"Who rules Iran?" is a question that holds great appeal for analysts and attracts more public attention these days than usual — even though the question is, in truth, more than two decades old. In 2003, the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research translated a book bearing that very title by German researcher Wilfried Buchta.
The main reason for this renewed interest was the absence of the new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei from the funeral ceremonies for his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on 28 February, and the prominence of Ahmad Vahidi, commander of the Revolutionary Guard. The absence of the former and the presence of the latter at the funeral sends a signal about the future of the regional and international political landscape, given the existence of two political currents — reformist and conservative — one of which supports negotiation while the other rejects it, shells neighbouring countries, and closes the Strait of Hormuz.
In the study of international relations, and specifically in realist theory, governments focus their attention on state foreign policy behaviour, as this is what affects a country's neighbours. The question — or the scholarly debate — should therefore centre on "why" the Iranian regime made the decision to commit aggression against its geographic neighbourhood.
As for who rules Iran, I believe that is an internal matter and one that concerns the Iranian people. If we must focus on it, the focus should be on how decisions are made and, more importantly, on who makes them — whether the decision-maker is an individual or an institution, and what their political inclinations are: extremist, military-dictatorial, or political.
There are two points I wish to reach through this theoretical explanation. The first: we should not waste much time discussing the new Supreme Leader's failure to appear publicly until now, nor should we debate why Vahidi emerged and became more prominent at the funeral ceremonies, because that does not produce a definitive outcome and none of us will be able to offer a logical reading of it. The nature of the Iranian system is perhaps a "special case" in the science of political systems — it practises a particular approach to selecting the country's president and the members of the Shura Council (parliament), but when you delve into the details you find it difficult to understand how decisions are made and taken, as the process is both institutional and individual at once.
The second point: discussing the political differences between conservatives and reformists does not lead us to an analysis of Iranian foreign policy decisions through the lens of disagreements between political currents, as is the norm in ordinary political systems. For example, one can determine the direction of American foreign policy when a Republican president is elected — President Trump being an exception — and one can similarly extrapolate the external preoccupations of a Democratic president or the files he will intervene in. But this is difficult with the Iranian system.
In practice, Iran has different or competing political currents regarding how to deal with the outside world and with its geographic neighbourhood. It is well known that the political authority represented by President Masoud Pezeshkian, together with his Foreign Minister Araghchi and Ghalibaf, favours negotiation, while the Revolutionary Guard is working to sabotage the memorandum of understanding signed some time ago, and it is the Guard that effectively holds the real power.
The existence of one hardline current and another moderate one is a form of role distribution designed to create room for manoeuvre with outside parties over the shape and ceiling of the concessions to be granted to the other side, commensurate with the regime's capacity at any given time. Yet it appears that in the Iranian system the Revolutionary Guard is the most deeply entrenched in power — and this serves neither the Iranian state nor its people, particularly given Iran's aggression against the Gulf states that are its neighbours.
In Iran, there are those who make promises to the international community, such as opening the Strait of Hormuz, and those who were shelling ships — yet the behaviour of both is one and the same. Anyone who departs from or deviates from external hardline extremism is removed from office or placed under house arrest.
Iran should have a single foreign policy — that is the norm and the accepted standard in international relations. Yet there are two external behaviours: one side makes promises to the international community, such as opening the Strait of Hormuz, while the other shells ships. This creates a kind of unease and impedes working together.
What is hoped from Iran — which shares neighbourly relations with the Gulf states — is that it will look with realism and positivity upon its conduct towards its geographic neighbourhood, and that it will desist from its aggressive policies.