Iran's new Security Council shake-up reveals growing divisions over US deal
Soon after Iranian negotiators reached a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the United States in late June to end months of hostilities, Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) issued a statement endorsing the agreement.
The statement was signed by Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, a former hardline Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) general who had replaced the slain Ali Larijani, a prominent moderate figure who had supported a deal with Washington and was killed in a US-Israeli strike on 17 March.
In Iran, the SNSC secretary, who is appointed by the president, does not have a vote on the council. However, Zolghadr was also appointed simultaneously as the supreme leader’s representative on the council, a position that gives him voting authority.
Zolghadr’s endorsement caught ultraconservative principlists off guard. Apparently unprepared for his support of the agreement, they subsequently launched repeated verbal attacks against him, including spreading claims that his son lives in Austria.
A few days after the SNSC statement, Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s new supreme leader, issued his own statement, making clear that he was “in principle” opposed to the agreement while emphasising that responsibility for the decision should rest with those who negotiated it.
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The statement effectively threw the negotiators under the bus, empowering ultraconservatives to intensify their attacks on the agreement, the government, the negotiating team and Zolghadr.
According to two sources in the conservative camp, Zolghadr subsequently wrote to Khamenei expressing his dissatisfaction with the supreme leader’s statement. He argued that the details of the agreement had already been presented to Khamenei and offered his resignation.
Khamenei accepted the resignation almost immediately, according to the sources.
The resignation was highly unusual: a senior official was resigning explicitly in protest at a decision by the supreme leader.
Principlists have publicly claimed that Zolghadr was “removed” because he followed President Masoud Pezeshkian’s position and supported the agreement rather than opposing it.
But those claims were contradicted by conversations between Middle East Eye and conservative sources familiar with the episode.
According to the sources, Pezeshkian worked hard to persuade Khamenei not to accept the resignation and sought to keep him as secretary because he was broadly aligned with the government’s approach to reaching a deal with Washington. His efforts, however, failed.
Khamenei subsequently appointed former IRGC commander Mohsen Rezaei as his representative to the SNSC.
This effectively forced Pezeshkian to appoint Rezaei as secretary, despite the president’s initial resistance to signing off on Rezaei’s appointment until the last minute.
A political decision
Speaking about the reasons behind Mojtaba Khamenei’s decision to appoint Rezaei, a principlist source told MEE that the role requires more than institutional authority.
It also demands strong personal qualities, political credibility, public recognition and established connections with the media and wider society, particularly as the SNSC has increasingly become involved in major political and social debates.
The source added that recent US-Israeli assassinations have, among other objectives, sought to eliminate Iran’s strategic decision-makers and weaken the country’s ability to coordinate and make effective decisions.
“Against this backdrop, the appointment of Mohsen Rezaei to the SNSC secretariat is an attempt to fill that void and significantly strengthen and enhance the institution’s effectiveness,” he said.
Meanwhile, a moderate political source told MEE that, beyond technical considerations, Rezaei’s appointment was more of a political decision.
The source said the leader’s choices may have been constrained by the need to appoint someone who would be acceptable, at least to some extent, to Pezeshkian and his administration, rather than a figure such as hardline former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili.
Who is Mohsen Rezaei?
Rezaei, 71, has been involved in the Islamic Republic’s military, security and political establishment for nearly half a century.
After the 1979 revolution, he played a role in establishing the IRGC’s intelligence apparatus and, at the age of 27, became commander of the IRGC. He remained in the position for 16 years, spending virtually the entire Iran-Iraq War at the helm of the Revolutionary Guard.
In the mid-1980s, Rezaei became involved in secret contacts with the United States during the Iran-Contra affair, in which Iran received American weapons while proceeds from the arms sales were diverted to support the Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani once told local media that his nephew, Ali Hashemi, a key intermediary in contacts with the administration of then-US President Ronald Reagan, had informed him and, subsequently, Rezaei about meetings with American officials.
According to Hashemi’s account, Rezaei told him: “Keep going. We need weapons.”
Hashemi also recalled: “I went to see Mr Rezaei... He told me, ‘Just connect your contacts to the people I introduce you to so that the process can continue.’”
He later said that, following the second round of negotiations, Rezaei told him that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was “aware” of the talks.
As the secret contacts continued, Hashemi and two IRGC officials travelled to Washington for clandestine negotiations.
In the 1990s, Rezaei’s eldest son moved to the US, where he sought asylum and later became a critic of the Islamic Republic. He eventually returned to Iran but died years later under suspicious circumstances in a hotel in Dubai.
By the late 1990s, Rezaei was seeking to move beyond his military background and establish a more prominent political and managerial role. He studied economics at the University of Tehran, pursued a doctorate and increasingly focused his work at the Expediency Discernment Council on issues including macroeconomics, national planning and the establishment's broader policy priorities.
Rezaei has repeatedly run for president but never won. In September 2021, the late President Ebrahim Raisi appointed him vice president for economic affairs and secretary of the Supreme Economic Coordination Council of the Heads of the Three Branches of Government.
Rezaei resigned as vice president for economic affairs in June 2023, while Raisi agreed to allow him to retain his position as secretary of the economic coordination council.
A hardline pragmatist
On 6 April, Rezaei said that the US naval blockade was “vulnerable” and amounted to little more than psychological warfare, adding that it would not affect Iran’s negotiating position.
“I do not personally support extending the ceasefire. It should happen only if a final agreement is reached and our rights are secured,” he said.
He also argued that the US had no clear plan to end the war, saying Washington tries one strategy, fails and then moves on to another.
One possibility, he said, was that the US was coming to terms with defeat. Another, he suggested, was that Trump could damage the US's standing so severely that he would ultimately be removed from office.
On 7 July, Rezaei said: “Those opposed to negotiations should wait. The Americans themselves will derail these talks.”
Despite Rezaei’s increasingly hardline public rhetoric, a senior political source familiar with his thinking told MEE that he has personally been more of a pragmatist and has favoured restoring relations with the US and ending the conflict.
The source, however, said that Rezaei’s political calculations and his determination to remain in the power structure have repeatedly led him to “go with the flow” and adapt his positions to changing circumstances.
The source described this as one of the defining characteristics of Rezaei’s political personality.
He added that it would soon become clear whether his harsh rhetoric reflected genuine opposition to negotiations or was simply a political strategy directed at the negotiators because he was not at the centre of power.
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