Will Ahmadinejad Return to the Political Scene in Iran?
Iranian former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (AFP)
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Will Ahmadinejad Return to the Political Scene in Iran?
Iranian former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (AFP)
A report by The Atlantic said the strike that hit a region close to Iranian former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s residence in the first days of the war on Iran has returned to the spotlight a still controversial political figure even though he left office for over a decade ago.
On the first day of the Iran war, the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei overshadowed news of a strike near Ahmadinejad’s home, said the report.
“Many who remembered his term in office - marked by Holocaust denial, atom-bomb fetishism, and shoving revolutionary ideology down the throats of a country already weary of it - celebrated his reported assassination,” it added. He was president from 2005 to 2013.
“Among those who have followed Ahmadinejad’s post-presidential career, however, his targeting was more of an enigma. Since leaving office, Ahmadinejad has harshly criticized the Iranian government, and as a result, Iran’s Guardian Council has formally excluded him from running for president,” said the report.
For more than a decade, he has been known more as a regime opponent than as a supporter. “I don’t understand why Israel would want to kill him in the first place,” Meir Javedanfar, who co-wrote a biography of Ahmadinejad, told The Atlantic. “Perhaps to settle scores? It makes no sense.”
Contrary to early reports, Ahmadinejad is alive, his associates revealed, requesting anonymity. “The circumstances of his survival may prove significant as the war drags on. Whatever the intent, Ahmadinejad’s associates say the strike was in effect a jailbreak operation that freed the former president from regime control.”
“Long before the war, the government had posted a small number of bodyguards near Ahmadinejad, nominally to protect a prominent citizen but also to keep tabs on him. The regime has never been sure what to do with him,” said the report.
About a month ago, after the January protests, his freedom of movement was further reduced, his phones confiscated, and the contingent of bodyguards increased from single digits to about 50. The bodyguards were based a few hundred meters from Ahmadinejad’s residence itself, at the entrance to a cul-de-sac in Narmak, in northeast Tehran. They established a checkpoint to monitor the houses and high school on that street.
“A February 28 strike hit not the residence, but the security forces nearby. In the ensuing mayhem, Ahmadinejad and his family evidently escaped their home and went underground. The government believed he had died, and his death was announced by official channels, as well as the reformist daily Sharq.”
“When rumors arose that Ahmadinejad had escaped, regime elements immediately suspected that he had been spirited away to take part in a coup,” said The Atlantic. “Ahmadinejad’s only public statement since the attack has been a brief eulogy for the supreme leader, calculated to show that Ahmadinejad was alive and to dispel speculation that he had declared himself an enemy of the state. His location is unknown to the government.”
In 2018, former Defense Minister Hussein Dehghan likened Ahmadinejad to “the door of the mosque, which can’t be burned or thrown away” without torching the mosque itself.
“Arresting Ahmadinejad could unsettle the regime,” Javedanfar said. “He knows a hell of a lot about it.”
“Ahmadinejad’s fans say that he has popular support, and that any postwar government will want him around to lend that support. If the current regime survives, it will need all the legitimacy it can get. If it does not, the United States might need someone with intimate - if outdated - knowledge of the Iranian state to be involved with what comes next. Ahmadinejad could still be useful,” the report said.
Houthi Summer Centers: A 'Mandatory' School Passage to the Front Lineshttps://english.aawsat.com/features/5268210-houthi-summer-centers-mandatory-school-passage-front-lines
Houthi Summer Centers: A 'Mandatory' School Passage to the Front Lines
“School trip” for children at a Houthi-run summer camp in Amran (Asharq Al-Awsat)
In a corner of the courtyard of a public school in Sanaa, a woman dressed in black stands, once used to seeing her son in the morning assembly line. Today, she returns to the same place not as a mother, but as a cleaner trying to keep what remains of her life intact. She wipes the ground in heavy silence, as if whispering to the courtyard gravel: I had a son here. He left a child and came back a corpse.
