US President Donald Trump has boasted that the war in Iran has led to “very reasonable”, “very different” and “more rational” leadership in Tehran. But this week’s promotion of six hardliners to top security posts suggests the Islamic Republic’s new command may not be moderate or inclined to compromise.
Now rising through the security apparatus, they have spent their careers confronting enemies abroad and suppressing dissent at home.
Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s announcement of senior officials on Monday followed the appointment of a new national security chief, Mohsen Rezaie, the day before.
Experts say the changes signal a change in approach compared to the more cautious stance taken by Mojtaba’s father, Ali Khamenei, who was supreme leader until he was assassinated by Israel at the start of the war.
More aggressive against external enemies and more cautious against internal opposition.
Hamidreza Azizi of the Dutch think tank Clingendael Institute says there are two parallel priorities. These are to prepare the nation for a more confrontational external environment and to further securitize the domestic sphere.
“The emphasis on offensive operations, unified command, and faster decision-making suggests that the leadership wants to move from Ali Khamenei’s traditional more cautious deterrence approach to what could be called offensive deterrence,” Azizi told CNN.
Most of the appointees have intelligence backgrounds, said Syed Golkar, an associate professor of political science at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
“What we’re seeing is that the Islamic Republic is moving towards a security-led bureaucratic regime,” he told CNN.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said the changes would strengthen the regime’s “current extremist and hardline positions,” including “Iran’s absolute control of the Strait of Hormuz, the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the region, and Iran’s nuclear program.”
Mr. Rezaie has long called for resistance to the United States, even as he has acknowledged the space for negotiations.
In March, he warned, “If the United States attacks Iran’s power infrastructure, it will no longer be an eye for an eye, but rather a head, hands, and feet for an eye.”
And last month, he insisted, “The United States is trapped, we’re trapped by Iran, and we’re not going to let it go.”
Sheena Azodi, an assistant professor of Middle East politics at George Washington University, said Rezai belongs to a faction of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and believes that “the only way to get concessions from the United States is to continue fighting, to put pressure on the United States, to inflict a certain amount of pain on Donald Trump.”
Azodi told CNN that his elevation reflects Iran’s overall strategy to prolong the conflict with the United States and ensure that Trump’s allies lose the midterm elections.
“The current leadership in Tehran is taking far more risks,” said Vali Nasr, author of “Iran’s Grand Strategy.”
Nasr said the leadership believes Iran’s “weak” response to the U.S. killing of Qasem Soleimani, leader of Iran’s elite Quds Force, in 2020 was one of the reasons Trump ramped up the pressure in his second term.
Soleimani was targeted by a US missile in Baghdad at the end of President Trump’s first term. Despite the fierce rhetoric, Iran did not retaliate directly.
Danny Sitrinowitz, an Israeli analyst and Iran watcher, said this new group of leaders is eager to “directly use Iran’s own military power to challenge its adversaries without the same level of restraint.”
“When it comes to the nuclear issue, this shift should be particularly concerning. A significant number of voices within Iran believe that Ali Khamenei’s strategy of maintaining a strategic ‘stalemate’, avoiding both escalation and resolution, has ultimately weakened Iran rather than protected it,” Citrinović posted on X.
One of the new appointments will reinstate a veteran intelligence figure as head of the Basij volunteer militia, which is under the control of the Guards and was deeply involved in the brutal suppression of protests in January.
Hossein Taeb, a close ally of Mojtaba Khamenei, “was a particularly controversial and divisive figure during his tenure as head of intelligence for the Revolutionary Guards, and was closely associated with the crackdown on dissent by hardline security services,” Sina Toosi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, wrote about X.
The United States sanctioned Teb in 2010 for his role in suppressing protests the year before after a presidential election widely believed to have been fraudulent.
Mr. Toosi said his new mission calls for the militia’s “strengthening of the Basij ‘public information network,’ the use of modern technology, and the expansion of neighborhood organizations.”
According to independent researcher Babak Vahada, this is “an attempt to further fragment intelligence gathering and internal security, pushing collection, detection and early warning deeper into neighborhoods, local social networks and mosques.”
“This is important given that after the war, infiltration, secret networks, sabotage and intelligence failures became one of the Islamic Republic’s most serious vulnerabilities,” he added.
The appointment could also be an effort by Khamenei, who has not been seen or heard from in person since being elected supreme leader in March, to “install allies in positions of influence in case mounting economic pressure prompts another popular uprising,” Golkar said.
Analysts are unsure whether Ayatollah Hamanei is really the architect of the new regime, given his long absence from public view.
But the combination of Taeb, Rezaei, Ahmad Vahidi (current Revolutionary Guards commander) and other security veterans “demonstrates the leadership’s increasing reliance on experienced intelligence and military personnel to strengthen the post-war system,” Azizi told CNN.
“This is not a complete break with Ali Khamenei’s approach, but it is certainly a harsher and more overtly confrontational version.”
CNN’s Aida Karimi contributed to this article.
