Iran war leadership rift exposed as Guards keep striking Arab neighbors

The situation grew more complicated after US President Donald Trump publicly signaled a desire to influence Iran’s leadership transition and the future structure of the regime.

The pressure mounted further when lawmaker Mohsen Zanganeh said Friday that “senior clerics in the Assembly of Experts have nominated two clerics for Iran’s next leadership, but both have declined the position.”

Amid mounting reports of disagreement and deadlock, the Expediency Discernment Council moved to suspend the Assembly of Experts—the body constitutionally responsible for selecting the supreme leader—and shift authority to a provisional leadership structure.

Under Article 111 of Iran’s constitution, that shift elevated Pezeshkian, as head of the Provisional Leadership Council, to a position granting him many of the powers of the supreme leader, including command of the armed forces.

Critics say he has so far refrained from intervening decisively in major state affairs and has instead focused on secondary issues, including preparations for local elections scheduled for May.

“Today Pezeshkian is simultaneously the president, head of the leadership council, and the commander-in-chief,” former transport minister Abbas Akhundi wrote on X. “He must step into the field and declare: everyone is under my command.”

Akhundi argued the succession debate itself is ill-timed. “Any action that diverts attention from the war … is playing into Israel’s hands,” he added. “Becoming preoccupied with succession at a time of war is a harmful distraction.”

Wartime power centers

The Revolutionary Guards remain central to both the war effort and domestic politics. While engaged in a widening regional confrontation, the IRGC has also been deeply involved in the succession debate.

Reports indicate it has strongly backed Mojtaba Khamenei despite constitutional sensitivities and resistance from parts of the clerical establishment.

The sidelining of the Assembly of Experts underscores institutional divisions. Some clerics argue that naming a successor during wartime risks deepening fractures, while others insist a swift decision is necessary to project unity and control.

The Expediency Discernment Council has played a decisive role by affirming the authority of the provisional leadership structure, signaling that the succession question has reached a level of internal dispute requiring extraordinary intervention.

Security chief Ali Larijani has also reportedly intervened in the deliberations to promote his brother Sadeq Larijani as a candidate for supreme leader.

Sadeq Larijani was once head of judiciary and now heads the Expediency Council, where he can in theory slow the succession process and complicate the IRGC’s push for Mojtaba Khamenei.

For now, uncertainty over succession and authority continues to shape Iran’s wartime politics, with key figures—including Mojtaba Khamenei, senior IRGC leaders and Ali Larijani—remaining largely silent in public.

The original plan, announced shortly after his death was confirmed on March 1, envisioned a three-stage procession through Tehran, Qom and Mashhad before Khamenei’s burial in his hometown.

A day later, after the death of his wife, Mansoureh Khojasteh Bagherzadeh, was announced, officials shifted to a joint burial at the Imam Reza Shrine in Mashhad.

On Wednesday morning, state television reported that Khamenei’s coffin would be placed at Tehran’s Mosalla (Prayer Grounds) for mourners. By midday, the broadcast postponed the ceremony to the evening. Hours later, another update said it would still take place at an unspecified later time.

State television later aired footage of workers preparing a podium where the coffin was to be displayed behind bulletproof glass.

Security and optics

Security concerns appear central to the delays. Iran is organizing a state funeral amid an active regional war, and Israeli officials have said they would target anyone appointed as the next Supreme Leader.

Foreign dignitaries—particularly figures linked to Hezbollah and the Houthis—have reportedly expressed concern about attending, citing the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran during former President Ebrahim Raisi’s funeral.

Many Iranian officials likely share similar concerns. Lower-level Chinese and Russian delegations are expected to attend.

The question of succession adds further uncertainty. Ahmad Khatami, a member of the Assembly of Experts, said on state television Wednesday that the body had not yet reached a final decision on Khamenei’s successor.

“Allowing everyone to express their views is extremely difficult during wartime,” he added.

Some clerical figures argue that naming a successor while the former leader remains unburied would be inappropriate. Others contend that announcing a new leader during the funeral itself—before a large crowd—would better project unity and legitimacy, despite widespread anti-government protests earlier this year.

The crowd problem

Officials also appear concerned about turnout. State television acknowledged that authorities were attempting to bus supporters in from other cities to produce what it described as “a funeral attended by millions.”

The leadership is keen to replicate the massive crowds that gathered for Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989. Official figures at the time claimed 10 million mourners, though foreign journalists estimated between two and four million. Replicating even a fraction of that turnout now—amid war and public discontent—appears uncertain.