She sees her son’s face in the student lines, hearing chants and slogans that were once unfamiliar. Quietly, she realizes many of them may follow the same path, but she says nothing. Two years ago, Umm Amer lost her only son. He was 17. He was returned to her a lifeless body, his image raised atop a coffin. They told her: “Ululate, he has attained martyrdom.”
She recalls how he began to change gradually after joining that summer camp. He became quieter, sometimes sharper, shouting and repeating phrases she had never known, about “jihad” and “victory,” as if they were his only path. She did not understand what was happening, but she saw in his eyes a look that was carrying him away from her.
Today, she does nothing but wipe her tears in secret and continue cleaning, in a job she obtained as the “mother of a martyr,” to support her three daughters after losing the family’s provider.
From Summer Activity to Mobilization Apparatus
The Houthi summer centers did not emerge with the group’s takeover of Sanaa in 2014. They are an extension of a historical trajectory tied to the group’s origins. Their beginnings date back to the early 1990s, specifically 1991, when activities were organized under what was known as the “Believing Youth” in Saada. These included youth programs and seasonal courses aimed at transmitting ideological messaging through study circles and summer camps, serving as early tools to build a social and organizational base by combining education with ideological formation.
With the outbreak of the Saada wars in 2004, these activities underwent a qualitative shift. They were no longer limited to religious or educational aspects but became tools of mobilization and recruitment, benefiting from public sympathy during the conflict and expanding their reach among youth.
By 2008, the group began spreading these activities beyond Saada using nontraditional means, including distributing digital materials on SD cards and USB drives. These contained Houthi doctrinal lectures and lessons tied to the summer centers, as well as what is known as the “Malazim” - Houthi doctrinal lectures delivered by the group’s founder, Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi, transcribed into booklets.
A supervisor in Sanaa said he received such memory devices in 2008, distributed among selected students. Upon reviewing their contents, he found recordings and Houthi doctrinal lectures by Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi, noting that these materials marked a turning point in his adoption of the group’s ideas and support for it.
He attended closed gatherings to listen to these Houthi doctrinal lectures in private meeting spaces with individuals close to the group in Sanaa and nearby areas such as Bani Hushaysh, Khawlan, and Sanhan.
Following the developments of 2011, particularly the February protests and sit-ins and the broader moment of political opening, these activities expanded to a number of provinces. More organized centers and courses appeared outside the group’s main stronghold, with clearer administrative oversight under the appealing slogan “regime change.” They moved beyond narrow circles to fill libraries and kiosks with the Malazim, establishing stalls in multiple locations to distribute booklets, posters, and slogans free of charge, and installing loudspeakers to continuously broadcast chants.
The most significant transformation came after the takeover of Sanaa in 2014, when summer centers shifted from limited activities into a wide-ranging program formally administered through state institutions, within an organizational structure that includes central, technical, and supervisory committees, with the involvement of multiple ministries.
A security source said the group had, in earlier stages, relied on what it called “cultural courses” and religious seminaries to attract youth, gain their sympathy, and integrate them into its project before the current model of summer centers emerged. The source added that these centers “are no longer limited, but have become an institutional program managed within an integrated organizational structure,” noting that they are used as a tool to influence youth orientations, ultimately pushing some toward the front lines.
Students in a classroom perform a military salute and chant the Houthi slogan (al-sarkha) (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Types of Summer Camps
According to available information, the group divides these centers or camps into three types: closed, model, and open. Closed camps function as ideological military courses. They are held in military barracks and focus primarily on preparing participants to become fighters within the group. They are trained both militarily and ideologically for this purpose and are considered reserve forces. Once enrolled, their phones are confiscated, contact with their families is cut off, and they are transported at night between training camps that change periodically.
All participants are high school students who have completed weapons dismantling training in schools. Their trainers nominate them for military courses as a reward for excellence and distinction, in addition to some members of school scout groups whose activities have been shifted from scouting to military.
