to make some concessions, they “do not seem to be the ones who are wielding authority in Tehran.”
“It seems specifically that IRGC Commander Vahidi, and those close to him, or in his regard, are ones driving decision-making in Tehran, both in relation to what Iran is doing militarily, but also in regards to Iran’s diplomatic negotiations efforts,” she added. “We have seen that the IRGC commander, Vahidi, has tried to insert more hard-line figures into Iran’s negotiating team, likely to try to keep an eye on negotiations, make sure that the negotiations don’t stray away from Vahidi and the Supreme Leader’s mandate.”
Gen. Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, an ally of Vahidi, was appointed as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, succeeding Ali Larijani, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on March 17. Vahidi pushed for his inclusion in the negotiating team.
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President Donald Trump and his administration have argued that regime change has occurred in Iran and indicated the new leaders are more willing to make a deal, even though that has not been demonstrated yet.
Aaron David Miller, a longtime former State Department official who focused on Middle East diplomacy, told the Washington Examiner that it’s likely Vahidi and Zolghadr are exerting power over the negotiations.
“The two negotiators are caught in a bind where they may want to negotiate, but they’re not exercising the final word,” Miller, who is now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said.
Trump announced on Tuesday that the U.S. would extend the ceasefire that was expected to expire on Wednesday because the Iranian government is “seriously fractured.” He did not specify how long the extension would last. He previously said he didn’t envision extending the ceasefire.
Senior American military and defense officials have said U.S. forces remain ready to restart offensive operations if Trump green-lights it, while the military is maintaining a blockade of ships heading to or coming from Iranian ports. Simultaneously, Iran has maintained the threat to attack non-Iranian vessels heading to or from other Gulf ports, which has caused global economic strife.
Iran’s military fired on three ships in the Strait of Hormuz in recent days, while U.S. forces fired at a ship that was not heeding its warnings to turn around. These incidents demonstrate the tightrope diplomats have to walk amid the threat that the war could restart.
“This regime has withstood almost seven weeks of a military campaign by the world’s most powerful military and by the region’s most powerful military,” Miller argued. “It hasn’t fractured, it hasn’t capitulated, and it has retained two powerful weapons, which it has deployed. One is the strait and number two is the capacity to use their drones and short range ballistic missiles to undermine Gulf security.”
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Tehran’s threats regarding the strait, which was supposed to be reopened as a condition of the ceasefire, have shown that they have leverage over the global economy that they can willingly impose whenever they want.
There are also other topics the Trump administration wants Iran to compromise on, though they have made no indication they are willing to agree to those demands. The U.S. wants Iran to give up the highly enriched uranium likely buried beneath a facility or facilities that American forces bombed last year, end its support for proxy forces across the region, and more.