Transporting large crowds between Tehran, Qom and Mashhad for a multi-city mourning procession adds further complications.

Khamenei’s supporters, including those backing his son as a potential successor, are seeking a large and symbolic display of loyalty when and if a new leader is announced.

Some officials and analysts say that effort to stage a carefully managed spectacle may help explain why the funeral has been repeatedly delayed over the past two days.

The situation triggered a wave of posts across social media platforms, particularly on X, many of them sarcastic, angry or openly celebratory.

One widely shared comment drew a comparison with the authorities’ treatment of families whose relatives were killed during protests.

More than 36,500 Iranians were killed by security forces during the January 8-9 crackdown on nationwide protests, making it the deadliest two-day protest massacre in history, according to documents reviewed by Iran International.

“In the past two months a man named Ali Khamenei did not allow families of people killed on his orders to hold funerals,” one user wrote. “Now for five days the body of that same man has been kept in a refrigerator and they cannot even issue permission for his burial. What goes around comes around.”

Another post mocked the uncertainty surrounding funeral arrangements. “The funeral procession for Khamenei will be held online through the Shad platform,” a user wrote, referring sarcastically to the government-linked education app used by Iranian schools when classes move online during crises.

Some comments echoed remarks previously made by a state television host who had mocked the deaths of protesters.

Public anger erupted last month after a presenter on Ofogh TV, a channel run by the state broadcaster IRIB and affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, referred to reports that thousands killed during the January crackdown were transported in refrigerated trailers. The program made a multiple choice question about where to keep the bodies of protesters. The show aired a segment posing a multiple-choice question about where the bodies of protesters should be kept.

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  Mockery of protest victims on state TV sparks fury in Iran

“Which refrigerator do you think they are keeping Khamenei’s body in?” one user wrote, listing options such as “Netanyahu’s refrigerator,” “an ice-cream factory freezer,” and “the freezers of Antarctica.”

Others used darker language. “The stench of Khamenei’s corpse has spread across the Middle East and they still do not dare bury it,” one user wrote.

Another post said: “Six days have passed and the rotten body of Ali Khamenei is still lying on the ground.”

Some users circulated images of a dead rat with captions claiming sarcastically that the first photo of Khamenei’s body had finally been released.

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  Khamenei ‘rat’ taunt spills from social media onto Iran’s campuses

Revenge in digital form

Many posts framed the mockery as a form of symbolic revenge.

“Khamenei left a deep wound in people’s hearts and denied grieving families the right to mourn,” one user wrote. “His agents buried bodies secretly. Now after days his own body is still on the ground.”

Others referenced reports that some families had been asked to pay for the bullets used to kill their relatives in order to receive their bodies.

“I heard Khamenei’s body has started to rot with worms,” one user wrote. “If you don’t have money for bunker-buster bombs, at least bury him.”

Another post revived a Persian saying about burial rites. “They used to say a corpse never stays on the ground,” the user wrote. “Even if someone has no one, eventually the municipality will bury them. But six days have passed and the body of Ali Khamenei is still lying there.”

“Israel said to return the body of Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Republic must pay for the missiles it fired, or his family must admit he was part of a Mossad spy team,” one post read, referring sarcastically to reports that families were sometimes asked to sign papers declaring their children Basij members in order to receive their bodies and permission for burial ceremonies.

Others suggested that authorities might abandon plans for a burial altogether.

“It seems they have given up burying Khamenei,” one user wrote. “Maybe they are waiting for the US Navy to throw the carcass into the sea.”

“Khamenei’s body should be bombed again,” another post said. “I’m still not satisfied.”

Mansoureh Khojasteh Bagherzadeh died one day after her husband. She spent her final day in a coma at a hospital near their residence on Pasteur Avenue in central Tehran, a compound long guarded by the Revolutionary Guards but now destroyed.

Born into a religious family in Mashhad, she married Khamenei in 1964 in a traditional family-arranged ceremony.

The couple had six children: four sons born before the 1979 Revolution and two daughters born afterward. One daughter, Hoda, was killed in the same attack that targeted Khamenei’s home and office.

A life lived in the shadows

Throughout her life, Mansoureh remained one of the most private figures in Iran’s ruling elite. Her public presence was far more limited than that of Fakhr Iran Saghafi, the wife of Ruhollah Khomeini, or Effat Marashi, the wife of the late Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

So little was publicly known about her that when news of her death spread, Iranian media initially struggled to locate a reliable photograph. Some outlets mistakenly published a picture of Ategheh Rajai, the outspoken wife of another late president, Mohammad-Ali Rajai.

