Is Trump testing Iran’s power core through Ghalibaf?

The longtime hardliner is the new chief of the Supreme National Security Council to replace his slain predecessor Ali Larijani, state television said Tuesday.

Zolghadr is not a new figure emerging in a moment of crisis, but a product of the Islamic Republic’s original revolutionary security networks. A man whose career spans armed militancy, senior command within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and influential roles across Iran’s political and judicial institutions.

“He is one of the last remnants of the radical revolutionaries that armed themselves against the Pahlavi monarchy,” historian Shahram Kholdi told Iran International.

A former deputy commander of the IRGC, Zolghadr belongs to the generation that helped transform the Guards into the backbone of the Islamic Republic not only as a military force, but as a political and economic power center. Over decades, the IRGC expanded its reach across the state, embedding itself in key institutions from the interior ministry to the judiciary.

Kholdi traces Zolghadr back to the early networks that evolved into the Quds Force — the IRGC’s elite unit responsible for managing Iran’s proxy militias and projecting power across the Middle East placing him alongside the system later commanded by Qassem Soleimani, the architect of Iran’s regional strategy.

His appointment following the killing of Larijani underscores what many analysts see as an accelerating trend: the consolidation of power by hardline military figures. What has been a gradual shift over decades appears to have intensified amid the current conflict, with the Guards tightening their grip over both national security and political decision-making.

The Quds Force, the IRGC’s external arm, has been at the center of Iran’s regional power projection, training and directing militias from Iraq to Syria, where it helped sustain Bashar al-Assad’s war in a conflict marked by widespread civilian suffering.

“He is part of the three to four thousand families that have been forming the power core of the Islamic Republic,” Kholdi said.

Zolghadr’s rise does not mark a departure from that system, but a continuation of it, reflecting the enduring dominance of a tightly knit network of insiders drawn from the Islamic Republic’s revolutionary and security institutions.

His role in internal repression also stretches back decades. During the 1999 student protests — a pivotal moment in the regime’s violent suppression of dissent— Zolghadr was among a group of senior IRGC commanders who signed a sharply worded letter to then-reformist President Mohammad Khatami. The message warned that if the government failed to decisively crush the unrest, the Guards would act on their own. The episode is widely seen as a turning point, marking a more overt willingness by the IRGC to intervene directly in politics and, for many Iranians, cementing the reform movement’s ultimate failure.

His political trajectory has long aligned with Iran’s most hardline currents. He played a role in the rise of former hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and later acknowledged that conservative factions had carried out coordinated efforts to secure that victory. In office, he adopted a confrontational posture toward the United States, warning that Iran would respond to any attack with overwhelming missile strikes.

During the Iran-Iraq War, he led units he fought in cross-border operations, which is experience that would help shape the regime’s enduring emphasis on asymmetrical warfare.

According to Kholdi, Zolghadr was among those who helped design that doctrine alongside figures like Qassem Soleimani — building a decentralized system capable of operating even under sustained attack.

“They created this asymmetrical hierarchy where units can act independently… and continue operating even if leadership is cut off,” Kholdi said.

That system is now visible in Iran’s military posture, with dispersed missile and drone capabilities across the region.

Kholdi also points to Zolghadr’s deep institutional knowledge as a key factor in his significance today.

“The fact that he hasn’t been eliminated is bad news — he is one of the main people who knows a lot about how this system works,” he said, adding that Zolghadr likely has insight into sensitive areas including the country’s nuclear program.

For ordinary Iranians, his rise is much the same as his predecessor Ali Larijani, who was eliminated in an Israeli airstrike overnight on March 16 in Tehran.

“No, he is much the same,” Kholdi said when asked whether Zolghadr differs from figures like Larijani.

His appointment underscores a consistent reality: power in the Islamic Republic remains concentrated within a small circle of entrenched insiders — many of whom have been at the center of the system since its earliest days.

The controversy intensified after reports by Israel’s Channel 11 and Politico suggested that Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf could be the “pragmatic partner” potentially engaging with the Trump administration.

According to the Politico report, “at least some White House officials see him as someone who could lead Iran and negotiate in a next phase of conflict with the Trump administration.” However, the report added that the White House “is not yet ready to bet on a single figure” and is exploring multiple options.

The mere suggestion that a sitting Iranian parliament speaker could be engaged—formally or informally—with Washington carries significant implications within Iran’s political system, where any perception of independent diplomatic outreach can trigger backlash, particularly during periods of heightened tension.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC)-linked media outlets have strongly rejected claims of secret negotiations.

Fars News Agency described the reports as a “psychological operation,” asserting that the narrative was designed with three goals: “character assassination of Ghalibaf, incitement toward possible physical targeting, and sowing division in the country.”

