🌍 Iran's survivors take over

Your Insider’s briefing:
— Iran's survivors take over
— Cameras sending data back to China?
— Fans vs cables

🔭 Prefer a weekend recap and horizon scan? Become an Intrigue Insider today!

“Can the oil fund disappear? The answer to that question is ‘yes’, and the worst is that in the world we live in now, it is not completely improbable.”

That spicy line comes from Nicolai Tangen, CEO of the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund (Norway’s), which owns ~1.5% of all listed companies and finances a quarter of Norway’s public spending. But chill — in a subsequent Reuters interview, he noted the world economy is still resilient and Norway’s fund just posted record half-year profits.

In our line of work, when someone suddenly disappears for a few months, it's because they're 'offline' for secret-squirrel stuff, or maybe they went on Survivor. Weirdly, the Survivor cameo tends to be a better-kept secret.

But when Iran's new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei suddenly disappeared months ago amid the US-Israeli war, speculation was less 'OMG maybe he went on Love is Blind', and more okay maybe he's dead, disfigured, or debilitated.

That all culminated in last week's Israeli media reports that maybe Mojtaba is actually in an "extremely critical condition", fanning worries among Iran's elites.

And that's when things got even more intriguing: Iran's semi-official Mehr outlet dropped a short clip showing Mojtaba himself relaxing on a carpet in his signature black turban and light grey robe, bantering with some pals. The clip contains no audio, but maybe they were marvelling at how Trinity and Bryce won Love Island Season 8? Or perhaps sharing their favourite fatwas, like the one that still labels the minority Baha'i faith "perverse"?

Anyway, we've got Mojtaba’s proof of life!

Hah, no. The clip contains no date or location, nor even a pink birthday cake with the date in icing. Rather, some say it looks similar to earlier pre-war teaching footage.

But either way, the regime wasn't just using this clip to dunk on Israeli media. Rather, it was preparing the ground for something even more intriguing — new decrees in Mojtaba's name (who is now definitely alive and fine everyone) filling six of the most powerful military posts left vacant by the war.

So shall we take a quick look at those appointments and what they might reveal?

This is the guy long rumoured to be actually in charge, even if the parliamentary speaker (Ghalibaf) has generally been more visible.

Argentina and others accuse him of ordering the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires that left 85 dead, and the decree now tasks him with maximum deterrence and "powerful offensive operations"...

Remember Iran effectively has two parallel militaries: one is the above all-powerful IRGC to safeguard the 1979 Islamic Revolution, answering direct to the supreme leader. The other is the regular military (Artesh).

This guy used to run a body that coordinated the two, so with him now running the broader command structure, it could be a way to quell earlier rumours that maybe the regular army was uncomfortable with the regime’s protest massacres.

Yes they still have a navy — as we flagged early on, it's tough to fry an asymmetrical capability like hundreds of fast boats hiding in random sheds along a coastline that stretches the same distance as from London to Athens.

Anyway, this guy has long run the IRGC's 5th Region around Hormuz, and has been the regular public face of Iranian vessel seizures, hence his US sanctions since 2019. With Azmaei now in charge, Hormuz is a priority, and it ain't re-opening.

Iran's Basij is the big hard-line, civilian militia the regime uses to beat up protestors and help enforce dress rules on women etc.

Taeb is actually the cleric who ran IRGC intelligence for ages until Israeli intelligence pantsed him so many times, he actually got ousted in 2022. His return now as Basij boss is less about the power of personal growth or second chances, and more about a hard-line loyalist running the domestic repression that keeps this regime in power.

Then for #5 (IRGC deputy) and #6 (Armed Forces deputy), you've got two veteran loyalists that really signal continuity and more of that IRGC-military integration.

So okay, cool LinkedIn updates, but the overall message here?

To us, it looks like Iran’s hard-line IRGC survivors are maximising control, doubling down on internal repression, and signalling zero interest in external compromise.

If you’ll forgive us, two movies feel apt right now. One is the very real chance that the IRGC could legit be pulling a Weekend at Bernie’s on Mojtaba. Incredible.

