Bagher Ghalibaf, “former” IRGC brigadier general, current parliament speaker and Iran’s de facto head of state, delivered a television address to the Iranian people over the weekend.
If you missed it, don’t kick yourself. Western news channels didn’t carry it. Most only mentioned it in passing. But it was notable for a few reasons.
First, the very fact that Ghalibaf’s regaling the nation with authoritative pronouncements on the state of a full-on war with the US tells you a lot (arguably everything you need to know) about the political hierarchy in Iran.
To be sure, Ghalibaf’s been a prominent public figure for a very long time. He was mayor of Tehran for over a decade and ran for president multiple times with support from high-ranking IRGC officers including the General (proper noun) himself, Qassem Soleimani. He’s a somewhat gifted propagandist, active on social media and enjoys bloviating.
So it’s not surprising he’d be vocal in wartime. And as parliament speaker, he’d be a leading voice even if people like Ali Larijani and the elder Khamenei were still among the living. But, on the off chance you haven’t noticed, he’s now the voice, and the guy.
He can’t (won’t and probably doesn’t want to) make that latter point explicit. Even if he and Mojtaba Khamenei didn’t go back (they do) and even if Mojtaba wasn’t an eager enabler of Ghalibaf’s political graft (he was), it serves the regime’s purposes to hold up the younger Khamenei as alive, well and the final authority on all matters.
As one reader put it recently, Mojtaba’s “useful as an imprimatur of legitimacy and his survival’s a symbol of Resistance.” Simply put: They need that poster. You know the one I mean. The one that shows Khomeini, Khamenei and Mojtaba kinda “morphing” into one another.
But consider the striking image below, which shows Pakitsan’s almost-dictator Asim Munir in Tehran last week meeting with Ghalibaf.
Who’s it look like is in charge? Certainly not Masoud Pezeshkian, that’s a joke. And not Abbas Araghchi, he’s over there in a side chair. Not any third- or fourth-string replacement officer who owes his senior IRGC role to the death of his two or three predecessors. And not the third ghost on the framed picture hanging above Ghalibaf and Munir.
Ghalibaf was uniquely — and I do mean uniquely — positioned to step into this role. Arguably, there isn’t a single general left alive in Iran (not even Ahmad Vahidi, current IRGC chief commander and Soleimani’s predecessor as head of the Quds) whose overall military-security credentials are more prestigious than Ghalibaf’s.
The distinction the mainstream media continues to draw between Ghalibaf and “hardliners” in Tehran is nonexistent. Remember: Larijani was speaker of parliament too. Just because you happen to serve in Iran’s civilian government doesn’t mean you’re not a military man anymore. This isn’t a “normal” country. You don’t “retire” from the Guards and go on to become a civilian politician in the American sense of the term, particularly not if you’re somebody like Ghalibaf.
And yet, unlike most of his dead friends in the Guards, he does have an affinity for politics and, just as importantly, a knack for running political rackets. He presided over one in Tehran for a dozen years.
In an opinion piece published by the Post on April 16, Hamid Biglari said the Iranian system “does not produce moderates” but rather “two varieties of hardliner.” That, in my opinion, is an over-simplification. And Biglari seems to know it.
Ghalibaf “spent his entire career inside Iran’s security establishment,” Biglari wrote. “He is not a diplomat who became a general; he is a general playing a diplomat.” But then, in the very next breath, he places Ghalibaf in the same category as Hassan Rouhani and Javad Zarif. He puts Larijani in the same basket.
With all due respect, that’s misleading. There are actually three types of hardliners in Iran. There are your Rouhanis and Zarifs, there are your Larijanis and Ghalibafs, and there are your Khameneis and your Vahidis. (If we really want to get into the finer points, we might separate Khamenei from the most militant IRGC officers.) The first category are powerless. The third category, I’d argue, will become increasingly anachronistic in a world of transactional grand politics.
This is why, in January, I said that although it seemed like a long shot at the time (because a lot of now-deceased regime figures were still breathing, including the big man himself), Ghalibaf was the best, and probably the only, option for a transitional Iranian state.
