Inside Iran's preparations for war and the regime's plans for survival

By Farnaz Fassihi

 

In early January, as Iran faced nationwide protests and the threat of strikes by the United States(US), the nation’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, turned to a trusted and loyal lieutenant to steer the country: Ali Larijani, the country’s top national security official.

 

Since then, Larijani, 67, a veteran politician, a former commander in the Revolutionary Guards Corps and the head of the Supreme National Security Council, has effectively been running the country. 

 

This account of Larijani’s ascent and the decisions and deliberations of Iran’s leadership as the Trump administration threatens war is based on interviews with six senior Iranian officials, one of them affiliated with Khamenei’s office; three members of the Revolutionary Guards; two former diplomats; and reports from the Iranian news media. The officials and members of the Guards spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss internal government matters.

 

He was in charge of crushing, with lethal force, the recent protests demanding the end of Islamic rule. Currently, he is keeping a lid on dissent, liaising with powerful allies like Russia and regional actors like Qatar and Oman, and overseeing nuclear negotiations with Washington. He is also devising plans for managing Iran during a potential war with the United States as Washington amasses forces in the region. “We are ready in our country,” Larijani said in an interview with Al Jazeera when he visited the Qatari capital, Doha, this month. 

 

Ayatollah Khamenei has instructed Larijani and a handful of other close political and military associates to ensure that the Islamic Republic survives not only American and Israeli bombs, but also any assassination attempts on its top leadership, including on Ayatollah Khamenei himself, according to the six senior officials and the Guards members.

 

Nasser Imani, a conservative analyst close to the government, said in a telephone interview from Tehran that Ayatollah Khamenei has a long and close relationship with Larijani, and the supreme leader turned to him in this time of acute military and security crisis.

 

According to the six senior officials and the Guards members, Ayatollah Khamenei has issued a series of directives. He has named four layers of succession for each of the military command and government roles that he personally appoints. He has also told everyone in leadership roles to name up to four replacements and has delegated responsibilities to a tight circle of confidants to make decisions in case communications with him are disrupted or he is killed.

 

“Khamenei is dealing with the reality in front of him,” said Vali Nasr, an expert on Iran and its Shiite theocracy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “He is expecting to be a martyr and thinking, this is my system and legacy, and I will stand until the end,” Nasr said. “He is distributing power and preparing the state for the next big thing, both succession and war, aware that succession may come as a consequence of war.” Iran is operating on the basis that US military strikes are inevitable and imminent, even as both sides continue to engage diplomatically and negotiate on a nuclear deal, the six officials and three Guards members said. They said Iran had placed all of its armed forces on the highest state of alert and was preparing to resist fiercely.

 

The country is positioning ballistic missile launchers along its western border with Iraq — close enough to strike Israel — and along its southern shores on the Persian Gulf, within range of American military bases and other targets in the region, the three Guards members and four senior officials said.

 

In last few weeks, Iran has closed its airspace to test missiles. It also held a military exercise in the Persian Gulf, briefly closing the Strait of Hormuz. All the while, Khamenei has maintained a defiant front.

 

“The most powerful military in the world might receive such a slap that it won’t be able to get on its feet,” he said in a speech last week. He also threatened to sink the US warships that have gathered in nearby waters.

 

In the event of war, special forces units of the police, intelligence agents and battalions of the plainclothes Basij militia, a subsidiary of the Guards, are to be deployed to the streets of major cities, the three Guards members and two senior officials said. The militias would then set up checkpoints to forestall domestic unrest and look for operatives linked to foreign spy agencies.

 

The leaders have considered who could be “the Delcy of Iran” — a reference to Delcy Rodríguez, the Venezuelan vice president. Larijani sits at the top of the list, the three officials said. 

 

He is followed by General Ghalibaf, the Parliament speaker. Somewhat surprisingly, a former president, Hassan Rouhani, who has been largely cast out of Ayatollah Khamenei’s circle, also made the list.

 

Each of these men has records that would limit their acceptance by an angry populace — whether it is accusations of financial corruption or of being complicit in Iran’s violations of human rights, including the recent killing of at least 7,000 unarmed protesters over three days.

 

Ali Vaez, the Iran director of the International Crisis Group, said the leadership had made contingency plans, but the repercussions of war with the United States remain unpredictable. The supreme leader, he said, “is less visible, more vulnerable, but he is still the super glue keeping the system together and everyone understands that if he is not there any more it would be hard to keep the system together.”

 

In the past month, Mr. Larijani’s visibility has soared as Mr. Pezeshkian’s has diminished. Mr. Larijani flew to Moscow to consult with Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, and has met with Middle Eastern leaders in between meetings with American and Iranian nuclear negotiators. He has sat for hourslong television interviews with Iranian and foreign news outlets, more often than the president, and regularly posts content on social media, like photographs of himself taking selfies with Iranians, visiting a religious shrine and waving from the door of an airplane.

 

For his part, Mr. Pezeshkian appears resigned to deferring authority to Mr. Larijani. The president told a cabinet meeting that he had suggested to Mr. Larijani that he should lift internet restrictions because they were harming e-commerce, Iranian media reported. It was a jarring admission that to get things done, even the president had to appeal to Mr. Larijani.

 

In January, amid the crackdown on protests, the US Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, tried to contact Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said two senior Iranian officials and a former diplomat. Mr. Trump had said he would strike Iran if it executed any protesters, and Mr. Witkoff was seeking out Mr. Araghchi to ask if executions were planned or had been called off, they said.

 

Anxious to forestall any misunderstandings, the two senior officials said, Mr. Araghchi called the Iranian president asking if he could establish contact with Mr. Witkoff. Mr. Pezeshkian replied that he did not know and to call Mr. Larijani for authorization. 

Probable successor to Khamenei 

• A former commander in the Revolutionary Guards Corps and the current head of the Supreme National Security Council
• In charge of crushing, with lethal force, the recent protests demanding the end of Islamic rule
• Responsible for liaising with powerful allies like Russia and regional actors like Qatar and Oman
• Overseeing nuclear negotiations with Washington devising plans for managing Iran during a potential war