Iran International
Reports that Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf may have been sidelined from Iran’s negotiations with the United States have revived an old question from Soviet history: can an insider reform a rigid ideological system without becoming one of its casualties?
Ghalibaf may be emerging not as Iran’s Mikhail Gorbachev, but as something closer to Nikita Khrushchev—an establishment figure attempting controlled change not to dismantle the Islamic Republic, but to preserve it.
The Majles speaker, a former IRGC commander with deep ties inside the security establishment, has in recent weeks appeared to sit at the center of Tehran’s debate over diplomacy or confrontation.
Supporters of diplomacy see negotiations as a way to stabilize the system and prevent further confrontation with the West. Hardline factions warn that concessions would undermine the ideological foundations of the Islamic Republic.
US President Donald Trump, intentionally or not, has helped fan the flames by publicly portraying Iran’s leadership as divided, echoing the way Washington’s rivalry with the Soviet Union often intensified internal debates in Moscow.
The comparison with Gorbachev has appeared before in Iranian politics. During the reform movement of the late 1990s, President Mohammad Khatami was frequently described as “Iran’s Gorbachev.”
Hardliners used the label to attack him, while parts of the opposition embraced it in the hope that his reforms might accelerate the system’s collapse.
In reality, neither Khatami nor his allies accepted that role. Their reforms were framed as an effort to strengthen the Islamic Republic rather than dismantle it. More importantly, the structure of power at the time made a Gorbachev-style transformation nearly impossible.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei held ultimate authority and maintained the balance between rival factions, limiting both reformist ambitions and hardline overreach.
The conditions today are markedly different. Iran has endured direct external military pressure, and the legitimacy of the system has been shaken by recent protests. A younger generation appears deeply alienated from the ideological foundations of the state.
At the same time, the supreme arbiter who once managed factional competition no longer appears able—or willing—to impose the same discipline.
In such circumstances, change may come not from a reformist outsider but from a figure embedded within the system itself. Ghalibaf fits that description. His background in the IRGC, his political experience, and his connections across multiple factions give him a platform few others possess.
Yet any move toward accommodation with Washington provokes resistance from ideological loyalists who view compromise as betrayal, even as warnings grow that without meaningful change the system could buckle under pressure from abroad and deepening discontent at home.
Here the Soviet analogy becomes harder to ignore.
Khrushchev’s reforms were intended to strengthen the Soviet system, not dismantle it. But attempts to modernize rigid structures often produce consequences their architects cannot control.
In 1964, Khrushchev was quietly pushed aside by his colleagues and officially “retired due to old age and ill health.”
If Iran’s leadership ultimately chooses a path of limited reform to preserve the state, Ghalibaf could still emerge in such a role. But if the system rejects even controlled adaptation, he may instead become an early casualty of its resistance to change.
Tehran’s unveiling of a towering statue depicting the Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling before pre-Islamic Persian King Shapur I has renewed criticism of the Islamic Republic’s appeal to nationalist sentiment following the June war with Israel.
For over forty years, the theocracy purged ancient Persian history from schoolbooks, replacing it with post-Islamic narratives. But after the 12-day conflict with Israel, officials have turned to the distant pre-Islamic past to rally a divided society.
From murals of ancient kings and soldiers to patriotic songs added to Shi’ite mourning ceremonies performed before Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Tehran now embraces imagery once deemed heretical by its own revolutionary ethos.
'Kneel before Iran' campaign
Tehran’s Revolution (Enghelab) Square was the scene of an unusual spectacle on Friday as officials unveiled a massive bronze statue depicting Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling in submission before Sassanid King Shapur I, commemorating Iran’s victory at the Battle of Edessa (260 AD).
The event was held under the slogan “Kneel before Iran,” part of what authorities describe as a campaign to project “national unity and historical pride” following the June war with Israel.
Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani, a staunch ultraconservative, said on X: “Enmity with Great Iran can only end in kneeling before this historic nation.”
Municipal official Davood Goodarzi said the installation would be accompanied by visual displays depicting “other victories of Iranians over foreign aggressors,” including the defeat of British forces by local commander Rais-Ali Delvari, Mirza Kuchak Khan’s resistance against Russian troops, and Surena’s triumph over Rome at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE.
The goal, Goodarzi said, is “strengthening concepts such as national dignity, social unity, and Iranian identity.”
The statue, he said, would remain temporarily at Revolution Square before being moved to a city gateway “where it will stand as the first emblem of Iran before diplomats and foreign visitors.”
Unveiled women were allowed to attend the unveiling ceremony—an uncommon scene at events organized by Tehran’s ultra-hardline municipality.
The turn to the pre-Islamic past
The sharp reversal also recalls remarks once made by Khamenei. In a 2011 speech, he asserted that “all the great military victories of this nation came after Islam,” dismissing pre-Islamic accounts as “things that are not documented.”
In 1987, he had said that prophets triumphed over kings such as Cyrus and that “nothing remains of these monarchs in history but names remembered with derision.”
Nevertheless, pro-government social media accounts have now gone so far as to circulate posters equating Khamenei himself with Shapur, showing him standing with a staff as Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump kneel before him. The caption reads: “You will kneel before Iran.”
'Hypocrisy'
Pro-government figures have hailed the move as a patriotic success. Conservative political reporter Hossein Saremi posted: “Today’s grand Iranian gathering showed that people and the state share one essence: Iran itself. Nothing can take our homeland away.”
Others, however, called the spectacle “hypocrisy.” Journalist Gholamhossein Pashaei wrote on X: “Every year you close Pasargadae to stop people from celebrating Cyrus Day, yet you unveil Shapur’s statue in Enghelab Square with drums and fireworks during Fatimiyya (mourning period)!”
Dissident commentator Hamid Asafi called the ceremony “a perfect snapshot of the Islamic Republic’s contradictions.”
On Telegram he wrote: “A week ago they closed Cyrus’s tomb out of fear of the crowds, and now they glorify Shapur in the same breath. The Islamic Republic fears living history but poses for selfies with its corpse.”
He added: “They know people no longer respond to rosaries and sermons. That’s why they’ve brought history back to the stage—in a controlled costume. If they can’t erase the past, they’ll try to own it.”
The irony deepened as UNESCO formally recognized Cyrus’s Charter as one of the earliest human-rights documents.
President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X: “Iran, the cradle of dialogue, justice, and coexistence, can still inspire peace today.”
Users swiftly replied, questioning how such pride could coexist with a government that blocks access to Cyrus’s tomb each year to those wishing to visit it on his birthday.
