In analyzing Iran’s position, it is not enough to say that what appears to be a dispute within the ruling system is merely a distribution of roles. This phrase, often used by some in our media, does not explain everything on the ground.
It is true that closed regimes are skilled at producing political theater, and sometimes use apparent contradictions to widen their margin for maneuver. But reading the Iranian experience from within, and through the testimonies of some of its own figures, shows that the matter is deeper than stagecraft.
There is an old struggle between diplomacy and the field, between the state and the revolution, between those seeking a settlement that preserves the system, and those who see any settlement as a postponed defeat.
In Mohammad Javad Zarif’s memoirs, especially in his book The Resilience of Diplomacy, a striking image emerges of a man who represented Iran at the United Nations, only to discover that his government, during the Ahmadinejad era, did not treat him as the primary channel of decision-making.
Instead, it opened side channels with the second-ranking official at the mission. That episode reveals a culture of governance built on multiple centers of power, suspicion of the other, even within the same camp, and a preference for the security or ideological channel over the official one when the issue is sensitive.
If a later foreign minister, and a former ambassador to the United Nations, felt exposed before his own government, how can one assume that Iran’s decisions always come from one room and one mind?
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian’s book “Sobhe Sham” adds another dimension. The man presents himself as a witness to Iran’s presence in Syria, but he reveals, whether intentionally or not, that Iranian foreign policy is not made by the foreign ministry.
The ministry may propose, but there is the field, the Revolutionary Guards, and the calculations of doctrine and influence. In such a bureaucratic structure, the minister is not the decision-maker.
More often, he becomes its explainer or defender before the outside world. Diplomacy here is not the factory of policy, but its verbal facade. That is why Iranian discourse mixes promises of calm with acts of escalation, and why the state appears to say one thing and do the opposite.
The difference between a “distribution of roles” and a “real dispute” is very important. A distribution of roles means there is one center, and that multiple voices are playing an agreed tune. A real dispute means each institution is trying to pull the decision toward its own logic. That is what is happening in Iran today.
The presidency thinks about an exhausted domestic front, sanctions and fear of a social explosion. The foreign ministry thinks about negotiations and reducing pressure. The IRGC thinks about deterrence, prestige, networks of influence and interests.
The ideological establishment thinks about the survival of the narrative on which the system was founded. In major crises, these minds do not always complement one another. They clash, and decision-making stalls. That is the scene now taking shape before us.
The episode everyone knows, when Iran’s current president, Masoud Pezeshkian, came out to say that Iran would not fire on “friendly” Gulf states, only for missiles to continue hours later, may be explained by some as a calculated double message.
But strategic logic says that double messages in wartime are not skill, they are danger. A state that wants to reassure its neighbors does not reassure them with words and then terrify them with action.
That not only weakens Gulf trust but also undermines the trust of any international mediator trying to build an agreement that can be implemented.
An agreement with Iran does not require a single signature. The more serious question is this: who has the right to obstruct after the signature? Can the government bind the field? Can the foreign ministry guarantee the Revolutionary Guards? Can the presidency control the arms? Can the supreme leadership, in a moment of turmoil, prevent every center of power from protecting its own interests? This is where negotiations become complicated, because the other side is not only looking for a written text. It is looking for an authority capable of implementing that text.
This does not deny that some contradiction is deliberate and used for negotiation. But it confirms that what is deliberate can turn into chaos when centers of arms, money and legitimacy multiply. In normal systems, politicians disagree and then institutions settle the matter.
In the Iranian case, the institutions themselves disagree, and each claims to be the faithful guardian of the revolution. Therefore, it is not enough to ask: What does Tehran want? The more accurate question is: Which Tehran is speaking, which Tehran has its finger on the trigger, and which Tehran can honor what it has promised?
That is why the assumption of a third military round does not seem remote, not because it is inevitable, but because the structure of Iranian decision-making repeatedly produces miscalculation.
The 12-day war, then the 40-day war, not only exposed the limits of power. They also exposed the limits of political discipline inside the system. When the military outbids the politician, when the politician fears being accused of weakness, and when revolutionary rhetoric overtakes rational calculation, escalation becomes an easier path than review.
In the end, the dispute at the top of the Iranian pyramid is not a media detail. It is the key to understanding the entire predicament. The scene looks like this: Iran does not negotiate with the world with one mind, does not fight with one hand, and does not reassure its neighbors with one voice. That is the essence of the danger.
When the head and the arm are in conflict, agreements become fragile, war becomes closer, and the entire region is left suspended between the promise of diplomacy and the missile of the field. That is the trust gap that no speech or statement can bridge, no matter how eloquent it sounds.
Final word: A state that speaks with more than one voice cannot build a lasting peace.
