Mojtaba Khamenei was appointed Iran’s Supreme Leader after his father was killed in a US-Israeli strike on 28 February, but has yet to appear in public, and is believed to have been injured in the strike, which also killed several other members of his close family. Yet despite his absence, the Iranian system remains intact, as analysts ponder who now holds decision-making authority in wartime.
The regime’s survival now rests with a small circle of pivotal figures: the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the head of the Supreme National Security Council, and the speaker of parliament, all of whom have also emerged from the ranks of the Guard. A judiciary chief and a law enforcement commander are also mentioned in the context of decision-making.
Here, Al Majalla looks at each.
Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr
An elusive figure in his early 70s, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr epitomises the regime’s opacity and stands at the heart of its real command structure. As the new Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, he supervises coordination between the army, the IRGC, the intelligence services, and foreign policy. Within his office, the state’s most consequential decisions take shape, including over war and the nuclear programme.
Only a month in post, his appointment in March 2026 was far more than an administrative reshuffle; it signalled a preference for men steeped in security affairs to manage this fraught moment. Zolghadr’s background is not in politics but in the security establishment, coming through the IRGC, the Basij militia, and the General Staff. Even before the 1979 revolution, Zolghadr cut his teeth attacking the monarchy.
According to the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, he is an architect of Iran’s regional proxy network, helping to direct the likes of Hezbollah from afar. Western reports also indicate that he has been sanctioned for his role in the nuclear programme and in the repression of domestic dissent. He is said to be less an autonomous decision-maker than a coordinator of power across multiple centres, a role made more important by the leader’s public absence.
Ahmad Vahidi
Embodying the Iranian regime’s security doctrine of defence through force, IRGC Commander Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, 67, has long been tied to the Guards’ elite Quds Force, the external arm made famous by the slain commander Qasem Soleimani. Vahidi joined the Quds Force in 1983 and led it from 1988 to 1997. Some link Vahidi to the AMIA bombing in Argentina in 1994, which killed 85 people at a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires.
Interpol has kept a red notice against him for the AMIA attack, while the United States and European Union reimposed sanctions on him for suppressing the 2022 protests, including through internet shutdowns and the use of force against demonstrators. Some researchers think Vahidi forms part of the advance of the military-security establishment into the very centre of power, accelerated by war. Gen. Vahidi is more than a military commander; he embodies the conviction that the regime’s survival depends on total security control, not on the religious establishment that once wielded such authority.
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf
Lying somewhere between security and politics, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, 64, is Speaker of Iran’s Parliament and represents a different type of figure. He rose to greater prominence after 17 March, when the former Supreme National Security Council head Ali Larijani was killed. Larijani was a parliamentarian, a former IRGC figure, and a philosopher, and Ghalibaf resembles him in all three respects. He is seen as relatively moderate when compared with the others.
Ghalibaf began his career in the Guards and went on to command its air force. He later led the police, then became mayor of Tehran, before eventually becoming Speaker of Parliament, a path that reveals a distinctly Iranian pattern, whereby the security elite are continually recycled through civilian institutions.
