As war with US escalates, hardliners accuse top leadership of plotting ‘coup’ against Khamenei | Today’s news

Iran is said to be fighting a two-pronged battle: One is on the front lines with the United States as a fragile truce signed last month has collapsed; and another is an internal battle, as hardliners now warn of a “coup”.

Iran’s top leadership, including President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, has faced growing opposition as it negotiated a cease-fire with the US, with many Iranians accusing Araghchi of being a “treasonous sellout”.

CNN reported Friday that when Iranians gathered earlier this month to bury their slain former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, some of the black-clad mourners surrounding the country’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, who walked beside Khamenei’s coffin, chanted “death to the compromiser” directly at him.

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Hard-liners believe that top officials did not avenge Khamenei’s death

At the same time, Araghchi was forced to flee the funeral after the mob pelted him with stones amid chants of death.

Reports suggest that the hostile actions against top Iranian officials during the funeral underscore a belief that has been gaining ground among Tehran’s hardline factions in recent months. In this view, the leaders who negotiated and signed the deal with Washington are carrying out a gradual political takeover that threatens the Islamic Republic and its revolutionary principles, while the country’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has remained largely out of the public eye because of security concerns or, some say, because he is incompetent.

Several hardliners who attended Khamenei’s funeral believed that instead of avenging the killing of Khamenei, who died on the first day of airstrikes launched by the US and Israel in late February, Iranian officials had caved in by signing an interim agreement with Washington that largely defines the orders of his son, Mojtaba Khamenei. While Mojtaba has remained hidden from public view and did not even attend his father’s funeral, officials are negotiating with Washington or governing the country on his behalf.

The faction also accused Tehran’s leadership, including those who rule and represent the country in Mojtaba Khamenei’s absence, of planning to consolidate power by suspending parliament, disobeying his orders to negotiate and trying to disperse street rallies.

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Top Iranian officials plotting coup against Mojtab?

Days before Khamenei was laid to rest at the shrine of Imam Reza in the city of Mashhad, Mahmoud Nabavian, an outspoken radical lawmaker, asked in a post on X: “Warning to the people of Iran: Is a coup on the way?” A few days later, he wrote: “In these moments of farewell to the martyred Imam (Khamenei), we raise the banner of revenge for his blood and stand firmly against the coup.”

In the absence of Mojtaba Khamenei, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Pezeshkian and Araghchi have now become the most visible faces in charge of post-war Iran. Arash Azizi, an American expert on Iran and author of the book “What Iranians Want,” told CNN that hardliners, unhappy with the performance of these leaders, accused them of plotting a coup against the supreme leader.

Azizi noted: “Mojtab’s continued absence means they have no access to him, and also that Ghalibaf and allies are effectively in charge of the country…the ultra-hardliners have been accused by Ghalibaf and Pezeshkian of planning a ‘coup’ against Mojtab.”

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However, Khamenei’s long absence from public view, his cautious support for a ceasefire, the growing influence of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the large crowds at his father’s funeral have strengthened hardliners who now advocate a more aggressive approach and call for continued conflict with the US and Israel. The hardliners seem to be getting what they wanted, as the ceasefire between the two sides has collapsed and hostilities have resumed, with both sides trading strikes.