Since last February and the “elimination” of Iranian Republic Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei the question for Iran watchers has been whether or not his son and successor Mojtaba died by his side or is still alive or half-alive to act as the leader?
Initially almost everyone believed that he had attained the lofty position of martyr. It seemed odd that he should be the only one who survived more or less intact an attack on his father’s house in which everyone present was killed.
The fact that his whereabouts remained unknown for several days reinforced that theory.
Then things changed either because he was found to be more or less alive or because one Iran’s many talented screenplay writers scripted a genial scenario according to which providence had decided to pension-off the old Khamenei and replace it with a young one. The following slogan was splashed on thousands of billboards and walls across Iran: "Khamenei has become young!”
Then the script-writer added a new twist: President Masoud Pezeshkian announced that he had contacted the new “Supreme Guide”. Well, the word “contact” could be interpreted in a number of ways: face-to-face encounter, zoom chats, telephone call, email, SMS, messages sent by pigeons or even a rendezvous via the Ouija board.
Once a sufficient number of people had followed Coleridge’s advice to suspend their disbelief to enjoy a fiction we were told that the new leader had actually granted a face-to-face audience with Pezeshkian followed by another granted to General Ali Abdullahi who had ran the Revolutionary Guard’s business conglomerate for years.
In the meantime statements supposedly made by Mojtaba continued to be issued through the media to keep the narrative going.
But are we about to witness a new twist in the tale? Certain recent events point to a positive answer.
First, we are told that the president has appointed a new Minister of Defense, a move reserved for the “Supreme Guide” for at least three decades. Then we see that the new minister Mehrdad Akhlaqi isn’t a professional soldier but a bureaucrat who managed the military industrial wing of the IRGC.
The next unusual move was for Pezeshkian to name One-star General Majid Amin-Reza as presidential military adviser a new position that indicates a major change away from the established routine in which the president contacted the military through the Leader’s House (beit).
Another interesting move is the announcement by IRGC chief Major-General Ahmad Vahidi the paramilitary force will “coordinate” its activities with the regular army through the Ministry of defense, again by-passing the “beit”.
At the same time it was announced that the regular army has been given control of the Iranian coast of the Strait of Hormuz while the IRGC controls the Omani side. The army has also been granted control of Iran’s troubled 905 kilometer long border with Pakistan in addition to its control over the Afghan border.
That gives the IRGC the possibility of strengthening its presence on borders with Iraq that may be threatened by armed groups backed by US or Israel.
More importantly, perhaps, the Chief of Staff Major-General Abdullahi says top commanders of both the IRGC and the regular army will from now on hold joint staff meetings, again outside the system operated by the “beit” under which that had to be done in presence of the “Commander-in-Chief” that is to say Khamenei.
These developments have revived the talk of merging the IRGC and the regular army, an idea launched during Muhammad Khatami’s presidency and angrily vetoed by the late Khamenei. Major-General Mostafa Izadi, now appointed as IRGC’s deputy chief, was one of the architects of the controversial scheme.
Outside the military the state-controlled media circulated the claim that a “coordinating committee” that included the president and five other top figures, never clearly identified, would take all “important decisions”. That in effect canceled the late Khamenei’s order for the heads of the three powers, the executive, the legislative and the judiciary to assume that role and submit their joint decisions to his final approval.
Changing that formula without a hint of approval by Mojtaba may be another sign that he doesn’t really exist or at least does not exercise power as his father did.
It is too early to decide whether or not the Iranian Republic is really preparing to change direction at least in its decision-making process. If it survives the current war it may morph into a military-security setup of the kind prevalent in so-called Third World countries.
However, the power struggle in Tehran has not yet reached its decisive phase. Islamic Majlis (parliament) Speaker Muhammad Baqer Qalibaf a retired 1-star general who fancied himself as Donald Trump’s favorite interlocutor in Tehran has challenged decisions by Pezeshkian by claiming that “final decisions” belong to the High Council of National Security (HCNS).
However, HCNS having lost many members to “targeted killing” by Israelis is a truncated body with its new Secretary-General, a retired IRGC chief Mohsen Rezai harboring his childish fantasies.
With or without Mojtaba the regime has lost the little legitimacy it may have conserved in the eyes of some and is ripe for regime change by the Iranian people.
My guess is that Mojtaba either doesn’t exist or is unable to play a decisive role in the current power struggle. He may, of course, still spring a surprise and re-emerge to declare “the total victory” he has promised in the war against the “Great Satan”.
That, however, requires a good dose of Coleridge’s advice.