In these camps, participants are trained to use light and medium weapons, RPGs, mortars, grenades, and camouflage and concealment techniques.
Model camps, typically for those over the age of 10, are considered “specialized camps.” Top-performing students in various school activities are recruited to them. These are closed camps where students remain throughout the week, but they are allowed to communicate with their families and their phones are not confiscated. They may return home weekly or every two weeks.
These camps are usually held in provincial capitals, where students receive intensive ideological lectures from senior group leaders, watch films on “jihad,” and study the biographies of the group’s leaders, Hezbollah, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. They also receive limited training in dismantling and using certain types of weapons.
Open camps are for children aged 5 to 10. They begin in the morning and end at noon, appearing to the public as Quran memorization centers and summer activities. As a result, the group spreads them across schools and mosques to make them widely accessible. However, children in these camps are taught the “pledge of allegiance,” to chant the Houthi slogan (al-sarkha), and to obey the group’s leader.
Girls are not excluded. There are dedicated centers for females, managed by the General Women’s Cultural Authority, which designs and implements programs, recruits students through field networks, supervises female staff, and prepares unified guidance materials.
These centers are presented as educational and recreational spaces, but they also include intensive religious programs, mobilization-oriented lectures, and group activities that reinforce discipline and belonging.
Embedding a “Conspiracy Theory” Narrative
In its messaging, the group promotes the idea that the summer centers are a fortress against “conspiracies” targeting religion and the nation. They are presented as a means of instilling what it calls “Quranic culture” in younger generations and building a generation armed with knowledge and awareness.
The group also emphasizes that the “battle with the enemy” is not limited to the military dimension but extends to “targeting awareness.” These centers are framed as a safeguard against what is described as “soft war” and “cultural invasion,” and as part of a long intellectual struggle aimed at preparing a generation capable of confrontation.
Alongside this messaging, educational sources indicate that organizers rely on a set of material and moral incentives, such as providing meals, basic supplies, organizing trips, and offering activities, to attract as many students as possible each year.
According to one of the Malazim, a Houthi doctrinal lecture by founder Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi titled “Lessons in Knowing God,” delivered at the Believing Youth forum in Saada, the overarching objective is to “develop students’ knowledge of God and entrench doctrine within their souls and consciences, in a way that propels them toward fighting and confronting enemies.”
Lessons Outside the Official Curriculum
In this year’s season, which began on March 28, the group distributed its own curricula for the summer centers, printed in high quality with a distinct visual identity. This reflects the scale of resources allocated to these programs compared to formal education, which continues to suffer from declining support and capacity.
Students are often forced to purchase their official textbooks from the black market, while teachers struggle to obtain their salaries. Each year, as preparations for the summer centers begin, the group’s leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, delivers an annual speech calling for enrollment, a call that has itself evolved significantly over time.
These materials carry no reference to the Republic of Yemen or the Ministry of Education. Instead, they are issued under the title “The Quranic March – General Administration of Summer Courses.”
This extends to the naming of the centers, which are not attributed to the schools hosting them but are instead given symbolic names such as “Al-Hadi,” “Al-Hussein,” “Fatima,” “Martyr Taha al-Madani,” and “Martyr Saleh al-Sammad.”
Morning assembly for children in uniform at Houthi summer camps (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Administrative Structure with a Ministerial Character
The administrative structure of the summer courses and activities in areas under Houthi control reflects a multi-level system, led by the Ministries of Education and Youth and Sports, alongside the General Mobilization Authority, which plays a central role in mobilization and guidance, and the Ministry of Endowments, responsible for religious content.
At the executive and technical levels, local authorities in Houthi-controlled provinces oversee field implementation and coordinate activities within districts and centers through education offices and supervisory committees. Daily activities are managed, staff are assigned, and program implementation is monitored, reflecting a system that extends from central leadership down to neighborhoods.
