{"id":348751,"date":"2026-10-13T12:01:46","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T11:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=348751"},"modified":"2026-10-13T12:01:46","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T11:01:46","slug":"factional-feuds-are-eroding-mojtaba-khameneis-authority","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/iran-a-world\/factional-feuds-are-eroding-mojtaba-khameneis-authority\/","title":{"rendered":"Factional Feuds Are Eroding Mojtaba Khamenei\u2019s Authority"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<figure id=\"attachment_348752\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-348752\" style=\"width: 1000px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-348752\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/abbas-araghchi-mohammad-bagher-ghalibaf-doha.jpg\" alt=\"Iranian regime's Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf (right) and Foreign Minister Abbas \" width=\"1000\" height=\"566\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/abbas-araghchi-mohammad-bagher-ghalibaf-doha.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/abbas-araghchi-mohammad-bagher-ghalibaf-doha-300x170.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/abbas-araghchi-mohammad-bagher-ghalibaf-doha-768x435.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/abbas-araghchi-mohammad-bagher-ghalibaf-doha-742x420.jpg 742w, https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/abbas-araghchi-mohammad-bagher-ghalibaf-doha-150x85.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/abbas-araghchi-mohammad-bagher-ghalibaf-doha-696x394.jpg 696w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-348752\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Iranian regime&#8217;s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf (right) and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi (center-left) arrive in Doha, Qatar, on 26 May 2026 with a high-level delegation for talks on the Strait of Hormuz and frozen assets<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><em>Three-minute read<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Mohammad-Reza Bahonar is not an opposition figure. He is a former deputy speaker of parliament and longtime insider of the ruling establishment. That is what makes his latest remarks so revealing.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In an interview conducted in early October, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eghtesadnews.com\/%D8%A8%D8%AE%D8%B4-%D8%A7%D8%AE%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D8%B3%DB%8C%D8%A7%D8%B3%DB%8C-57\/811544-%D9%BE%DB%8C%D8%B4%D9%86%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%AF-%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%87%D9%86%D8%B1-%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%A7%DB%8C-%D9%85%D8%B9%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B1%DB%8C-%D8%AC%D8%AF%DB%8C%D8%AF%DB%8C-%D8%AF%D8%B1-%DA%AF%D9%81%D8%AA%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%A7%D8%B5%D9%88%D9%84%DA%AF%D8%B1%D8%A7%DB%8C%DB%8C-%DA%A9%D8%B4%D9%88%D8%B1-%D8%A8%D9%87-%D8%B4%DB%8C%D8%AE-%D9%85%D9%86%D8%AC%DB%8C-%D9%86%DB%8C%D8%A7%D8%B2-%D9%86%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%AF-%D9%86%D8%B3%D9%84-%D8%AC%D8%AF%DB%8C%D8%AF-%D9%86%D9%85%DB%8C-%D8%AE%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%87%D8%AF-%DA%A9%D8%B3%DB%8C-%D8%AF%D8%B1-%D8%AC%D8%A7%DB%8C%DA%AF%D8%A7%D9%87-%D8%B1%DB%8C%DB%8C%D8%B3-%DB%8C%D8%A7-%D8%B1%D9%87%D8%A8%D8%B1-%D9%81%DA%A9%D8%B1%DB%8C-%D9%82%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D8%A8%DA%AF%DB%8C%D8%B1%D8%AF\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bahonar said<\/a> younger Iranians no longer want someone in the position of a \u201cboss or intellectual leader\u201d telling them how to think. More strikingly, he declared that the country does not need a \u201csheikh and savior.\u201d Rouydad24, reflecting on his remarks this week, explicitly compared his changing tone with the earlier political trajectories of Ali-Akbar Nategh-Nouri and Ali Larijani\u2014figures progressively pushed away from the ruling core.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In another political system, Bahonar\u2019s language might pass as commentary on social change. Inside a regime whose constitutional architecture is built around <em>velayat-e faqih<\/em>\u2014the proposition that a single clerical authority stands above elected institutions\u2014it strikes much closer to the center. Only months after Mojtaba Khamenei inherited the supreme leadership, an old conservative is publicly acknowledging that the social premise underlying political guardianship itself is collapsing.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The significance becomes clearer when Bahonar is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/iran-a-world\/presidential-deputy-remarks-sparks-factional-feuds-political-coup-accusations-fly-in-tehran\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">placed alongside Mohammad<\/a>-Jafar Ghaempanah, executive vice-president and head of the presidential office. Earlier this year, Ghaempanah openly rejected the proposition that the Supreme Leader\u2019s opinion should automatically become state policy. Discussing a Supreme National Security Council decision, he said that if everything the leader said simply had to be implemented, \u201cparliament and the SNSC would have no meaning.\u201d He went further: the leader expresses an opinion, that opinion is subjected to expert review, and the system may accept or reject it.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">When Mojtaba Khamenei forbids the &quot;<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/IranWar%E2%80%8C?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#IranWar\u200c<\/a> or negotiation\u201d binary, both camps defy him within days. The new Leader\u2019s word is no longer final. The pillar that once capped factional war is fracturing. <br \/>Analysis by <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/MehdiOghbai?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@MehdiOghbai<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/l4x1BQDA5V\">https:\/\/t.co\/l4x1BQDA5V<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/iran_policy\/status\/2094849633046401235?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 1, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Kayhan immediately recognized the challenge. The hard-line newspaper responded that the government, parliament and judiciary were obliged to obey and implement the leader\u2019s view, not subject it to independent \u201cexpertise.\u201d Its reaction exposed the real dispute: not merely policy, but whether Mojtaba Khamenei\u2019s word is actually final. Kayhan\u2019s attack was echoed by a series of Friday prayer leaders and state media outlets across the country. Yet Ghaempanah publicly refused to walk back his remarks.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">That argument has not been settled. It is now resurfacing across virtually every major crisis confronting the regime.