Can Iran’s new supreme leader make peace from behind the scenes?

Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is exercising power without appearing in public or allowing his voice to be heard. Since succeeding his father in March, he has governed through written statements and decrees, while reports of his meetings with senior officials offer a glimpse into how he exercises power.

The meetings announced in May and August appeared intended primarily to reassure Iranians that their new leader was alive and exercising authority. But a series of four meetings announced within 11 days in October, involving the heads of Iran’s parliament, judiciary and national security establishment, as well as senior military commanders, suggests something more: a new system of decision-making taking shape.

The meetings come as Tehran weighs its options between negotiations and renewed confrontation with the United States and Israel. They also invite comparisons with the consultations that preceded the 2015 nuclear agreement. The question is whether Iran’s new leadership is preparing for a similarly consequential decision, and whether this system is capable of making one.

The new Khameneism

For nearly 37 years, Ali Khamenei’s rule rested on his direct personal presence: speeches setting red lines, public meetings with commanders, political elites and ordinary Iranians. His son came to power in different circumstances. Injured in the February 28 strike that killed his father, he was advised, according to sources close to him quoted by Reuters, not to appear or release audio recordings for fear of being tracked.

His rule has taken shape through decrees rebuilding institutions, decisions channelled through a narrow circle of trusted officials, and the testimony of others in place of personal appearances.

The October meetings followed appointments to replace military and security commanders killed in the war. In August, Khamenei appointed his military adviser, Mohsen Rezaei, as his representative on the Supreme National Security Council; Rezaei later became its secretary. Six military appointments followed, including Ali Abdollahi as chief of the Armed Forces General Staff, Ahmad Vahidi as commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Ali Azmaei as IRGC Navy commander. Abdollahi was also instructed to complete the merger of the General Staff with Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters.

The sequence of Khamenei’s reported meetings is revealing. Those announced in May with President Masoud Pezeshkian and Abdollahi, then head of Khatam al-Anbiya, and another with Pezeshkian announced in August, served chiefly to reassure Iranians that the new leader was alive and exercising his duties. October’s meetings appear to have constituted a systematic round of consultations reaching from constitutional institutions to the armed forces.

At his first reported meeting with the military leadership he had reconstituted, announced on October 31, Abdollahi, army commander Amir Hatami and Vahidi reportedly briefed Khamenei on military readiness in the Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Sea of Oman.

Iran thus appears to be moving from reconstruction to operation: activating a decision-making system rather than merely establishing the leader’s presence.

These consultations unfolded alongside intensive mediation, with each stage of internal consultation following an external diplomatic development.

On October 20, Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, carried a Qatari-Pakistani compromise proposal to Tehran. According to Arab media reports, it envisaged unannounced inspections of nuclear facilities in exchange for Iran receiving the interest on its frozen funds in Qatar. Khamenei’s meeting with Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s chief negotiator, was announced the following day.

On October 26, Munir returned with Saudi Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman Al Saud and Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin. Their discussions produced an understanding that regional security was the responsibility of the region’s own states. Rezaei also announced that Tehran had sent Washington a proposal concerning the Strait of Hormuz with a seven-day deadline. Khamenei’s meeting with Rezaei, who had received a letter from US Vice President JD Vance, was announced the next day.

On October 30, Qatari mediators held 12 hours of talks in Tehran, coordinated with the White House, after US envoy Tom Barrack suggested an initial understanding was close. Khamenei’s meeting with military commanders was announced the following day.

This timing suggests that internal consultation has become the other side of external mediation.

The statements from these meetings carry two parallel, not contradictory, messages. In the meeting with Rezaei, Khamenei insisted on Iran’s conditions for ending the war, escaping the debilitating state of “neither war nor peace” and managing the Strait of Hormuz. In his instructions to the commanders, he demanded immediate retaliation against any threat without geographical limits, an expanded list of US and Israeli targets, and emphasised that Iran would decide when any renewed confrontation ended.

Repeated appeals for unity suggest an awareness of competing views within the political elite over war and negotiations.

Yet the meetings appear to have defined the upper and lower limits of Iran’s choices, rather than settled on a particular course: at one end, rejecting an intolerable continuation of “neither war nor peace”; at the other, preparing to widen the war if attacks resume. Between these limits lie a settlement on Iranian terms, pursued through Ghalibaf, Rezaei and the mediators, or continued mutual pressure while strengthening the domestic front.

The gap remains wide. Washington wants nuclear concessions before negotiations resume; Tehran first wants the naval blockade lifted, frozen assets released and oil exports restored.

Significantly, Khamenei spoke of conditions “set by the country’s officials”, not by himself. The wording distributes responsibility among institutions and preserves room for him to embrace or disown an eventual outcome.

The comparison with 2015

There are echoes here of the lengthy consultations before the nuclear agreement of July 14, 2015.

A secret channel in Muscat opened with Ali Khamenei’s approval. On September 17, 2013, he spoke to IRGC commanders of “heroic flexibility”, reassuring the military before negotiations. In June 2015, he set out his red lines, and in October he issued a letter of conditional approval. Responsibility for the nuclear file passed from the Supreme National Security Council to the Foreign Ministry under Mohammad Javad Zarif, a sign that the political decision had been made.

The resemblance is clear: a supreme leader establishes red lines, delegates negotiations to trusted figures and brings the military into the process before a major shift.

The differences are deeper. The earlier process lasted around two years under sanctions, not war. Today’s consultations were compressed into 11 days amid armed confrontation, a naval blockade and the approaching November 3 US midterm elections.

Ali Khamenei spoke in his own voice; his son speaks through written statements. Diplomats led the earlier negotiations; now two figures with IRGC backgrounds, Ghalibaf and Rezaei, play central roles. Where the earlier backchannel ran through Oman, today mediation involves Qatar and the countries of the Mecca Agreement, signed on August 7.

Above all, “heroic flexibility” was presented to commanders as preparation for an agreement. Today, conditions for a settlement sit alongside an expanded list of military targets.

The deficit of trust has also deepened. If the legacy of 1979 shaped Washington’s view of Tehran, and the US withdrawal from the nuclear agreement in 2018 shaped Tehran’s view of Washington, the wars of June 2025 and February 2026 have added a layer of mistrust that no technical agreement can easily overcome.

The consultations thus resemble those of 2013 in form but not function. Then, they prepared the ground for negotiations; now, they prepare for a choice between negotiation and escalation.

The seven reported meetings suggest that the new Khameneism may be more than an attempt to fill a leadership vacuum. Its decision-making machinery appears to be in place and functioning, even though the supreme leader’s presence can be established only through others.

Yet every announcement intended to dispel doubts produces more of them, without photographs or details of exactly when and where the meetings took place. The legitimacy of decisions remains partly dependent on the legitimacy of the leader’s presence.

Can this system, with its new commanders and parallel messages of compromise and deterrence, make a decision as consequential as the one taken in 2015, when war has raised the political cost of flexibility beyond what a leader who has yet to appear publicly may be able to bear?

The father saw and was seen; the son makes his presence felt through endorsements and influence from behind protective barriers.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.