Other ministries participate as technical partners in sectoral programs: the Ministry of Interior runs “Aware Youth... Safe Society,” Agriculture oversees the “Green Army,” Health manages “Health Ambassadors,” the communications sector supervises “Awareness in the Age of Communications,” and Technical Education and Vocational Training oversees “My Profession is My Future.”
The Ministry of Information plays an ongoing supporting role through annual coordination ahead of the launch of the courses, setting the framework for media coverage, including promotion and field reporting, as part of a plan to strengthen the centers’ presence in society.
These centers are managed by the “Supreme Committee for Summer Courses and Activities,” chaired by the prime minister in the Houthi administration, with membership including the ministers of education and youth and sports, a representative of the Endowments Authority, and representatives from the group’s mobilization and cultural apparatus.
Subcommittees are headed by provincial governors, with mobilization officials as deputies, and include directors of education, youth and sports, and endowments offices.
A Turning Point in 2026
While expansion of the summer centers had occurred gradually in previous years, 2026 marks a decisive turning point. Summer schooling is no longer optional; the group has moved to a new phase in which attendance is effectively compulsory. According to testimonies from students, parents, and teachers, a network of direct and indirect pressures is being applied, at times reaching the level of threats, placing families before a stark equation: comply or risk their children’s future.
Although this shift has not been officially announced, it has become a daily reality. Multiple sources confirm that, with preparations for this year’s summer centers underway, the group has escalated practices linking school procedures to participation in these programs.
For example, student results and admission for the next academic year are tied to participation, alongside pressure on school administrations to push students into the camps under threat of penalties. If a student wants their academic record to remain free of marks that could affect their future, including university admission, they must register in these centers.
In some schools, the release of results or acceptance into the following year is tied to a certificate of attendance from the summer center. Messages circulated on communication groups include implicit warnings that absence may negatively affect academic progression.
One message sent by a school administrator to mothers in a WhatsApp group contains a veiled threat that any student who does not attend the summer centers will be denied enrollment next year: “Dear mothers, please be informed that registration will not be accepted without a certificate from the summer center. We ask that students who have not yet registered do so and join the center to benefit.”
In another group, a teacher urged students: “Come early tomorrow, those registered and those not yet registered should register. The administration will not accept them at the start of the school year without the summer center certificate.”
A message attributed to a school principal in northern Ibb indicated that attendance at the summer centers is a condition for receiving exam results, while failing students are enticed with additional marks if they join the courses.
Extracurricular activities titled “My Profession is My Future” at a Houthi-run summer camp (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Declining Participation and Criminalization
According to sources, these measures were introduced out of concern that the summer centers might face declining turnout, as families are increasingly aware of their outcomes. Teacher A. Abdul Karim, who works in these centers, said that despite the group’s efforts to mobilize as many students as possible, participation has recently declined.
He noted that turnout has become very weak, and that recruiting students now requires significant time, sustained persuasion, and financial incentives.
The Yemeni Teachers’ Syndicate warned of the dangers posed by these centers, stating they have become organized tools for sectarian ideological mobilization and the recruitment of children and youth, as part of a systematic targeting of national identity and the education system in Yemen.
In a statement dated Sunday, April 12, 2026, the syndicate said the group has expanded these centers since taking control of Sanaa to attract the largest number of students, using them to instill doctrinal ideas based on concepts of lineage-based selection that conflict with national and religious values and serve a political project threatening Yemen’s security and stability.
Neglected Schools, Flourishing Centers
In its messaging, the group describes the summer centers as an “educational support channel” to compensate for gaps caused by war. However, according to many teachers, this is nothing more than a worse excuse than the offense itself. Schools themselves could serve that role if there were genuine intent to reform education.
Teachers argue that the group’s insistence on these centers reveals that the goal is not education, but the production of a generation prepared for early recruitment and ideological mobilization. They pose a central question: if the group holds full control over formal education and has successfully inserted its ideology into school curricula, why deliberately neglect schools, leaving them in a state of near collapse, without teachers, salaries, or basic educational resources?
