By Shashi P.B.B. Malla

As supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei exerted absolute power over all decisions about war, peace and negotiations with the United States.

He was like an absolute king, an all-powerful pope and an unforgiving tyrant.

According to The New York Times columnist, Farnaz Fassihi, his son and successor does not play the same role (April 25-26).

“Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, the son, is an elusive figure who has not been seen and whose voice has not been heard since he was appointed in March.”

Instead writes Fassihi: “a battle-heartened collective of commanders in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and those aligned with them are the key decision makers on matters of security, war and diplomacy.”

“Mojtaba is managing the country as though he is director of the board,” said Abdolreza Davari, a politician who served as senior adviser to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when he was president and knows the junior Khamenei.

Mojtaba “relies heavily on the advice and guidance of the board members, and they collectively make all the decisions,” Davari said.

“The generals are the board members.”

In Iran’s new power structure Mojtaba was initially selected by a council of senior clerics as the new supreme leader, but has been in hiding since American and Israeli forces bombed his father’s compound on February 28, where he also lived with his family.

His father, wife and son were all killed.

Access to him is extremely difficult and limited now.

He is surrounded mostly by a team of doctors and medical staff who are treating the injuries he sustained in the airstrikes.

Senior commanders of the Guards and senior government officials do not visit him, fearing that Israel may trace them to him and assassinate him. President Masoud Pezeshkian, who is also a heart surgeon, and the minister of health have both been involved.

Though Mojtaba Khamenei was gravely wounded, he is mentally sharp and engaged, according to four senior Iranian officials familiar with his help.

One leg was operated on three times, and he is awaiting a prosthetic.

He had surgery on one hand and is slowly regaining function.

His face and lips have been burned severely, making it difficult for him to speak, the officials said, adding that, eventually, he will need plastic surgery.

Khamenei has not recorded a video or audio message, the officials said, because he does not want to appear vulnerable or sound weak in his first public address.

He has issued several written statements that have been posted online and read on state television.

Messages to him are handwritten, sealed in envelopes and relayed via a human chain from one trusted courier to the next, who travel on highways and back roads, in cars and motorcycles until they reach his hide-out. His guidance on issues snakes back the same way (NYT).

The combination of concern for his safety, his injuries and the sheer challenge of reaching him has resulted in Khamenei’s delegating decision making to the generals, at least for now.

“Reformist factions, as well as ultra-hard-liners, are still involved in political discussions” (NYT).

But analysts say that Khamenei’s close ties to the generals, whom he grew with when he volunteered to fight in the Iraq-Iran war as a teenager, have made them the dominant force.

Trump has claimed that the war, along with the killings of layers of Iran’s leaders and security establishment, has ushered in “regime change” and that the new leaders are “much more reasonable.”

On both counts Trump is far from the mark.

In reality, the Islamic Republic has not been toppled. It has metamorphosed into a quasi military dictatorship.

Power is now in the hands of an entrenched hard-line military, and the broad influence of the clerics is waning.

The speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a former Guards general and the lead negotiator with the United States in Pakistan, said in a television address last weekend that the U.S. proposal for a nuclear deal and peace plan and Iran’s response had been shared with Khamenei and his views had been taken into account when making decisions.

The power equation in Iran has definitely shifted.

The Rise of the Revolutionary Guards

The Revolutionary Guards, were originally formed as protectors of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

However, they have steadily amassed power through top political roles, stakes in key industries, dominance of intelligence operations and cultivation of ties with militant groups in the Middle East that share Iran’s enmity towards Israel and the United States.

Under the elder Khamenei, they still had to mostly adhere to his will as singular religious figure who also served as commander in chief of the armed forces, and was even above the head of state.

He empowered the Guards, and over time they became the tool and pillar of his rule.

The son does not have the same role – he is the supreme ruler in name only. He is now a creature of the Guards.

Khamenei the elder’s killing on the first day of the war created a void and an opportunity.

The Guards rallied behind Mojtaba in the succession struggle that ensued and played an instrumental role in his selection as Iran’s third supreme leader.

The Guards have multiple levers of power.

1. The commander in chief is Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi.

He saw talks with the United States as futile.

• Gen. Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, the newly appointed head of the Supreme National Security Council, is a former hard-line commander of the Guards.
• Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, a commander, has served as the top military adviser to both father and son supreme leaders.
• Gen. Mohsen Rezaei commanded Mojtaba in the 1980s during the Iraq-Iran war, and has been called back from retirement.

Ghalibaf, the former Guards general is also a long-time friend.

Among Mojtaba’s close friends from the Habib Battalion (where he served) is the Guards’ former intelligence chief, the cleric Hossein Taeb.

These personal relationships are now playing heavily into the dynamic between Khamenei and the generals.

They are on a first-name basis and view one another as peers, not superior and subordinate, said Abdolreza Davari, the former senior adviser.

“Mojtaba is not supreme; he might be leader in name, but he is not supreme the way his father was,” said Ali Vaez, the Iran director of the International Crisis Group, who has extensive contacts in Iran.

Pakistan races to save US-Iran negotiations

Pakistan’s top political and military leadership are scrambling to reignite talks between the United States and Iran after Trump instructed his envoys not to travel to Islamabad for negotiations (AP/Associated Press, April 27).

After mounting tensions torpedoed a second round of talks between the US and Iran, the Iranian foreign minister Abbas Aragchi spent most of Sunday in Oman.

He has returned to Islamabad before departing for Moscow.

The whole point of the talks is fruitless because the Iranian civilian negotiators play only second fiddle to the hard-line generals.

These expect Trump to take a more serious stance on the problems:

• Trump must be more strenuous with Israeli prime minister Netanyahu with regard to Lebanon, Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
• He must show more flexibility in the Strait of Hormuz/Gulf of Oman by agreeing to stop the blockade of Iranian ports in return for Iran to opening up the Strait, i.e. ‘the blockade of the blockade must cease’.

The writer can be reached at: shashimalla125@gmail.com