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">On October 6, barely six weeks after Mojtaba Khamenei explicitly prohibited actions that undermine national unity, Tasnim confirmed that an impeachment request against Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had <a href=\"https:\/\/farsnews.ir\/NargesJafari\/1791738072926959410\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">been formally registered<\/a> in parliament. Hard-line lawmakers have attacked the negotiating track with Washington even as Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, a senior military adviser to the Supreme Leader, has explicitly stated that Mojtaba Khamenei approves the negotiations. That makes the contradiction considerably sharper: hard-liners are not merely challenging the government\u2019s diplomatic initiative; they are attacking a negotiating track that, according to one of the Supreme Leader\u2019s own senior advisers, has his approval.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">&quot;A leader who merely ratifies is a leader who can be replaced by another ratifier. <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/Peace?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Peace<\/a> would retire the emergency that crowned him; war keeps grinding the economy that could bury him,&quot; Farid Mahoutchi writes.<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/30kNzyCW3O\">https:\/\/t.co\/30kNzyCW3O<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/iran_policy\/status\/2086181905280438718?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 8, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The economy is producing the same centrifugal pressure. Even after Mojtaba Khamenei instructed officials not to highlight the country\u2019s weaknesses and vulnerabilities, senior figures have continued to publicly describe precisely those weaknesses. On October 12, Masoud <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rokna.net\/%D8%A8%D8%AE%D8%B4-%D8%A7%D8%AE%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D8%B3%DB%8C%D8%A7%D8%B3%DB%8C-74\/1257362-%D9%BE%D8%B2%D8%B4%DA%A9%DB%8C%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%A7%DA%AF%D8%B1-%D8%AF%D8%B1-%D9%82%DB%8C%D9%85%D8%AA-%D8%A8%D9%86%D8%B2%DB%8C%D9%86-%D9%85%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%AE%D9%84%D9%87-%DA%A9%D9%86%DB%8C%D9%85-%D8%AC%D8%A7%D9%85%D8%B9%D9%87-%D8%A8%D9%87-%D9%87%D9%85-%D9%85%DB%8C-%D8%B1%DB%8C%D8%B2%D8%AF-%D9%81%DB%8C%D9%84%D9%85\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pezeshkian warned<\/a> that mishandling fuel-price reform could effectively \u201cupend society,\u201d an unusually blunt acknowledgment that an economic decision could trigger another explosion from below. Days earlier, parliament speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf told the security forces that, after failing through external confrontation, the enemy was now seeking to create \u201cinsecurity inside the country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">These are not the statements of a political class confident that one unquestioned center controls events. They are the language of competing factions looking for someone else to blame before the next crisis breaks.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">These are not ordinary disagreements between competing political currents of the kind found in a democratic system. None of these factions challenges the clerical dictatorship itself. What is changing is their willingness\u2014and increasingly their ability\u2014to subordinate their interests to a single commanding authority. Under the pressure of economic crisis, external confrontation and fear of renewed unrest, each faction is scrambling to protect its own position, even when doing so means exposing the regime\u2019s vulnerabilities or disregarding instructions from above.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Mojtaba Khamenei calls Iran the world\u2019s \u201cfourth superpower\u201d\u2014even No. 1 by \u201cdivine calculations.\u201d Yet <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/IranProtests?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#IranProtests<\/a> persist across the country, the rial is at record lows, inflation is called a security threat, critics are jailed, social restrictions tighten, factional battles\u2026<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/iran_policy\/status\/2104928074479358064?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 29, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Even Bahonar has immediately become a target. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tasnimnews.ir\/fa\/news\/1405\/07\/20\/3721381\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tasnim attacked him<\/a> on October 12 in unusually personal language over another disputed statement, asking how much \u201cnews-making\u201d at the expense of people\u2019s reputations was acceptable.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">However, there is a deeper problem confronting Mojtaba Khamenei.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The office of Supreme Leader was designed to function as the regime\u2019s <em>fasl al-khitab<\/em>\u2014the final word. Yet Ghaempanah has argued that the leader\u2019s word can be reviewed and rejected. Bahonar now says society no longer wants a \u201csheikh and savior.\u201d Parliamentarians seek to remove ministers engaged in diplomacy that a senior adviser says Khamenei himself has approved. Pezeshkian publicly warns of social upheaval even after Khamenei instructed officials not to advertise the country\u2019s weaknesses, while Ghalibaf speaks openly of the danger of internal insecurity.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">These contradictions are therefore symptoms of weakness, not political diversity. The regime\u2019s intertwined economic, social and international crises are narrowing the room available for its factions to reconcile their competing interests, while Mojtaba Khamenei has been unable to impose the discipline his office demands. In a dictatorship built around the supremacy of one man, that is not normal factional competition. It is evidence of an eroding <em>velayat-e faqih<\/em> at the very moment the regime is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/iranian-regime-infighting\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">confronting crises<\/a> on multiple fronts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Three-minute read Mohammad-Reza Bahonar is not an opposition figure. He is a former deputy speaker of parliament and longtime insider of the ruling establishment. That is what makes his latest remarks so revealing. In an interview conducted in early October, Bahonar said younger Iranians no longer want someone in the position of a &ldquo;boss or [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":348752,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,5450],"tags":[5482],"class_list":["post-348751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iran-a-world","category-iranian-regime-infighting","tag-iranian-regime-infighting"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Factional Feuds Are Eroding Mojtaba Khamenei\u2019s Authority - NCRI<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Three-minute read Mohammad-Reza Bahonar is not an opposition figure. 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