This contradiction between stagnating schools during the academic year and their sudden revival in summer raises serious questions.
While significant attention, funding, and effort are directed toward summer centers that quickly turn into active and crowded spaces, formal education remains in a state of severe stagnation and resource deprivation, with thousands of schools lacking even the most basic requirements for learning.
Archaeologist Mohamed Mubarak walks past pyramids standing in the Meroe desert, at one of the archaeological sites of the so-called Island of Meroe on the eastern shore of the Nile River, about 220 km north of Khartoum, on April 22, 2026. (Photo by KHALED DESOUKI / AFP)
Archaeologist Mohamed Mubarak walks past pyramids standing in the Meroe desert, at one of the archaeological sites of the so-called Island of Meroe on the eastern shore of the Nile River, about 220 km north of Khartoum, on April 22, 2026. (Photo by KHALED DESOUKI / AFP)
Mostafa Ahmed Mostafa is the heir to a long line of groundskeepers who have guarded Sudan's ancient pyramids of Meroe. Now, three years into the war between the army and paramilitary forces, he stands near-solitary sentinel over his heritage.
"These pyramids are ours, it's our history, it's who we are," the 65-year-old said, flanked by the dark sandstone structures of the Bajrawiya necropolis, which is part of the Island of Meroe, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Clad all in white, Mostafa cut a striking figure crossing the 2,400-year-old burial site, which holds 140 pyramids built during the Kingdom of Kush's Meroitic period.
None are intact. Some were decapitated, others reduced to rubble, first in the 1800s by dynamite at the hands of treasure-hunting Europeans, and then by two centuries of sand and rain.
A three-hour drive from the capital Khartoum, it was once Sudan's most visited heritage site. Now three years into the war between Sudan's army and the Rapid Support Forces, only a lone camel's grunt cuts through the silence.
Archaeologist and site director Mahmoud Soliman gave AFP journalists a tour, explaining the Kush kingdom's matrilineal succession, trade routes and relationship with neighboring Egypt.
"It's maybe the fourth time I've shown people around since the war broke out," the scientist said.
Together, he, Mostafa and young archaeologist Mohamed Mubarak man the site, cobbling together resources to keep the erosive rain and sands at bay.
Apart from a short-lived influx of visitors early in the war -- mostly displaced people desperate for something to do -- the site has stood largely abandoned.
It is worlds away from its pre-war days, when there were "regular weekend visits from Khartoum, busloads of 200 people per day", Soliman remembered fondly.
Sudan's heritage sites had experienced a resurgence, he explained, after the uprising of 2018-2019, when young Sudanese protested against Omar al-Bashir.
One chant went: "My grandfather Taharqa, my grandmother Kandaka" -- the former a Kush Pharaoh, the latter the name for ancient queens, and also used to honor the women icons of the revolution.
"Young people were taking more of an interest, they were organizing trips to tourist sites and getting to know their own country," Soliman said.
Sudanese site director Mahmoud Soliman gestures inside a tomb beneath a pyramid at one of the archaeological sites of the so-called Island of Meroe, on the eastern shore of the Nile River, about 220 km north of Khartoum, on April 22, 2026. (Photo by KHALED DESOUKI / AFP)
Residents of the nearby Tarabil village -- named after the local word for "pyramids" -- sold souvenirs and rented camels and "were entirely dependent on the site".
On a breezy day in April, Khaled Abdelrazek, 45, rushed to the site as soon as he heard there were visitors. He squatted at the entrance, showed AFP journalists handmade miniature sandstone pyramids and reminisced about when there were "dozens of us selling".
In the months before the war, there were visits from documentary crews, a music festival and "big ideas for right after Eid al-Fitr", said Soliman -- all destroyed when the war broke out in the last days of Ramadan.
"I used to feel like I was teaching people about their culture," said Mubarak, who has worked at the site since 2018.
"Now, everyone's top priority is of course food and water and shelter. But this is also important. We need to protect this for future generations, we can't let it be destroyed or wither away."