Similarly, Tasnim News Agency called the reports a “complex enemy design to create the perception of internal tension,” arguing that it aimed to distract political forces from the ongoing conflict.

Even political figures outside Ghalibaf’s immediate camp have echoed concerns about psychological warfare.

Mohammad-Javad Azari-Jahromi, telecommunications minister under President Hassan Rouhani, wrote on X that Trump’s contradictory statements—and media suggestions that Ghalibaf could be conducting secret talks—are intended to “create division within the government and among military forces.”

Hesameddin Ashena, a former media adviser to Rouhani, also warned of “character assassination,” describing the amplification of such claims as effectively “aligning with the enemy.”

Iranian officials have acknowledged indirect communications with Washington through intermediaries. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and spokesman Esmail Baghaei said countries such as Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan have been exchanging messages between the two sides in recent days in an effort to reduce tensions.

At the same time, Iranian officials stressed that Tehran’s core positions remain unchanged.

These include its stance on the potential closure of the Strait of Hormuz—a position that has contributed to escalating rhetoric, including reported threats by Trump to target Iran’s energy infrastructure and impose a short deadline.

An Iranian official told Al Jazeera that Washington has so far refused to meet Tehran’s key conditions for negotiations: “payment of war reparations and acknowledgment of aggression against Iranian territory.”

Meanwhile, reports from Reuters and The Wall Street Journal suggest that potential talks to end the conflict could take place in Pakistan or Turkey, possibly involving figures such as Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, and Vice President J. D. Vance in the coming days.

Despite official denials, the issue has gained traction on social media—particularly among Iranians abroad, given severe internet restrictions inside Iran since the war began.

Thousands of responses to Ghalibaf’s denial of secret talks with Washington on X framed the issue in terms of suspicion and alleged betrayal.

Some users pointed to his absence from certain recent public events, while others noted that his name had not appeared in US bounty lists targeting Iranian officials, interpreting this as suspicious though without evidence.

Others revived longstanding allegations of financial corruption and nepotism raised by hardline factions such as the Paydari Front and supporters of Saeed Jalili—claims that have circulated in Iran’s political rivalries for years.

The decisive moment in a regime’s collapse is often not the formal end, but the tipping point before it: the moment when the state’s aura of inevitability breaks.

Borders may still be guarded, television may still broadcast, officials may still issue decrees. But something more important has changed. The system no longer functions with confidence.

That pattern runs through modern history. Regimes die when authority thins out, and the forces meant to preserve the system begin to hesitate, fracture, defect or simply wait.

In Russia in 1917, the monarchy’s fate was sealed not only by crowds in the streets but by the refusal of troops and Cossacks to suppress them.

In Iran in 1979, the Shah’s regime effectively ended when the armed forces declared neutrality.

In Romania in 1989, Nicolae Ceaușescu’s fall accelerated when the army switched sides.

In East Germany, the Berlin Wall lost its political meaning the moment the border opening made it unenforceable.

In each case, the end came after something deeper had already broken: the state’s confidence in its own ability to command obedience.

The sequence before collapse

This is why a tipping point is best understood not as a date but as a sequence.

First comes long erosion: economic decline, loss of legitimacy, social anger, distrust inside the ruling camp.

Then comes a catalytic shock: a massacre, a fraudulent election, military defeat, a failed coup, or the death of the ruler around whom the system had been built.

Then comes the most important stage and the hardest to measure: the failed restoration of authority.

The regime still projects continuity, but no longer convincingly. It can still threaten, still punish, still broadcast. But it no longer reassures. Its command no longer feels unquestioned.

Only after that comes the formal end.

Iran’s compressed crisis

Iran’s recent trajectory fits that sequence with unusual force, appearing to compress into weeks the kinds of shocks that in other systems were spread over months or even years.

The country entered 2026 already weakened by deep economic distress and nationwide protest. Then came the January 8-9 crackdown.

More than 36,500 were killed, according to classified material Iran International reviewed. Other reporting and rights group assessments also describe the episode as mass killings on an extraordinary scale.

Mass killing can restore fear for a time. It can also destroy legitimacy more deeply and more permanently.

The next shock was even more consequential.

On 28 February, joint US-Israeli strikes killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, abruptly removing the central figure around whom the Islamic Republic had organized authority for decades.

That alone did not prove regime collapse. Systems can survive the loss of a leader if they can replace him quickly and credibly. But that is precisely where the next problem began.

The succession that followed looked less like a confident transfer of power than an emergency move under pressure.

Iran International reported that the IRGC pushed to install a successor outside normal legal procedures amid disarray in the chain of command and fears that people could return to the streets.

