Updated link https://www.iranintl.com/en/liveblog/202607049017
This fight is not over ideology or the future direction of the Islamic Republic: all the oligarchic clans are Islamist; some wear turbans, others wear military uniforms, and some wear suits.
In other words, they all subscribe to the core tenets of Shia Islamism in Iran: the forceful imposition of Sharia law domestically, support for the so-called Axis of Resistance militia network, anti-Americanism, and the goal of eradicating the Israel (driven by innate anti-Semitism).
The latest manifestation of this infighting has erupted in the most unlikely of places: the Assembly of Experts – a body of 88 clerics who, in theory, appoint and oversee the authority of the supreme leader. Last week, 73 members of the normally silent assembly made an unusual public intervention in the form of a statement on the ongoing negotiations with the United States and the recently-signed Memorandum of Understanding
The statement de facto criticised Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) over its conduct of the negotiations with Washington, suggesting the officials had moved beyond the “red lines” of the supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei. It said in Farsi: “All officials should respect that, in the system of Velayat-e Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist), the opinion and directives of the Supreme Leader are decisive. Once informed of the Leader's definitive view, no official may act contrary to it.”
After its publication, Ayatollah Hashem Hosseini Busheri, chairman of the Assembly of Experts’ secretariat and spokesperson, immediately stated that he was completely unaware of the statement and that, while he did not oppose its content, its signatories had broken convention and published it without coordination with him.
If Mojtaba fails to appear at his father's funeral, it will dramatically intensify speculation about his physical condition and could accelerate factional efforts to prepare for a second succession crisis.Such a moment would not merely raise questions about one man's fate. It could expose the deeper structural crisis facing the Islamic Republic: that a regime built around the absolute authority of one man may no longer have a leader capable of imposing order on the very factions that depend on his authority for their own survival.
The Assembly of Experts’ intervention is therefore more than an isolated episode; it is a sign that the Islamic Republic's internal balance of power is shifting.
The clerical class, the IRGC-linked networks, the security bureaucracy, and political-economic factions are all manoeuvring to protect their interests in a system whose central source of authority has been weakened. While these rivalries may remain contained in the short term, the post-Ali Khamenei order is increasingly vulnerable to open elite conflict. What appears today as a dispute over negotiations may soon become a broader struggle over who truly rules the Islamic Republic.