Near the site's entrance, the proud pyramids, each fronted by a small mortuary temple, are framed by rolling black sandstone hills.
The vista is breathtaking, but Soliman said his eyes see only danger: Is that crack in that pyramid new? Has that sand mound moved? Does the pipe scaffolding at that burial chamber entrance need to be redone before the rainy season?
"I think if the pyramids had been left in their original state we wouldn't have all these problems," Mubarak said.
The structures are smaller and steeper than their Egyptian neighbors, built to "withstand the sands and sweep away the rainwater, but every fracture creates issues".
Local site guard Mostafa Ahmed speaks in front of pyramids standing in the Meroe desert, at one of the archaeological sites of the so-called Island of Meroe on the eastern shore of the Nile River, about 220 km north of Khartoum, on April 22, 2026. (Photo by KHALED DESOUKI / AFP)
The largest pyramid of the lot -- of Queen Amanishakheto, who reigned around the 1st century AD -- suffered more than just fractures and is now effectively a sandbox, fine sand swirling where her tomb once stood.
In 1834, Italian adventurer Giuseppe Ferlini, who destroyed dozens of pyramids, levelled Amanishakheto's and carted her jewelry off to Europe. It is now exhibited in the Egyptian museums in Berlin and Munich.
The outside of her temple wall still stands, where a larger-than-life carving of the queen shows her standing proud, holding a spear in one hand and smiting enemy captives.
Soliman showed AFP journalists more reliefs: the lion deity Apademak and motifs shared with Egypt, including the gods Amun and Anubis, lotus flowers and hieroglyphics.
He yearns for the day tourists and archeologists will return.
"This is just a distant dream, but I'd really like us to one day be able to do proper restoration on these pyramids," he said, as if he were not really allowing himself to hope.
Iran's Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi briefs the media on elections in Tehran, Iran, March 4, 2024. (AP)
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Iran’s Guards Seize Wartime Power, Blunting Supreme Leader’s Role
Iran's Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi briefs the media on elections in Tehran, Iran, March 4, 2024. (AP)
Two months into a war with the US and Israel, Iran no longer has a single, undisputed clerical arbiter at the pinnacle of power — an abrupt break with the past that may be hardening Tehran’s stance as it weighs renewed talks with Washington.
Since its creation in 1979, the Islamic Republic has revolved around a supreme leader with final authority on all key matters of state. But the killing of Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war, and the elevation of his wounded son, Mojtaba, have ushered in a different order dominated by commanders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and marked by the absence of a decisive, authoritative referee.
Mojtaba Khamenei remains at the apex of the system, but three people familiar with internal deliberations say his role is largely to legitimize decisions made by his generals rather than issue directives himself.
Wartime pressure has concentrated power into a narrower, harder-line inner circle rooted in the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), the Supreme Leader’s office and the IRGC, which now dominates both military strategy and key political decisions, Iranian officials and analysts say.
"The Iranians are painfully slow in their response," said a senior Pakistani government official briefed on peace talks between Iran and the United States that Islamabad has been mediating. "There is apparently no one decision-making command structure. At times, it takes them 2 to 3 days to respond."
Analysts said the obstacle to a deal is not internal infighting in Tehran, but the gap between what Washington is prepared to offer and what Iran’s hardline Guards were willing to accept.
The diplomatic face of Iran at the talks with the US has been Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, more recently joined by parliament speaker Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf -- a former Guards commander, Tehran mayor and presidential candidate -- who has emerged during the war as a key conduit between Iran’s political, security and clerical elites.
On the ground, however, the central interlocutor has been IRGC commander Ahmad Vahidi, according to a Pakistani and two Iranian sources who identified him weeks ago as Iran's pivotal figure, including on the night a ceasefire was announced.
Mojtaba, who was severely injured in the opening Israeli and US strike that killed his father and other relatives and left him disfigured with serious leg wounds, has not appeared publicly and communicates through IRGC aides or limited audio links because of security constraints, two people close to his inner circle said.
