{"id":350382,"date":"2026-03-21T06:15:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T06:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/350382\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T06:15:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T06:15:23","slug":"who-really-runs-iran-after-wave-of-assassinations-and-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/350382\/","title":{"rendered":"Who really runs Iran after wave of assassinations and leader"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite a sweeping wave of assassinations that has decimated Iran\u2019s top leadership, the Islamic Republic continues to function, launch attacks and project power, raising a central question: who is actually running Iran?<\/p>\n

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3 View gallery <\/p>\n

\"\u05d8\u05d4\u05e8\u05df<\/a>\"\u05d8\u05d4\u05e8\u05df<\/p>\n

‘The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is the state now’ <\/p>\n

(Photo: Atta Kenare\/ AFP)<\/p>\n

Yet Iranian missile fire has not stopped. In fact, launches have increased in recent days, even if the number of missiles per barrage remains relatively limited.<\/p>\n

Israeli officials say the command-and-control structure inside Iran has been shaken, but not broken. The inner circle around Mojtaba Khamenei is still taking shape, and it remains unclear how decisions are being made at the highest level.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure who is running Iran right now,\u201d Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a press conference. \u201cMojtaba, the replacement ayatollah, hasn\u2019t been seen in public. Have you seen him? We haven\u2019t, and we cannot confirm what exactly is happening there.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to assessments, Mojtaba Khamenei, who succeeded his father after the initial strike, maintains close ties with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps<\/a>, Iran\u2019s most powerful military force. His views are believed to be even harder-line than those of his father. Formally, he now commands Iran\u2019s armed forces and holds ultimate authority over decisions related to the nuclear program.<\/p>\n

But analysts caution against assuming that leadership decapitation will lead to regime collapse.<\/p>\n

Burge Ozcelik, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said the elimination of senior decision-makers across political, intelligence, internal security and military spheres would have deep consequences, but likely over time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe loss of key decision-makers will bring transformative results,\u201d she said. \u201cBut the idea of \u2018regime collapse\u2019 obscures the fact that the regime is already changing. This is a process that could take years, not weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

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3 View gallery <\/p>\n

\"\u05d0\u05d7\u05de\u05d3<\/a>\"\u05d0\u05d7\u05de\u05d3<\/p>\n

The new IRGC commander Ahmad Vahidi<\/p>\n

Messages attributed to Mojtaba Khamenei have continued to emerge, including a Nowruz statement in which he said Iran had responded with unity after the killing of its leadership.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe enemy believed that by targeting the leader and influential figures, it could instill fear and force the people to withdraw,\u201d the statement read. \u201cThe Iranian people delivered a blow to the enemy.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, analysts increasingly point to the Revolutionary Guards as the true center of power.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is the state now,\u201d said Ali Vaez, director of the Iran project at the International Crisis Group.<\/p>\n

Before the war, Iran\u2019s civilian leadership operated under the authority of the supreme leader, while the Revolutionary Guards functioned as a parallel power center. Now, with the leadership hierarchy disrupted and Mojtaba Khamenei largely absent from public view, some experts believe the Guards have effectively taken control.<\/p>\n

The IRGC, established after the 1979 Islamic Revolution to defend the regime, has since evolved into a dominant military, economic and political force. Its Quds Force has played a central role in building Iran\u2019s regional network of allies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and other groups across the Middle East.<\/p>\n

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3 View gallery <\/p>\n

\"\u05ea\u05de\u05d5\u05e0\u05ea\u05d5<\/a>\"\u05ea\u05de\u05d5\u05e0\u05ea\u05d5<\/p>\n

Mojtaba Khamenei, still hasn’t made a public appearance <\/p>\n

(Photo: Majid Asgaripour\/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters)<\/p>\n

Its commander, Esmail Qaani, had not been seen publicly since the start of the war until a message attributed to him was released this week, following a pattern of previous unexplained disappearances.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the United States has placed a bounty of up to $10 million on current IRGC commander Ahmad Vahidi, who assumed the role after his predecessor and several senior officers were killed.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s military structure itself may also be contributing to its resilience.<\/p>\n

At the start of the war, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi suggested that military units were operating with a degree of autonomy, acting on pre-issued directives rather than centralized, real-time command.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey operate independently, based on general instructions given in advance,\u201d he said, adding that some attacks attributed to Iran may not have been directly ordered by the central leadership.<\/p>\n

This decentralized approach appears to be part of a broader contingency plan.<\/p>\n

According to analysts, Iran anticipated the possibility of leadership decapitation and prepared accordingly. Military assets were dispersed geographically, key capabilities were moved underground and authority was delegated to regional commanders.<\/p>\n

Iran has reportedly divided its ballistic missile forces into dozens of separate command units, each with a degree of operational independence. Critical systems, including missile stockpiles, drones and naval attack capabilities, have been hidden deep underground, sometimes tens of meters below rock.<\/p>\n

This structure allows Iran to continue operating even if senior leadership is eliminated.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe expectation that the regime would collapse after the killing of dozens of senior leaders is nothing more than an illusion,\u201d Vaez said. \u201cIran is a system with multiple layers of leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n

That illusion, some analysts argue, is at the heart of what they describe as the \u201cdecapitation illusion\u201d \u2014 the belief that removing top figures would quickly bring down the regime.<\/p>\n

Instead, the war is revealing a more complex reality: a system designed to absorb shocks, redistribute authority and continue functioning even under extreme pressure.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Iran appears to have activated pre-planned strategies beyond the battlefield, including efforts to disrupt global energy markets. Analysts say Tehran had long prepared scenarios to close the Strait of Hormuz and trigger a global energy crisis in the event of a major conflict.<\/p>\n

As the war continues, the question is no longer just who is formally in charge, but how power is actually exercised across Iran\u2019s fragmented but resilient system.<\/p>\n

For now, despite the chaos at the top, the machinery of the state remains intact.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite a sweeping wave of assassinations that has decimated Iran\u2019s top leadership, the Islamic Republic continues to function,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-350382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}