Two months after the joint US-Israeli airstrike on the Khamenei family compound, new details are emerging about the condition of Iran’s new supreme leader. According to an extensive report in The New York Times, Mojtaba Khamenei remains seriously wounded, isolated and running the country under an unprecedented security umbrella.
Doctors at his side, senior officials at a distance
Access to the younger Khamenei is described as “extremely difficult and limited.” He is surrounded by a dedicated medical team that, unusually, also includes Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon by training, and the health minister. Commanders in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and senior government officials are avoiding visiting him in person for fear that Israel could track their movements and eliminate the leader at his hiding place.
Khamenei’s physical condition is described as serious but stable. According to official Iranian sources who spoke to The New York Times, his leg has been operated on three times and he is awaiting a prosthesis. His hand was also operated on and is gradually regaining function. He is suffering from severe burns to his face and lips, making it difficult for him to speak. He is expected to undergo a series of plastic surgeries in the future. But despite the injuries, four senior Iranian officials said he is “mentally alert and involved in what is happening.”
Khamenei has refused to appear in video clips or audio recordings so as not to be seen by the public as “weak or vulnerable.” Communication with the leader is being conducted in an underground-style system: messages are passed only in handwritten form, signed and sealed in envelopes, through a chain of couriers traveling by car and motorcycle along side roads to the hideout. His instructions are returned the same way.
A board of generals and a ‘triangle of power’
Because of his condition, Khamenei has delegated his powers to generals in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The country is now being run according to a “board” model, with the central players being Hossein Taeb, Mohsen Rezaei and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the parliament speaker. The three are described as a “triangle of power” operating as partners alongside Khamenei.
Although reformist factions are also taking part in political discussions, the decisive tone belongs to the military. That influence was reflected this week in the surprising cancellation of the Iranian delegation to talks in Pakistan.
While President Pezeshkian and the foreign minister warned of economic damage amounting to some $300 billion and urged reaching an agreement to lift sanctions, the generals argued that the talks were pointless in light of the US naval blockade and the dispute over the Strait of Hormuz. “In the end,” the report said, “the generals won and the talks collapsed.”
Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, said that despite the respect shown to Khamenei, he still does not have full control and is often presented with faits accomplis. His close ties with the generals were shaped in his youth, when he served as a volunteer in the Iran-Iraq War, and that is the basis for their current status as the dominant force in the country. Ghalibaf himself confirmed in a televised speech that US proposals for a peace arrangement and a nuclear plan had been conveyed to Khamenei in hiding and that his opinion was taken into account in the decision-making process.