The other is (yes) The Odyssey, but maybe not in the way you think…

If you’ll forgive us, two movies feel apt right now. One is the very real chance that the IRGC could legit be pulling a Weekend at Bernie’s on Mojtaba. Incredible.

The other is (yes) The Odyssey, but maybe not in the way you think.

Yes, Nolan’s film hits very close to home for a US foreign policy establishment deeply tired of (but still somehow mired in) Middle Eastern quicksands. And the travesty of US munitions flattening a school full of girls is a reminder that, for all the slideshows, uniforms, and technology, there’s rarely a clinical way to run a war like this without running up a devastating moral bill that outlasts the conflict itself.

But the other Odyssey angle here is about how Iran itself works. DC-based Iranian-British journalist Bozorgmehr Sharafedin has a great line about how today’s Iran is like Greek mythology, where Zeus never really rules alone, but rather has to contend with this squabbling pantheon of deities like Poseidon or Helios.

Ie, the supreme leader doesn’t rule alone, but rather sits atop a world of factions vying for advantage. And so what this latest decree confirms is that one of those deities (the IRGC) just decisively won an internal round, filling key vacancies, tightening its Artesh grip, and putting a proven enforcer back in charge of the Basij.

But then, at whose cost? There’s the Artesh, of course, now more tightly yoked to the Guards. But also the traditional clerical establishment, which is meant to supply religious legitimacy but has been steadily losing ground to the goons (plus might wonder why Mojtaba can supposedly sign a decree but not answer their DMs).

Then there’s the bonyads — these vast, opaque bodies that control huge slices of the Iranian economy. The best keep the cash flowing by playing the other gods against one another — that competition, no matter how corrupt and inept, still created a rough internal check: no single group could loot or mismanage it all. But with the IRGC gods now firmly at the top, it augurs worse news for the economy.

And then there’s the elected types — the presidents, the parliament, some ministers. Their role is to breathe a bit of popular legitimacy into the system (40% turnout notwithstanding), administer the more routine functions of government, and give the regime an international face — someone has to show up at the UN. In theory, this has always been where you might find more competent, moderating, and/or technocratic voices. But with the IRGC gods now firmly in control, the risk is Iran ends up with even more of the opposite: zealous, mediocre, and less adaptable.

So all that to say that yes, the Guards have just won a major internal round for supremacy, and will continue to make Trump sweat with Hormuz as their endless leverage. But in the process, maybe what those Guards have inherited (if not created) is a system with even less legitimacy, fewer internal shock-absorbers, and an even shorter fuse.

Today’s briefing is sponsored by:

Tax season doesn't have to mean wondering if you have the right forms, second-guessing your deductions, or scrambling to pull everything together before the deadline.

With BELAY’s Tax Prep Checklist, you can start preparing for tax season with confidence.

Download the Free Checklist

[👋 Prefer ad-free reading? Sign-up to Intrigue Insiders today!]

What people around the world are googling…

Scaling analytics? You don't need a second database. TimescaleDB extends Postgres to stay fast at any scale. Hypertables, 95% compression, no pipeline. $1000 to start. Get $1000 Credit

A bunch of Harry Potter fans just achieved what many lobbying operations could only dream of: forcing a $580M infrastructure project to change its plans!

You see, the UK-Ireland Greenlink cable was meant to come ashore on a Welsh beach, but when the project manager pointed the spot out on a BBC interview, Potter fans realised it was the exact same site where a certain house-elf, ehm... died.

Cue hundreds of calls from angry fans, and the company quickly grasped it had inadvertently triggered a “very, very serious” situation. Undersea cables, diverted.

We talk often about the geopolitics of undersea cables, but legit never imagined the real threat could’ve been overcommitted Harry Potter fans all along.

Yesterday’s poll: How do you think the free world should respond to Myanmar's civil war?

🤝 Just normalise ties with the junta and move on (10%)
🚀 Help the rebels beat the junta (36%)
🚫 Stay out of it (53%)
✍️ Other (write us!) (1%)

Your two cents: