Former Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi may be the most popular oppositionist among Iranians inside Iran, but he has failed his audition with a series of unforced errors, ranging from his staff’s antics to the falsehood of his claim to have defectors in his pocket to his decision to eschew coalitions to tripping over the third rail of the Kurds and Baluch. Most importantly, he has failed to win President Donald Trump’s support.
Trump, influenced by his experience in Venezuela and the willingness of Nicolás Maduro’s Vice President Delcy Rodriguez to take over and defer to the White House on key security and economic questions, seeks to replicate the model in Iran.
Larijani was a former Revolutionary Guard commander before making the leap into politics, and Ghalibaf previously commanded the Guard’s Aerospace Force.
The success of initial targeting is a testament to decades of planning and reflects the strategic patience many pundits publicly doubted the United States still held. If the United States could target almost any Iranian politician, the question then becomes why the Pentagon seemingly bypassed senior figures like former presidents Mohammad Khatami and Hassan Rouhani, Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, and, initially at least, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani.
Khatami and Rouhani may be clerics, but neither would have much sway with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who remain the major power behind-the-scenes. Larijani and Ghalibaf have more influence among the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Larijani was a former Revolutionary Guard commander before making the leap into politics, and Ghalibaf previously commanded the Guard’s Aerospace Force.
Initially, Trump appeared willing to negotiate Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile disarmament with Larijani, whose daughter lives in the Atlanta, Georgia, area, but Larijani’s public refusal may have made him a target. His X account went dark for thirty-six hours and, although the regime has subsequently attributed statements to Larijani, it is not clear he remains alive.
Ghalibaf, however, appears to be Trump’s Plan B for an Iran corollary to the Venezuela model. Ghalibaf has deep ties to the Revolutionary Guard, and significant administrative experience as mayor of Tehran for twelve years following Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s elevation to the presidency. Ghalibaf himself was a four-time presidential candidate. He came in second place to Rouhani in 2013, and withdrew in 2017, endorsing the eventual victor, Ebrahim Raisi.
Multiple corruption scandals likely kneecapped Ghalibaf’s political ambitions, but Trump may no more care about blurring the line between politics and personal in Iran than he does in the United States.
Even if Ghalibaf, unlike Larijani, appears willing to assume a Delcy Rodriguez role, Trump would be foolish to rely on him for two reasons. First, ordinary Iranians will not accept it. Ghalibaf encouraged the violent crackdown on student protestors in 1999. As national police chief, he urged use of live ammunition against Tehran University student protestors four years later. As Tehran mayor in 2009, he provided the logistical support to crush the Green Movement and, most recently, he did not condemn the government slaughter of tens of thousands of ordinary citizens protesting or just caught out on the streets.
Appointing Ghalibaf to a provisional leadership will not end the Islamic Republic’s threat; it will only allow it space to regroup.
Second, Trump should not misjudge the ideology that shaped Ghalibaf. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is not monolithic; some Iranians simply join for the privileges, but Ghalibaf is not one of them. No Guardsman rises to such a senior position without being a true believer. Unlike even Qods Force chief Esmail Qaani, now rumored to be an Israeli spy, Ghalibaf was not a lifelong deputy promoted to the forefront by the death of his superior; he was always front-and-center.
Ideologues do not shed their ideology easily. When General David Petraeus commanded the 101st Airborne in Mosul in 2004, he wished to reintegrate Baathists to prove U.S. and Iraqi policy about de-Baathification wrong. He appointed senior Baathist Mahmud Muhammad al-Maris to coordinate Iraqi Civil Defense Corps units guarding the Syrian frontier; it soon became a figurative highway for insurgent resupply. Petraeus also hand-picked another Baathist, General Muhammad Kha’iri Barhawi, to be Mosul’s police chief. The order Barhawi imposed was illusionary. While Petraeus celebrated quiet, Barhawi organized insurgent cells who rose up and briefly seized the city in November 2004.
Maris and Barhawi may have nurtured a different ideology than Ghalibaf, but the same lesson holds: Ideologues will see compromise as a weakness to exploit. Appointing Ghalibaf to a provisional leadership will not end the Islamic Republic’s threat; it will only allow it space to regroup. Baath cells morphed into the Islamic State, and Revolutionary Guard cells likewise will morph into new shapes and forms—all hostile to peace, security, ordinary Iranians, and the West.
Trump’s legacy today could be the end of nearly every rogue regime: first Venezuela, now Iran, and soon Cuba. North Korea could be living on borrowed time. He risks snatching defeat from the jaws of victory should he believe that he can rely on Ghalibaf to usher in anything other than a second chance for the Islamic Republic’s nuclear drive, ballistic missile program, and proxies.
