Authors: Parisa Hafeez and Angus McDowell
DUBAI, March 7 (Reuters) – Iran’s leadership views the war as an existential matter and its hierarchy shows signs of fragmentation, a rift exposed by a dispute between hardliners and pragmatists over President Masoud Pezeshkian’s pledge not to attack Gulf states.
Fissures within Iran’s ruling elite, long suppressed under the iron-fisted rule of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have spilled into the open as U.S. and Israeli attacks put pressure on Tehran after Khamenei’s killing a week ago.
The relentless bombing has posed a mortal danger to the Islamic Republic and prompted its most ferocious followers, the Revolutionary Guards, to play a greater role in strategy, even as beheading campaigns have killed many senior commanders.
Sources close to Iran’s leadership told Reuters at home that pressure was beginning to build on the leader who was still alive after a series of killings by U.S. and Israeli attacks. They spoke anonymously due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Clerics are accelerating the appointment of a new supreme leader, with a decision likely to be made on Sunday, a sign of growing pressure on the system, although it is unclear whether Khamenei’s successor will wield enough power to stamp out factional feuding.
While his son Mojtaba Khamenei is seen as a front-runner backed by the Guard and his father’s powerful office, he is untested, has a lower status than most of Iran’s senior ayatollahs and has alienated moderates within the establishment.
Other potential candidates may have difficulty maintaining the absolute obedience of the Guard to maintain discipline within the system.
Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, said, using the acronym for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps: “Wartime often clarifies power structures, and in this case the decisive voice is not that of the civilian leadership, but that of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.”
Revolutionary guards outraged by Pezeshki’s statement
Pezeshkian apologized to Gulf states for a week-long blitz of attacks and pledged to curb such attacks, but quickly faced resistance from hard-liners in the Revolutionary Guards and the clerical elite, forcing him to make partial concessions.
In a sign of internal divisions, hardline cleric and lawmaker Hamid Rasai expressed his most public criticism of Pezeshkian on social media, saying: “Your position is unprofessional, weak and unacceptable.”
When the president later repeated his previous statement on social media, he omitted the apology that had angered Guardsmen and other hard-liners — an embarrassing retreat.
To be sure, all senior figures in the leadership are deeply committed to defending the Islamic Republic and its revolutionary theocracy from attacks by the United States and Israel, but there are clear differences in their strategic approaches.
Two senior sources said Iran’s leadership sometimes exaggerates differences between hardliners and moderates as a tactic in negotiations with the West, but the controversy over Pezeshkian’s statement on Saturday revealed real divisions.
A hard-line source close to Khamenei’s office told Reuters that Pezeshkian’s comments angered many senior Guards commanders. Khamenei’s office remains the core node of the leadership.
Another senior Iranian source, a moderate former official, said no one could take Khamenei’s place, describing the late leader as a formidable strategist who had led Iran through many difficult times.
As anxiety at the top of Iran grows, senior ayatollahs have begun publicly urging the clerical body responsible for appointing the supreme leader to speed up its work.
“It should speed up the process in order to disappoint enemies and preserve the unity and unity of the country,” Ayatollah Nouri Hamedani said in a statement carried by the semi-official Fars news agency.
There is also pressure among senior leadership bodies
In Iran’s unusual system, the elected president, government and parliament are subordinate to a clerically appointed ayatollah, who has ultimate power as the supreme leader and personally oversees the Revolutionary Guards and other powerful state institutions.
In his 36 years as leader, Khamenei often divided hardliners and moderates within the ruling system while retaining the final say, allowing them to express dissent while obeying his writs.
After his death, leadership was formally transferred to a constitutionally mandated interim council that included Pezeshkian, a cleric from the judiciary, and another cleric from the hardline Guardian Council.
Noting the pressure on the head of the judiciary in Khamenei’s absence even within the tight-knit body, hardline Ayatollah Ghulam Hussein Mohseni al-Eji said some regional countries were allowing their territory to be used for attacks.
“Vigorous strikes against these targets will continue,” he said, contradicting Pezeshkian’s more conciliatory statements.
Still, while Khamenei did sometimes allow moderate or reformist voices to prevail in disputes with hardliners, these voices were often shot down when the system seemed threatened.
(Reporting by Parisa Hafezi; Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Rod Nickel)