Talks vs escalation: How Iran’s internal power struggle is shaping the war

Dubai: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was in Iraq in early July, attending funeral ceremonies for Iran’s slain supreme leader, when extraordinary news arrived from the Strait of Hormuz.

Iranian forces had attacked three commercial vessels, setting a Qatari LNG tanker ablaze and damaging two other ships.

But according to a New York Times investigation based on interviews with Iranian officials and members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Pezeshkian had not known the attack was coming.

Neither, apparently, had the commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guards.

Pezeshkian angrily telephoned Gen Ahmad Vahidi demanding an explanation. Vahidi told him that he had neither authorised nor known in advance about the attack. Even Iran’s Supreme National Security Council had been kept in the dark, officials told the newspaper.

What emerged was an extraordinary picture of a divided Iranian leadership: A hardline faction had allegedly acted independently, helping derail efforts by more pragmatic officials to end hostilities with the United States and rescue an economy increasingly battered by war.

And at the top of the system, the one man theoretically capable of settling the struggle — Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei — had largely disappeared from public view.

Pezeshkian immediately returned to Tehran.

By the following morning, the United States had retaliated with air strikes and the two countries were once again at war.

What followed inside Iran’s leadership was described by officials as one of its most volatile political confrontations in memory.

There were shouting matches, accusations of treason and betrayal, while two senior generals threatened to resign, according to the Times.

The turmoil contributed to a shake-up of the Supreme National Security Council, with veteran politician and former Guards commander Mohsen Rezaei appointed to lead it and mediate between competing factions.

But the struggle was far from settled.

Government and security inquiries traced the decision to attack the three ships to Hossein Taeb, an influential cleric and former intelligence chief who had opposed the peace agreement with Washington, three Iranian officials told the Times.

Taeb had reportedly argued that Iran had made a mistake by ending the war and agreeing to the deal.

He has since been appointed by Mojtaba Khamenei to head the Basij militia, the powerful force responsible for suppressing domestic unrest.

Officials said Taeb had also played an important role in Mojtaba’s selection to succeed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, after the elder Khamenei was killed at the beginning of the war.

Iranian officials said field commanders had been empowered to attack vessels deemed to be violating Tehran’s control of the Strait without waiting for approval from central command.

Iran subsequently told the United States and regional governments that rogue operators were responsible, according to Iranian and US officials cited in the report. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was sent to Oman in an attempt to defuse the confrontation.

Hovering over the power struggle is an even bigger question: Who is ultimately in charge?

Mojtaba Khamenei has not been seen publicly since becoming supreme leader in March, according to the report.

His whereabouts, health and involvement in government have become subjects of intense speculation.

Even the authenticity of statements and messages attributed to him has been questioned within the Iranian establishment.

One senior cleric publicly questioned how long Iran could operate without seeing its leader, asking whether the extraordinary security arrangements surrounding him could continue for months or even years.

Khamenei’s mother-in-law recently said in an interview that family members had no news of him or his three children, while his father-in-law said the supreme leader had no contact with anyone because of security concerns.

The uncertainty apparently extends to Pezeshkian himself.

When the president said he had met Khamenei in May, officials described highly unusual arrangements involving an ambulance with blacked-out windows and a secure video connection.

A person claiming to be an intermediary appeared on screen and purportedly relayed messages between the president and supreme leader.

Pezeshkian later confided to an ally that he was unsure whether he had actually been communicating with Khamenei, according to officials cited by the Times.

Behind the internal struggle lies a fundamental disagreement over how Iran should confront the United States.

For weeks, Iranian political and military leaders debated two strategies.

One was to return to negotiations.

The other was escalation.

Under the second plan, Iran would intensify attacks on American targets, including naval vessels, seek to kill US troops and drive global oil prices higher.

Both strategies were ultimately intended to force Washington to end the naval blockade of Iran’s southern ports, which officials said had paralysed trade and reduced Iranian oil sales to zero.

Iran’s worsening economy has added urgency to the debate, with its currency falling, inflation rising and the government facing a growing cash deficit.

Senior Guards commanders backed confrontation.

According to the report, they presented the National Security Council with a detailed plan under which Iran and allied groups — particularly the Houthis in Yemen and armed Shiite groups in Iraq — would intensify attacks.

Regional oil infrastructure would also be targeted, widening the war and raising its economic and military costs for Washington and its allies.

Pezeshkian and parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s chief negotiator with the United States, were among those warning that such a strategy risked dragging Iran into an abyss of heavier American air strikes and still greater economic pressure.

But the balance of power appears to have shifted.

By last weekend, according to the Times account, the hardliners had gained the upper hand.

And events on the battlefield increasingly reflect that shift.

Iran and the United States have traded increasingly aggressive attacks, with Tehran targeting American naval vessels and Washington destroying Iranian oil tankers.

“The war between Iran and the United States,” Mahdi Mohammadi, a senior adviser to Ghalibaf, said, “has entered the phase of escalation.”

The internal struggle therefore extends far beyond Tehran’s corridors of power.

The recent easing in attacks has not resolved that internal struggle. Instead, it raises an even bigger question: which faction will determine Tehran’s next move — those pushing for talks or those pressing for escalation?