Many who study contemporary Iran argue that a web of parallel authorities governs the country, each monitoring the others in a system loosely reminiscent of the checks and balances built into Western democracies. The persistence of Iran’s reformist current—despite the constraints imposed by conservative institutions in every electoral cycle—is often cited as evidence of this arrangement.
Though hemmed in, reformist figures still attain high office, most recently with the election of President Masoud Pezeshkian. Reformists, conservatives, and the Revolutionary Guard are all dispersed across a shifting landscape of associations, parties, and organisations that rise and fade in step with Iran’s internal political tides.
The Combatant Clerics Association and its rival, the Association of Combatant Clergy, dominated debates on Iranian politics throughout the 1980s and 90s, prompting extensive efforts to map their ideological positions, social constituencies, and degrees of loyalty to the Supreme Leader. In a similar vein, the Executives of Construction party, founded by the late President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani after the Iran–Iraq war, and the Second of Khordad Reform Movement, which carried Mohammad Khatami to the presidency, reflected genuine currents within Iran’s socio-political life.
Zarif and Velayati
These labels rose, briefly shone, and then receded as conservative forces hardened, and the Revolutionary Guard entrenched its influence. During the presidency of Hassan Rouhani—marketed as an era of moderation after the confrontational years of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—Foreign Minister Javad Zarif came to dominate Iranian media coverage. Cast as a composed academic fluent in engaging with the West, he was greeted in Tehran as a national saviour after the signing of the 2015 nuclear agreement, widely credited with sparing Iran from war.
Set against him was Ali Akbar Velayati, advisor to the Supreme Leader and a former foreign minister whose authority took shape during the Iran–Iraq war. Having overseen foreign policy for 16 years, Velayati was widely regarded as its principal architect, a hawk within Iran’s political spectrum. For decades, Iran’s foreign policy has been shaped by this complexity and institutional pluralism, notwithstanding formal acknowledgements of role distribution and ultimate deference to the Supreme Leader.
Repeatedly, Foreign Ministry statements disavowing operations later attributed to Iranians proved to have originated with agencies beyond its control, whether the Revolutionary Guard, the intelligence services, or allied regional groups. In recent days, however, an unexpected convergence emerged. Speaking at the Doha Forum, Zarif reacted sharply during a discussion of the dispute over the Durra oil field.
Demanding returns
Visibly agitated in the presence of Gulf Cooperation Council Secretary-General Jasem al-Budaiwi, who sought to defuse the exchange, Zarif claimed that Iran had done more for the Palestinian cause than the Arabs. It was a familiar distortion, eliding decades of Arab support for Palestine that long predate the Islamic Republic.
At the same time, Velayati was equally uncompromising in a meeting with Hezbollah’s representative, Abdullah Safi al-Din (brother of Hashem Safi al-Din, who briefly led the group after Hassan Nasrallah’s assassination, only to be assassinated himself a week later).
