Iran Update, July 10, 2024
Iranian President-elect Masoud Pezeshkian is apparently considering nominating Abbas Araghchi as his foreign affairs minister, underscoring Pezeshkian’s intent to seriously pursue nuclear negotiations with the West. IRGC-affiliated media reported on July 10 that Pezeshkian’s advisers “have almost reached the final conclusion” to nominate Araghchi, citing an unspecified source.[14] The source claimed that Araghchi has advised Pezeshkian on his conversations with unspecified Axis of Resistance and regional officials in recent days. Araghchi played a prominent role in the nuclear negotiations with the West under the Hassan Rouhani administration and served as Rouhani’s deputy foreign affairs minister for policy between 2017 and 2021.[15] It is unclear whether the Iranian Parliament, which is currently dominated by hardliners, would approve Araghchi as foreign affairs minister. It is furthermore unclear whether Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei would permit Araghchi to pursue nuclear negotiations with the West in a manner meaningful different from the Ebrahim Raisi administration if the Iranian Parliament does approve him as foreign affairs minister. Khamenei implicitly criticized Pezeshkian’s support for increasing Iranian engagement with the West in a speech on June 25.[16]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-july-10-2024
Jalili refused to allow the more pragmatic Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf to represent the ‘revolutionary front’ in the recent elections against the reform-leaning Masoud Pezeshkian. Ghalibaf’s supporters have taken to social media to accuse Jalili and his political allies of looking up to Mohammad-Mahdi Mirbagheri, a mid-ranking cleric, as their true religious and political leader. They allege that Jalili’s camp only “pretends” to emulate and respect Khamenei.
Jalili was backed by the ultra-hardliner Paydari (Steadfastness) Party led by Sadegh Mahsouli, a business tycoon and interior minister under populist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as well as the recently established Jebhe-ye Sobh-e Iran. The latter, often called MASAF, is a political group led by the controversial politician and theorist Ali-Akbar Raefipour. The two political groups have spread their influence to many government and state organizations in the past few years. The views expressed by Paydari and MASAF members often mirror Mirbagheri’s apocalyptic religious and anti-western political views that are sometimes even more extreme than Khamenei’s.
“First hit the United States in the face and break its wrist and then have fair negotiations with it if it is still inclined to talk,” Mirbagheri says about talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA). Jalili’s rivals say his supporters even stopped the government of the late President Ebrahim from reaching a nuclear deal to remove US sanctions. Mirbagheri who heads the Islamic Science Academy of Qom is already one of the 81 members of the Assembly of Experts whose members are to appoint Khamenei’s successor. His followers are often collectively referred to as the “Academy current” by other hardliners.
The 63-year-old cleric who has never held any government office is little known outside seminaries, hardliner political circles, and networks of religious mourning groups (heya’at azadari) run by fundamentalist Shia eulogists. These groups and their leaders (maddahs) have gained huge political influence in the past two decades. The Paydari Party and MASAF have taken over many top and sensitive positions in state organizations and the parliament where they are a sizeable but very influential minority since 2020.
Mirbagheri’s interpretation of Islam and Velayat-e Faqih (rule of Islamic jurists) is very similar to the views of the late Ayatollah Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi, whom he is now considered a successor. Mesbah-Yazdi who was held in very high esteem by Khamenei insisted that God appoints the Islamic jurist who becomes the supreme leader of the country and the role of the members of the Assembly of Experts is only to “discover” God's appointee.
The role of the rest of the Islamic Shia society, in their view, is preparing itself for the emergence of Mahdi, the 12th imam who the Shia believe has been in occultation by divine will since 941 CE. The loudest and clearest call to suppress the Paydari Party and MASAF in the past few days has come from hardliner politician Abdolreza Davari who campaigned for Ghalibaf but said he would vote for Masoud Pezeshkian in the runoff elections to ward off the “danger of Jalili”.
“The fundamentalist sedition cannot be overcome through political and logical methods. The eye of the sedition must be removed to rid the society of their evil … The eye of the fundamentalists’ sedition cannot be removed without setting up a few gallows,” Davari declared in a tweet Tuesday. In his tweet, he compared the Paydari Party and MASAF to the Khawarij who turned their backs on the first Shiite Imam, Ali ibn-e Abi Talib and eventually assassinated him as well as Forqan, an anti-clerical Islamist militant group, that assassinated several senior officials of the Islamic Republic. His post was accompanied by an image of the announcement of the execution of seven members of Forqan on the front page of Kayhan newspaper in March 1980.
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202407104008
This is a battle between different mafia groups for power and money in Iran.
Iran Update, July 11, 2024
Some senior IRGC commanders have emphasized in recent days the need for the Iranian political establishment, particularly hardliners, to accept and support Iranian President-elect Masoud Pezeshkian in order to preserve political stability. Former IRGC Commander Major General Mohsen Rezaei said on July 10 that Pezeshkian should be considered part of “the revolution front,” which is a reference to parts of the hardline camp.[3] Rezaei further stated that those who support the regime and Islamic Revolution must also support Pezeshkian. IRGC Aerospace Force Commander Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajji Zadeh similarly on July 11 called on supporters of runner-up presidential candidate Saeed Jalili to respect Pezeshkian’s victory and avoid criticizing the electoral process.[4] Hajji Zadeh described Pezeshkian as “the president of the entire nation and of every Iranian.” Hajji Zadeh also noted that former President Ebrahim Raisi’s death could have triggered a “major crisis” but that the regime averted such a crisis and conducted two rounds of voting within a week “without the smallest problem.” Rezaei’s and Hajji Zadeh’s statements are consistent with CTP-ISW’s previous assessment that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei prioritized regime legitimacy and stability over installing his preferred candidate in the election.[5]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-july-11-2024