Who Really Rules Iran After the U.S. Deal Talks?

As Iran and the United States move toward signing a memorandum of understanding in Geneva on Friday, the central question in the Middle East has shifted from whether war will erupt to who inside Tehran has the authority to stop it. The talks were facilitated first through Pakistan and later through Qatar, amid regional and international fears that the conflict could expand, threaten Gulf shipping, and endanger energy supplies and global trade.

The article says the latest war, and the killing of the former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, along with the wounding of his successor Mojtaba Khamenei and the loss of many senior Revolutionary Guard and security figures, exposed a far more complex power structure in Iran. Rather than a single decision-maker, authority is now spread across overlapping centers of power that operate under emergency and survival logic.

According to the report, real decision-making in Tehran is divided among the Supreme Leader’s office, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Supreme National Security Council, various security agencies, the government, parliament, and informal influence networks. Decisions can take days to move through these layers before they are finalized. Although Mojtaba Khamenei is not seen in public, his constitutional role as supreme religious authority and commander-in-chief means he holds the formal power to approve peace, war, and major agreements.

The Revolutionary Guards, once seen as a unified pillar of power, are described as a network of overlapping military, security, economic, and political centers. The Supreme National Security Council has become the main hub for war and security policy, while Prime Minister Massoud Pezeshkian’s government is portrayed as mostly administrative, handling daily affairs without real influence over strategic issues such as regional security, war, or nuclear policy. The judiciary has also taken on a larger role in maintaining internal order through arrests, confiscations, and trials. The article concludes that Iran is no longer ruled by a rigid one-man model, but is instead in a transitional phase where power is shared under the pressure of war, sanctions, and internal realignment.