These hardliners are now running Iran, and they are not scared of Trump

When Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader for 37 years, was killed by Israel in the opening airstrike of the war against the Islamic Republic on February 28, he was succeeded by his son Mojtaba.

However, the 86-year-old Ayatollah had a level of influence that could not be replaced by anyone else.

Senior Iranian officials claim that all important matters are handled by the 56-year-old heir. But experts say decision-making goes beyond one man and is guided by a small, elite group of mostly current or former senior commanders of the Revolutionary Guard.

It is not the Guard as an organization that is in control, they say, but a hardened “band of brothers” with a seminal experience of the brutal eight-year war between Iran and Iraq that began in 1980.

The Guard, founded in 1979 to protect the newborn revolution and its leader, promoted these commanders to generals while they were still in their late 20s or early 30s. The West’s support for Iraq in the war convinced them that Iran must go its own way, no matter the cost.

They continued to control intelligence or security services after the war. Many are believed to have a personal connection with Mojtaba Khamenei from the many years he ran his father’s office.

These men are among the toughest figures in the country; militants not only in terms of continuing the Islamic Revolution, but also in the harsh methods they advocated in running the main organs of government repression.

Experts say one of the reasons the war did not collapse or paralyze the government, despite the deaths of nearly 50 senior political and military leaders, was their common backgrounds, careers and ideological perspectives.

Whatever bargaining is taking place between these central figures as to whether a pragmatic end to the conflict will be sought remains largely unclear. Some had avoided the spotlight even before the war. They now remain hidden for fear of being targeted.

Here are some of the most powerful figures in Iran today.

Muhammad Bagher Galibaf, 64

Galibaf, who has been the speaker of the Iranian parliament since 2020, served as mayor of Tehran as well as commander of the Guard air force and chief of the national police.

Galibaf once boasted that during anti-government demonstrations in 1999, despite his rank, he rode on the back of a motorcycle like an ordinary militiaman and beat protesters with sticks.

He ran for president in 2004 and tried to change his image. “He showed up on election day looking like Don Johnson. Miami ViceAfshon Ostovar, author of the book, said that he wore a white suit and sunglasses instead of a uniform. pioneer of imamHistory of the guards. It was a failed attempt to appeal to middle-class voters, causing some conservative supporters to be suspicious of his ambitions.

Ghalibaf is a kind of bridge between the political and military elite. Considered a pragmatic figure, he negotiated directly with the United States in Pakistan last month. Some opponents suspect he is seeking a peace deal that would make him Iran’s strongman.

Ahmed Vahidi, 67

Vahidi is a former intelligence officer who took over the Guard after his predecessor was killed in US and Israeli airstrikes in March. A veteran and combative general, he previously served as both defense minister and interior minister.

Vahidi came to prominence in 1988 as the first commander of the Quds Force, which created proxy regional militias like Hezbollah in Lebanon.

He is suspected of having built terrorism into their DNA. Attacks under his watch included the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing 85 people, and the 1996 truck bomb that targeted the US Air Force barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 soldiers. Iran has repeatedly denied involvement in both attacks.

Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, 69

Mohseni-Ejei, head of Iran’s judiciary since 2021, is known as a capital judge who has long used the courts to suppress dissent, including the recent executions of participants in anti-government protests earlier this year.

Mohseni-Ejei was intelligence minister during the protests after the 2009 presidential election.

Public perceptions of fraudulent voting fueled the Green Movement, a wave of demonstrations across the country that his ministry helped suppress through imprisonment, torture and execution. It was the target of sanctions by both the United States and the European Union.

Hussein Taeb, 63

Taeb is a Shiite Muslim cleric who led the brutal Basij militia and then government counterintelligence operations before becoming head of the Guard’s own intelligence agency from 2009 to 2022.

Notorious for crushing dissent, the organization has imprisoned scores of Iranian Americans and other dual citizens for ransom or other exchanges during its tenure; both are described in detail in their reports. EtemadIran’s daily newspaper and Human Rights Watch.

Government violence during the 2009 protests sparked public criticism; “This is exactly what will happen when we leave the management of the latest crisis in the hands of people like Taeb, who are more familiar with the stick than with thought, reason and common sense,” one member of parliament wrote in comments posted online.

Taeb remains a central figure despite losing his top intelligence post in 2022 after Israel damaged the country’s nuclear program.

He is believed to be close to Mojtaba Khamenei, having served in the same prestigious Habib Guard Battalion during the Iran-Iraq war.

Muhammad Ali Jafari, 68

Jafari, a two-star general, was the former religious leader’s military advisor. No longer in an official role, he commanded the Guard from 2007 to 2019, one of his longest tenures.

He had previously joined two dozen Guard commanders in their apparent public foray into political life, threatening then-president Mohammad Khatami in 1999 with a letter demanding the suppression of student protests.

A brilliant tactician known as Aziz, Jafari is credited with developing the “mosaic strategy” of decentralized command that enabled the force to continue fighting the current war even if many key commanders were killed.

Jafari also played a central role in creating regional proxy forces against Israel. “The Revolutionary Guard will fight to the end of the Zionist regime,” he was quoted as saying in 2015. “We will not rest until the symbol of this immorality is completely erased from the geopolitics of the region.”

Muhammad Bagher Zolghadr, 72

Zolghadr is a prime example of what analysts see as the fusion of the military with the political class.

The deputy commander of the Guard and a former deputy interior minister with a tough reputation, he was appointed secretary of the Supreme National Security Council to replace prominent conservative figure Ali Larijani, who was killed in March.

The council, which brings together senior military and civilian officials, determines security and foreign policy. Zolghadr’s new position involves ensuring that the political, military, security and judicial arms of the government work together.

‘The brotherhood that rules the country’

For almost 40 years, this intelligence brotherhood first dominated the Guard and has now become “a brotherhood that runs the country,” said Saeid Golkar, a political science professor and Guard expert at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

“They had information and intelligence; they had a lot of information about how the system worked, the opposition, the reformers, even the radicals,” he said.

“They investigate, they control, they spy on each other. Because of this dominance over intelligence, they have become increasingly dominant in almost every aspect of politics in Iran.”

This article was first published on: New York Times.

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