Some Israeli and American officials believe Mojtaba Khamenei is not functioning as the Iranian supreme leader and is not in control, two people familiar with the matter have told The Jerusalem Post.
One source said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its commander, Ahmad Vahidi, were essentially in control of Iran.
Vahidi was appointed to replace Mohammad Pakpour, who was assassinated at the beginning of operations Roaring Lion and Epic Fury.
“Members of the IRGC, and Vahidi in particular, are not figures who are willing to make concessions or be perceived as conceding,” Iran expert Nati Tuvian told the Post. “A week after the signing of the nuclear agreement with the Obama administration, the IRGC staged a show of force and launched ballistic missiles during a drill, writing on them in Hebrew that Israel should disappear from the face of the earth.”
US President Donald Trump has recently stopped referring to Khamenei. On Thursday, he told MS NOW: “Iran has no idea who its leader is. They are completely confused... We have effectively eliminated three levels of leadership, and anyone who was even close to the leadership, so it’s hard for them to understand who the hell can speak on behalf of the country. They simply don’t know.”
This contradicts the prevailing view that despite suffering serious wounds to his legs and face, Khamenei remains functional and continues to make decisions, including on negotiations with the US.
IRGC generals 'dominant force' in new power structure
Khamenei “remains sharp and involved in running the country, which is being managed like a board of directors, together with IRGC commanders,” The New York Times reported, citing Iranian sources.
Despite these claims, however, Khamenei has not been seen publicly nor has he released any audio recording since ostensibly assuming the position of supreme leader after his father was assassinated at the start of the war.
Iranian state television has read out several written messages attributed to him, but there has been no visual proof so far that he is actively functioning.
In recent days, there was an attempt to arrange another meeting between US Vice President JD Vance and Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf to reach an agreement between the two countries.
According to two sources, however, due to disputes within Iran’s top leadership, Tehran refused to attend the talks, saying as long as a naval blockade remained in place, its officials would not participate.
Trump posted earlier on Truth Social: “If there are two factions in Iran, one that wants a deal and one that doesn’t, let’s kill the ones that don’t want a deal.”
According to information obtained by London-based Iran International, an anti-regime, Persian-language news channel, as the Iranian negotiating team, led by Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, was preparing to depart for Pakistan, a message was received from a circle close to Khamenei’s office, prohibiting them from discussing nuclear issues.
In response, according to the report, Araghchi emphasized that, under the leadership’s directive, there was effectively no point in participating in the negotiations and that this amounted to a “death sentence” for the talks, with all its implications.
“The IRGC, especially among its generals who oversee these massive economic conglomerates, cannot afford to make concessions,” Tuvian told the Post. “The moment they do, they will lose public support.”
Neither the parliament speaker nor the president makes real decisions, he said.
“They say the most the president, [Masoud] Pezeshkian, can decide is the color of garbage trucks that collect the trash,” he added. “The president is nothing, absolutely nothing.”
The likelihood that anyone outside the IRGC was currently making decisions in Iran, especially regarding negotiations with the United States, was “slim to none,” Tuvian said.