With Trump declaring it over, Iran’s leadership is divided on how it wants the war to end
Few will be surprised by Donald Trump’s rejection of the US-Iran standoff in his remarks at the NATO summit in Turkey on Wednesday.
Nor will there be much surprise at the US president’s language – calling Iranian leaders “scum” – or that both sides accuse the other of violating the deal.
Indeed, many analysts predict that the vague details of the cease-fire announced in April appears to be resolved soon.
The timing of Trump’s latest comments is significant.
They come amid Iran’s week-long funeral for the previous communionSupreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed by a US-Israeli airstrike in February, is a day away from the procession carrying his coffin expected to arrive in his hometown of Mashhad for his burial.
Many mourners in the crowd held placards reading “Kill Trump” and urged Iran’s leaders to seek revenge, not peace, after Khamenei’s death.
Those calls are expected to intensify — and deepen divisions within Iran’s leadership, as it seeks to find a way out of a conflict that has killed more than 3,000 Iranians and caused massive economic damage, while addressing the deep injustice many Iranians feel from what they see as a sudden attack on their country.
“There are different types of hardliners,” said Ali Ansari, an Iran expert and historian at St. Andrews University in Scotland, in an interview with CBC News earlier this week. “In fact, all the non-hardliners have left [of any leadership roles.]”
Who makes decisions in Iran?
Ansari says the US believes it is negotiating with one of those most involved: Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, one of the main Iranian negotiators, and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
“He gave a great speech four or five weeks ago, when he said, ‘We won the war, because the Americans didn’t plan well. But we can.’t win the war, and that is why we need to negotiate. We must negotiate from a position of power.’
But Ansari doubts Ghalibaf’s influence.
“I’m not sure you’re in the driver’s seat though.”
Ghalibaf and Araghchi, along with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, have been criticized by many hardliners for engaging in peace talks, and have been denounced as traitors at Iranian rallies in recent weeks.
The continued absence – at least in terms of physical presence – of the new supreme leader, Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba, increases the sense of anxiety in the heart of Iran’s leadership.
Reportedly seriously injured in the February 28 attack that killed his father, Mojtaba Khamenei has so far only made statements, including onewhere he expressed skepticism about US-Iran talks, while also indicating they could continue.
Hundreds of thousands of mourners lined the streets of Tehran to bid farewell to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s late supreme leader who was killed in a joint US-Israeli attack on Feb. 28. The four-day funeral took place after the end of hostilities with the US as the two countries looked at the war until the war was delayed.
Ansari says that Mojtaba may sit at the head of the table in a symbolic way, but his continued absence means that he does not have the authority of his father.
“So all these other parties are fighting [for control].”
Measuring American integrity
Analysts believe that Iran’s authorities are divided between the economic demands of accepting a deal that would ease the economy crippled by US-led sanctions for many years and trying to hold on to the status quo that the Strait of Hormuz is offering.
“A reasonable person would say yes, [accept an economic solution] because the economic situation is very bad,” Ansari said. “On the other hand … there’s a reasonable thing to say, ‘Are the Americans remotely serious [an agreement]?'”
Hardline groups will use Trump’s latest comments to argue that negotiations with the Americans are pointless.
In an interview with CBC News in Tehran last month, Ebrahim Rezaei, spokesman for Iran’s national security and foreign policy committee, said he believes Iran is fighting an ongoing war with the US.
“We see it as very possible that the United States will attack us again,” Rezaei said at the time, adding that Iran’s response to the US war had strengthened its position.
“We believe that we are a strong and powerful country,” he said. “And we will not allow the situation in the region to return to what it was before the war, and … American forces must leave the Persian Gulf.”
Funeral messages
The Iranian authorities organized the funeral of Ali Khamenei, who ruled Iran with an iron fist for almost four decades, as a kind of referendum on the Islamic Republic.
They predict that they will say goodbye for six days 20 million people took to the streets in an outpouring of support – an impossible goal, according to Ansari.
“I don’t want to reduce … the feeling of the masses of faithful people, because they clearly exist. But I don’t think this shows any kind of survey about the Islamic Republic.”
Ansari says that the number of planning authorities and the efforts they made in the funeral is a message intended to strengthen their foundation that the Islamic Republic is strong as it was.
But he says it serves two purposes: it also aims to remind the regime’s many opponents that a dictatorship cannot be ended by war.
Iran is a country of over 90 million people. And those who oppose the law of the clergy simply do not attend the funeral. Any apparent dissent is largely limited to a police situation that often uses brutal violence against those who criticize the government.
A Tehran resident who lost friends and family during the regime’s crackdown on anti-government protesters in January told CBC News in a voicemail that the death of Ali Khamenei, man who had been oppressing the Iranian people for a long time, was a consolation but not a cure. (CBC News is withholding your identity for its own protection.)
“The only thing that can ease our pain is the complete overthrow of the Islamic Republic.”
