A NOMINAL ceasefire between Iran and the US was supposed to expire on Wednesday. As I predicted, it never proceeded as agreed. Iran continued to bombard its neighbours and to interdict the Strait of Hormuz, and to demand that Israel should end its attacks on Hezbollah and its incursion into Lebanon. The US responded by blockading Iranian-ported traffic, while Israel reached an agreement with Lebanon (against Hezbollah).
These events clarified the factiousness of the Iranian regime, which spells further trouble for those hoping for a peace deal.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in air strikes on the first day, prompting a power struggle between the parliamentary and military sides of the regime. Do not mistake this struggle as one between secularists and theocrats. The military side is dominated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
We waited until the second week of the air strikes before Iran announced its new Supreme Leader, and the choice was Ali’s son, Mojtaba, at the behest of the IRGC. Mojtaba is effectively a puppet of the IRGC. He hasn’t been seen in public since he was appointed in the second week, either because he was incapacitated by an air strike or for fear of another air strike (he is unconscious, says a leaked diplomatic memo, although such a leak might be disinformation).
The IRGC has been included in Iran’s negotiating team, despite most of the issues being civilian (nuclear programme, sanctions, frozen assets, maritime traffic).
Still, the IRGC does not dominate or predominate. Rather, the negotiating team suggests many actors vying for influence. The first team Iran sent to Pakistan to negotiate with the US counted more than 70 men.
At the same time, the IRGC dominates parallel or subordinate negotiations on military matters. The delegation that most recently met Pakistan’s Army Chief (Field Marshal Asim Munir) included Major-General Ali Abdullahian, an officer responsible for joint wartime operations.
The Institute for the Study of War still assesses the main rivalry as between Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and IRGC Commander Major General Ahmad Vahidi.
Ghalibaf is the moderate in this split. Ghalibaf has publicly supported negotiations without publicly setting out preconditions, unlike Vahidi.
Israeli sources claim that Vahidi is an ally of Mojtaba. The alliance here is very much on the theocratic side of the regime, although nobody gets to be parliament speaker in Iran without being theocentric, so don’t assume a secular-theocratic split.
Awkwardly, Ghalibaf’s position is supported by the most prominent Iranian Sunni cleric, Moulana Abdol Hamid. In his weekend sermon, Abdol Hamid called for ‘strong diplomacy with full authority’, and emphasised that Iranian diplomacy should not be constrained by hardliners. Abdol Hamid stated on Tuesday that a ‘fair agreement’ is the only viable solution, and warned that hardliners obstructing such an outcome will bear responsibility for the ‘homeland’s devastation’.
It’s not just Sunnis. Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein Nouri Hamedani explicitly praised Ghalibaf and warned against any actions undermining negotiators.
So Iran is not splitting between secularists and theocrats yet.
The main split is between the IRGC and parliamentary government.
More evidence? See the disconnect between Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Arahgchi and the IRGC. On Friday, Arahgchi posted a claim that the Strait of Hormuz is ‘completely open’ although only ‘on the co-ordinated route as already announced by Ports and Maritime Organisation of the Islamic Rep. of Iran’. But even this restriction was not good enough for the IRGC, which posted, also on Friday, vague conditions for vessels to transit Iranian waters.
Meanwhile, IRGC-affiliated Fars News reported a list of specifications from an anonymous source close to the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC). Iran’s Armed Forces General Staff posted in kind, which suggest a broad split between the military and parliamentary government.
On Tuesday, US Vice-President JD Vance, plus the pre-war negotiating team of Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, were supposed to return to Islamabad to restart negotiations. But Iran failed to confirm its attendance and to respond to US proposals.
Anonymous sources told the Wall Street Journal that Iranian officials had signalled they would attend, but introduced a demand from the IRGC that the United States should lift its blockade before negotiations.
On Tuesday morning, the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News Agency reported that Iran has prepared for a new phase of fighting.
On that same morning, Trump told reporters that he expected the US to bomb Iran again.
Meanwhile, an anonymous Israeli security official told Israel’s state broadcaster that Israel is preparing to resume fighting with Iran.
On Tuesday afternoon (American time), US President Donald Trump posted that Pakistani mediators had urged the United States not to resume attacks, while the Iranian regime works to produce a ‘unified proposal’. Trump extended the ceasefire ‘until such time as proposal is submitted and discussions are concluded’.
Trump’s same post that extends the ceasefire also extends the US blockade of Iranian ports.
On Wednesday, the IRGC said it had attacked three cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz, and seized two of them.
So the ceasefire that never ceased firing has been extended – and the firing continues.
What next?
The New York Times reports that no date has been set for negotiations, and that Trump is not even sure whether to send any team to Islamabad, having previously said he would travel there to seal a deal.
On Tuesday, anonymous sources told the Wall Street Journal that the US government will emphasise the economic war, having already announced new sanctions against Iran’s smuggling of oil and armaments. The blockade, by the paper’s estimates, is costing Iran almost $300million (£222million) a day.
Trump’s posts late on Tuesday claimed a cost of $500milllion (£371million). ‘Iran is collapsing financially! They want the Strait of Hormuz opened immediately. Starving for cash! Losing 500 Million Dollars a day. Military and Police complaining that they are not getting paid. SOS!!!’
This sounds like Trump hopes for the regime’s servants to stop work. He has often called for rebellion. He has no evidence for factiousness at the lowest echelons. He has evidence at the highest echelons, but that’s still a long way from revolution.
We should expect another long ceasefire without a cessation of firing. Yesterday seemed to further confirm that prediction or indeed ‘strategy’. Following his order to the US navy to ‘shoot and kill’ any Iranian boats laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz, President Trump announced an extension ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon for three more weeks as he attempts to continue peace talks with Iran.