Mojtaba Khamenei’s elevation preserved the office, but did not clearly restore authority. A succession in such a system is meant to reassure the Islamic Republic’s core that command still exists and that the center is still holding.

Yet Mojtaba has remained unseen in any ordinary sense. His messages were still being issued only in writing or read by state television anchors over still images, with no direct public appearance or recorded voice.

In a system built around the symbolism and physical presence of supreme authority, that matters. A ruler who does not appear can hold a title, but cannot easily project command.

That, in turn, changes how the growing centrality of the Revolutionary Guards should be read. If the IRGC now appears to dominate more of the state, that does not necessarily mean the system is stronger. It may mean the opposite: that the wider governing structure has hollowed out and power has narrowed to its coercive core.

Even that core shows signs of strain.

Reports of disrupted chains of command, internal criticism of senior commanders, personnel failing to report to bases, and diplomats seeking asylum do not yet prove a terminal fracture. But they are the kinds of signals that often appear before loyalty begins to shift more openly.

What can appear as consolidation may, in fact, be contraction.

The moment before the streets

This is also why the absence of a full-scale uprising does not necessarily mean the Islamic Republic has restored confidence.

In collapsing systems, people do not always move at the first sign of weakness. They wait until repression looks less certain, until command appears thinner, until they believe the next confrontation may end differently from the last.

The decisive moment often comes not when society becomes angriest, but when the security forces are no longer sure they can, should, or will do what they did before.

That memory matters in Iran. January showed what happens when the state still has a functioning command structure and is prepared to kill on a massive scale. But the present moment is not January.

The command structure has been hit. The top leadership has been decapitated. The succession has not visibly restored confidence. The war has intensified military, political, and fiscal strain.

Quiet streets, in such a moment, do not necessarily mean submission. They may mean waiting for the right threshold.

What history suggests

None of this means the Islamic Republic’s end is settled. Regimes can survive extraordinary shocks, especially when coercion remains lethal and opposition forces lack a unified organizational center inside the country.

But history suggests a useful distinction. A system is often most vulnerable when it has been reduced to force alone.

That is often the stage at which the outer signs of continuity become misleading. The offices still function. Orders are still issued. Missiles may still fly. But the wider architecture that gave those acts political meaning has begun to fail.

The question is no longer simply whether the Islamic Republic still exists on paper. It does.

The more important question is whether it still functions as a regime in the full sense: with authority that travels clearly, loyalty that holds under pressure, and institutions that do more than keep violence in motion.

History suggests that when those things begin to fail together, the tipping point is no longer far behind.

US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton said the payment followed nearly two decades of litigation over assets connected to 650 Fifth Avenue, a 36-story building authorities said concealed financial interests of the Iranian government through Bank Melli.

“Iran has sponsored terrorism for decades... Since the inception of this litigation… we pursued hidden Iranian government assets tied to a Manhattan skyscraper to ensure those funds would ultimately compensate victims of Iran-sponsored terrorism rather than terrorists and their enablers,” Clayton said in a statement.

The case began in 2008, when US authorities moved to seize assets linked to Bank Melli Iran, which had allegedly used front companies to maintain a stake in the building and bypass sanctions. Prosecutors said the structure allowed Iran to generate income from the property while concealing ownership.

The 650 Fifth Avenue tower was built before the 1979 revolution by the Pahlavi Foundation as a source of revenue, but control of the property passed to the Islamic Republic after the fall of the monarchy. In later years, the foundation was renamed the Alavi Foundation, while Bank Melli acquired a stake in the building that US authorities say was managed through front companies known as Assa.

Under a final settlement reached in January 2025 between the US government, victims’ groups and the building’s owners, $318 million will be paid to victims. The initial $129 million installment was completed on March 20, with the remaining $189 million to be paid over three years with interest.

Clayton said the case reflected the Justice Department’s goal of “vindicating the rights of victims of the Government of Iran’s long-standing policy of supporting and promoting terror attacks across the world.”

Victims eligible for compensation include those affected by attacks attributed to Iranian-backed groups, including the 1984 bombing of US military facilities in Beirut, the September 11 attacks and other incidents targeting civilians.

As part of the settlement, the partnership controlling the building is being dissolved, and ownership transferred to a new entity, with approvals from US authorities including the Treasury Department.

Whether real or not, President Donald Trump’s statement that Iran has reached out for talks is already having an impact: fueling mistrust within Tehran leadership while easing tensions in global oil markets, even as Iranian officials deny any such contact.

But the importance of Trump’s remarks is not only in the news itself. It is also in what the statement is designed to do.

Trump is trying to achieve two things at once.

Read the full article here.