Who Is Really Making Decisions in Iran?
With a new supreme leader unseen since taking power, a military calling its own shots, and US negotiations stalled, Tehran's command structure has never been more opaque — or more consequential.
Iran's power structure has grown increasingly opaque since the outbreak of war in February 2026 · NATFLIX / File
Since the opening strikes of Iran's devastating war with the United States and Israel, one question has overshadowed every diplomatic move, every military decision, and every public statement coming out of Tehran: who, exactly, is in charge?
On paper, the answer is straightforward. Following the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on the very first day of the war — February 28, 2026 — his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, was formally elected by the Assembly of Experts to lead the Islamic Republic. Under Iran's constitution, that position carries the final word on war, peace, and the nation's strategic direction. But in practice, the picture is far murkier, and the gap between formal authority and actual decision-making has never been wider.
The Invisible Supreme Leader
Mojtaba Khamenei has not appeared in public a single time since assuming power. Beyond a handful of written statements — including one insisting the Strait of Hormuz remains closed — there is little direct evidence of his active day-to-day management of the state.
Reports from Reuters, citing sources close to Khamenei's inner circle, indicate that he suffered severe facial and leg injuries in the same wave of strikes that killed his father. He is said to be participating in senior-level meetings via audio conferencing and engaging in decisions on major issues including the war and ongoing nuclear negotiations with Washington. NATFLIX could not independently verify those claims.
"Mojtaba is not in a state where he can make critical decisions or micromanage the talks. The system is using him to get final approval for key broad decisions — not the tactics."
— Ali Vaez, Iran Project Director, International Crisis GroupThat absence carries profound consequences. In Iran's political model, authority is not merely institutional — it is also performative. The late Ali Khamenei maintained control through speeches, calibrated public appearances, and visible arbitration between competing factions. That signalling function is now largely missing, leaving a dangerous vacuum of interpretation at the very heart of the Islamic Republic.
Three Centers of Power, No Clear Commander
With the supreme leader largely out of public view, Iran's decision-making has fractured across three competing power centers — each operating with different mandates, different priorities, and no single figure to arbitrate between them.
Iran's Key Power Centers — April 2026
- Mojtaba Khamenei — New Supreme Leader; unseen publicly; reportedly joins meetings via audio; holds final approval in name only.
- Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi — Leads diplomatic track; operational role only; has limited control over military decisions.
- President Masoud Pezeshkian — Nominally moderate; has avoided pushing an independent line; aligned with regime direction.
- Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf — Heads Iran's negotiating delegation with the US; faces domestic accusations of "betrayal" by hardliners.
- IRGC Chief Ahmad Vahidi — Controls Strait of Hormuz decisions; the military core holds effective leverage over escalation.
- Paydari (Steadfastness) Front — Hardline faction pressuring negotiators; frames any diplomatic flexibility as surrender.
The fracture was laid bare in a single episode. When Foreign Minister Araghchi announced on April 17 that the Strait of Hormuz would reopen to commercial shipping, the backlash within Iran was immediate. Hardline commentators, semi-official news outlets, and voices on state television attacked the statement. Within days, Iran's armed forces declared the Strait closed again — because the United States had maintained its naval blockade.
The sequence was widely interpreted as evidence of a deep rift between Iran's civilian political leadership and its military hardliners in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Araghchi's reversal offered a rare, unfiltered glimpse of how little control the diplomatic track actually holds over military decisions in wartime Iran.
Trump's "Fractured" Accusation
US President Donald Trump has publicly described Iran's leadership as "seriously fractured," announcing a ceasefire extension to allow more time for negotiations. After a stalled second round of talks in Islamabad — where Iran's delegation was notably led by Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf rather than a senior diplomat — US Vice President JD Vance said the Iranian delegation had to return home for approval from either the supreme leader or "someone else." The remark was a telling admission of Washington's own uncertainty about who holds real authority in Tehran.
"Iran is facing an increasingly decentralized, hardline, and ideologically rigid system — one that interprets its resilience in the conflict as a form of divine victory."
— Danny Citrinowicz, Institute for National Security Studies, IsraelIran has pushed back hard against this narrative. State-affiliated outlets dismissed reports of internal rifts as "delusions" peddled by Western officials and media. Iranian leaders sent a message directly to citizens' mobile phones: "There is no such thing as a hardliner or moderate in Iran — there is just one nation, one course." The fact that such a message was deemed necessary suggested the unity problem was serious enough to require a public rebuttal.
A System Squeezed From Both Sides
Analysts describe Iran's predicament as a squeeze from outside and inside simultaneously. Externally, President Trump's coercive diplomatic strategy — maximum military and economic pressure paired with offers to negotiate — is specifically designed to exploit fractures within the Iranian system. Internally, the regime's own ideological support base frames any signal of flexibility as weakness, making it politically costly for any leader to commit to genuine compromise.
Research fellow Hamidreza Azizi, writing for the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, argues that since the war began, the Islamic Republic has been "operating less as a hierarchy organized around a single dominant figure and more as a hardline coalition trying to manage war, diplomacy, and internal competition simultaneously."
The IRGC's control over the Strait of Hormuz — Iran's most immediate source of strategic leverage — exemplifies this shift. Decisions over its closure sit with the military-security core, not with diplomats or the presidency. Iran can threaten and act, but struggles to convert that leverage into a coherent, unified negotiating strategy.
Coherence Claimed, Not Exercised?
For now, the Islamic Republic remains intact. There is no sign of collapse, no open coup, no visible breakdown of the state's basic functions. The regime continues to command its forces, control territory, and maintain public order. But the crucial question — whether its coherence is being genuinely exercised or merely claimed — grows louder with every passing day.
Without a supreme leader who can appear in public, make speeches, and visibly arbitrate between factions, Iran's political system lacks the very signalling mechanism through which it has always maintained internal discipline. Until Mojtaba Khamenei establishes authority on his own terms — or until the system produces another figure capable of filling that role — the question of who is really making decisions in Iran will remain the most consequential unanswered question in the Middle East.
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