There was no immediate reply from the Iranian foreign ministry to a request for comment on the issues raised in this article. Iranian officials have previously denied any divisions over negotiations with the United States.
People ride motorcycles near a billboard featuring an image of Iran's new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, amid a ceasefire between US and Iran, in Tehran, Iran, April 20, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters
REAL POWER WIELDED BY WARTIME LEADERSHIP, INSIDERS SAY
Iran submitted a new proposal to Washington on Monday, which according to senior Iranian sources envisions staged talks, with the nuclear issue to be set aside at the start until the war ends and disputes over Gulf shipping are resolved. Washington insists the nuclear issue must be addressed from the outset.
"Neither side wants to negotiate," said Alan Eyre, an Iran expert and former US diplomat, adding that both believed time would weaken the other -- Iran through leverage over Hormuz and Washington through economic pressure and a blockade.
For now, neither side can afford to bend, Eyre said: Iran’s IRGC is wary of appearing weak to Washington, while President Donald Trump faces midterm election pressure and little room for flexibility without political cost.
"For either, flexibility would be seen as weakness," Eyre said.
That caution reflects not just the pressures of the moment, but the way power is now exercised inside Iran.
While Mojtaba is formally Iran's ultimate authority, he is a figure of assent rather than command, insiders say, endorsing outcomes forged through institutional consensus, rather than imposing authority. Real power, they say, has moved to a unified wartime leadership centered on the SNSC.
"Important deals probably pass through him," Iranian analyst Arash Azizi said, "but I can’t see him overruling the National Security Council. How could he go against those running the war effort?"
Hardline figures such as former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and a cluster of radical MPs have raised their profile using forceful rhetoric during the war, but they lack the institutional clout to derail decisions or shape outcomes.
Mojtaba owes his elevation to the Guards, who sidelined pragmatists and backed him as a reliable guardian of their hardline agenda. Already strengthened by war, the Guards’ growing dominance signals a more aggressive foreign policy and tighter domestic repression, sources familiar with the country's inner policy-making circles told Reuters.
Driven by revolutionary sectarian ideology and a security-first worldview, the Guards see their mission as preserving the regime at home while projecting deterrence abroad.
That outlook, often shared with hardliners across the judiciary and the clerical establishment, prioritizes rigid centralized control and resistance to Western pressure, particularly on nuclear policy and Iran’s regional reach.
POWER SHIFTS FROM CLERICS TO SECURITY SECTOR, ANALYSTS SAY
In practice, the Guards' ideology shapes strategy and decision-making rests firmly in their hands. With the country at war and Ali Khamenei gone, no actor inside the system has the power or scope to resist them, even if they wished to, the people close to internal discussions said.
The choice facing Iran’s leadership is no longer between moderate and hardline policy, but between hardline and even harder line. A small faction may argue for pushing further still, two Iranian sources close to power circles said, but even that impulse has so far been kept in check by the Guards.
The shift marks a decisive reordering of power from clerical primacy to security dominance. "We’ve gone from divine power to hard power," said Aaron David Miller, a former US negotiator. "From the influence of the clerics to the influence of the Revolutionary Guard Corps. This is how Iran is being governed."
While differences of opinion exist, decision-making has consolidated around security institutions, with Mojtaba acting as a central convening figure rather than a lone decider, added Alex Vatanka, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. Despite sustained military and economic pressure from the United States and Israel, Iran has shown no signs of fracture or capitulation nearly nine weeks into the war.
Nor, as Miller noted, is there evidence of fundamental rifts within the system or meaningful opposition on the streets.
That cohesion suggests that command now sits with the Guards and security services, which appear to be driving the war rather than merely executing it. A strategic consensus has emerged — avoid a return to full-scale war, preserve leverage, especially over the Strait of Hormuz, and emerge from the conflict politically, economically and militarily stronger, Miller said.
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