He’s highly respected in the IRGC (indeed he’s part of the Guard’s lore), he’s not a religious fanatic (even though he pretends to be pious), he’s participated in multiple quasi-democratic elections (he’s not averse to the ballot box as long as he can stuff it), he’s highly amenable to horse-trading, he’s a confidant to Mojtaba and can claim a decades-long friendship with the late Soleimani.
In short, he’s perfect. Not for democracy, obviously, but for the task at hand which, like it or not, is the creation of a transitional Iranian state. Trump presumably knows that, which is why he wants Ghalibaf alive. Benjamin Netanyahu too, which is why he’d rather Ghalibaf dead.
While readily conceding I could be mistaken, I don’t believe in the strict version of Biglari’s narrative which says Ghalibaf “cannot commit Iran to anything without Vahidi’s approval.”
While it’s certainly true that the acting commander-in-chief of the Guards holds enormous sway over the trajectory of the negotiations, when commentators like Biglari draw a distinction between Ghalibaf and Vahidi, they inadvertently stumble into the very error they (correctly) assert that American leaders habitually make: When Ghalibaf goes to Islamabad, he’s not there to negotiate a deal that’s unfavorable to the Guards. On the contrary, he’s there as a representative of the IRGC.
In my judgment, Vahidi — who allegedly masterminded the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires — isn’t capable of managing a modern garrison state. He’s an extremist, full stop.
To the extent the “terrorist” label favored by Western governments for IRGC members applies, Vahidi, at least, deserves it. He’s not a good fit for a world defined by wink-wink quid pro quos between strongmen. And he has no claim whatever on any sort of legitimacy as a representative of the Iranian public writ large. He’s a brutal bastard, in a way even Ghalibaf — who once boasted of beating Iranian civilians over the head with a club — isn’t.
I don’t know what’s to be “done” about Vahidi, exactly. His predecessor, the notoriously verbose Hossein Salami, died in the 12-Day War, which is to say Israel would happily kill Vahidi. But he doesn’t have to “go,” or give anything up — his life, his title or otherwise — for Ghalibaf to run the country. He just has to come around to reality.
The IRGC has an unprecedented opportunity to consolidate power and preside over a kleptocracy all while retaining the veneer of the Revolution. Only a total dolt would screw that up by behaving like a full-on terrorist, which is pretty much the only way for the Guards to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. (By “victory,” I just mean coming out of the war with their racket intact.)
In his weekend address to Iranians, Ghalibaf demonstrated his adeptness for striking a difficult balance between Revolutionary propaganda (he said the IRGC was “victorious on the battlefield,” a ludicrous claim, and referred to Israel only as “the Zionist entity”) and diplomacy aimed at preventing a re-escalation (Iran has “the goodwill to achieve sustainable peace” and although Washington and Tehran remain “some distance” from reconciling their respective demands, he and Trump “now have a more realistic understanding of each other”).
It’ll take a “step-by-step” approach defined by reciprocity to achieve a lasting peace, he went on, adding that “if the Americans are honest, they must abandon their unilateral approach of imposing dictates.”
As for the Strait, which was “completely open” Friday and “closed” on Saturday, the Iranians insist (hypocritically, albeit not irrationally) that unless the US Navy allows ships to come and go as they please from Iranian ports, the IRGC can’t reasonably be expected to facilitate safe passage for other ships in the waterway.
Trump accused Tehran of blackmail (again) but suggested, as did Ghalibaf, that talks are ongoing and making progress. He (Trump) also walked back Friday’s harsh rebuke of the IDF, calling Israel “a GREAT Ally of the United States of America.”
“Unlike others that have shown their true colors in a moment of conflict and stress, Israel fights hard, and knows how to WIN!” he added. At the risk of ruffling some reader feathers and depending on your definition of “win,” he’s right about that.
The two-week ceasefire between the US and Iran expires in just days, but it seems likely it’ll be extended, even as both sides are sure to engage in hyperbolic brinksmanship this week. Munir’s set to host a second round of in-person negotiations in Pakistan.
On Sunday morning in the US, Trump confirmed he’s sending Steve Witkoff back to Islamabad for more talks on Tuesday. “We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it,” Trump said. “Because, if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran.”
Iran claimed no talks are scheduled. Later, the US Navy seized an Iranian-flagged ship in the Gulf of Oman, a significant escalation plainly aimed at securing leverage ahead of the expiring ceasefire deadline.