Her public voice survives almost entirely through two interviews: one with Mahjoubah magazine in the early 1990s and another with Jomhouri Eslami in 1983, shortly after Khamenei survived an assassination attempt. Most quotations attributed to her in later years originate from these two sources.

“It was not a romantic thing,” she said of their union. “His grandmother came to our house to propose.”

She portrayed her main role as maintaining a stable home life while her husband pursued political and religious work, stressing that she considered full hijab the appropriate attire outside the home, while dress inside could be more flexible but still follow Islamic principles.

Why she remained invisible

Her absence from public life reflected not only personal preference but also the political culture surrounding Iran’s leadership.

Khamenei largely kept his family out of public view for a mixture of religious, cultural, and security reasons. A deeply traditional cleric, he rarely allowed his wife or daughters to appear publicly, and even his sons were long shielded from public scrutiny.

Although she was never formally described as Iran’s “First Lady,” the symbolic status of the Supreme Leader’s spouse occasionally surfaced in public debate.

When Jamileh Alamolhoda, the wife of the late president Ebrahim Raisi, briefly used the title in a television interview, Iranian media reported that the description was later clarified after criticism from conservative circles that the title belonged to the Supreme Leader’s household.

She will be buried beside her husband at the Imam Reza Shrine in Mashhad, according to state media reports.

That contrast, several Iran experts told Iran International, exposes a widening divide between Western progressive activism and the lived experience of many Iranians.

Analysts say the reaction among many Iranians is not about ideological loyalty but about seeing any weakening of the Islamic Republic as a rare opportunity to escape decades of repression.

“War is violent, it's terrible and it has started. The people of Iran didn't choose this war — the Islamic government, the Islamic Republic government, chose this war,” said Siavash Rokni, an Iran pop culture expert.

“Iranians will use any opportunity to bypass the Islamic Republic to assure the fall of the Islamic Republic and the institution of a democracy,” Rokni said.

Anti-war protests taking shape in Western capitals have often featured placards supporting the very regime responsible for killing scores of Iranians, with demonstrators holding images of the now-former Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei — the man ultimately responsible for the killings.

Rokni said one cannot claim to oppose war while supporting the regime responsible for such violence.

This week, clips of Iranians dancing to the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” in the exaggerated arm-pumping style popularized by Trump went viral following the confirmed death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

The cultural irony is striking. “Y.M.C.A.” was released in late 1978 and was charting in early 1979 — the same period Iran’s Islamic Revolution culminated in the fall of the Shah and the rise of the Islamic Republic.

Now, decades later, the disco anthem has resurfaced as a soundtrack for some celebrating what they see as the potential unraveling of that same regime.

Celebrations were reported not only inside Iran but also in diaspora hubs including Los Angeles and London, underscoring that the reaction extended beyond Iran’s borders but largely among Iranians themselves.

Iran International has reviewed footage received directly from inside Iran in the hours following the strikes.

In one clip, explosions can be seen in the background with plumes of smoke rising over Tehran as an Iranian man says: “Thank you Mr. President, thank President Trump, we love you.”

In another video, a woman shouts “Trump!” followed by cheers, clapping and the sound of what appears to be a vuvuzela-style horn as a group of Iranians celebrate.

In a separate clip filmed inside Iran, a woman says in Farsi: “Bibi, we are happy, Netanyahu, Israel, Trump...death to Terrorist, thank you for helping us Hooray.”

Another video, recorded after the bombing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s headquarters, shows a group of young people flashing peace signs as they welcome the joint US-Israel military strikes.

Khorso Isfahani, an Iran analyst with NUFDI, framed the reaction not as celebration of war itself but as the culmination of decades of struggle.

“Iranians have been on the front line of fighting against Islamist fascist occupation of Iran for the past five decades. We have sacrificed so many lives, but it has always been an uphill battle. Finally the moment has arrived and we are celebrating it.”

David Patrikarakos, a British journalist of part-Iranian origin, said many Western activists fail to grasp that context.

“A lot of people, generally not Iranian — generally unable to find Iran on the map — feel fit to pronounce upon this,” he said, describing much of the protest movement as “signaling your virtue” while “paying no attention to the suffering and the thoughts of people inside Iran.”

He added that for many Iranians, support for Trump or Netanyahu is not ideological devotion but circumstantial.

For those celebrating, analysts say, the moment is not about endorsing war itself but about the possibility that it may mark an inflection point in a decades-long fight for political change.