Inside Iran’s Preparation for War and Plans for Survival
In early January, as Iran faced nationwide protests and the threat of strikes by the United States, 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, Mr. Larijani, a 67-year-old veteran politician, a former commander in the Revolutionary Guards Corps and current head of the Supreme National Security Council, has effectively been running the country. His rise has sidelined President Masoud Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon turned politician, who
has faced a challenging year in office and continues to say publicly that “I’m a doctor, not a politician” and that no one should expect him to solve the multitude of problems in Iran.
This account of Mr. 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 Mr. Khamenei’s office; three members of the Revolutionary Guards; two former Iranian 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.......
Mr. Khamenei has instructed Mr. Larijani and a handful of other close political and military associates to ensure the Islamic Republic survives not just American and Israeli bombs, but also any assassination of its top leadership, including Mr. Khamenei himself, according to the six senior officials and the Guards members.....
According to the six senior officials and the Guards members, Mr. 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.
While in hiding during the 12-day war with Israel, Mr. Khamenei named three candidates who could succeed him. They have never been publicly identified, but Mr. Larijani is almost certainly not among them because he is not a senior Shiite cleric — a fundamental qualification for any successor.
But Mr. Larijani is ensconced in Mr. Khamenei’s trusted circle, which includes his top military adviser and former commander in chief of the Guards, Maj. Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi; Brig. Gen. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a former Guards commander and current speaker of Parliament whom Mr. Khamenei has designated as his de facto deputy to command the armed forces during the war; and his chief of staff, the cleric Ali Asghar Hejazi.
Some of this planning is the result of lessons drawn from Israel’s surprise attack in June that wiped out Iran’s senior military command chain within the first hours of the war. After the cease-fire, Mr. Khamenei appointed Mr. Larijani as the secretary of the National Security Council and created a new National Defense Council, headed by Adm. Ali Shamkhani, to manage military affairs during wartime.
“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,” Mr. Nasr said, adding: “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 U.S. 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.....
But the Iranian leadership is preparing not just for military and security mobilizations, but also for its own political survival. These deliberations, described by six officials familiar with the planning, touch on a range of matters, including who would manage the country if Mr. Khamenei and top officials were killed, and who could be “the Delcy of Iran” — a reference to
Delcy Rodríguez, the Venezuelan vice president who made a deal with the Trump administration to run the country after the capture of its president, Nicolás Maduro.
Mr. Larijani sits atop 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 Mr. Khamenei’s circle, also made the list.......