How Iran’s Hard-Liners Prevailed and Sabotaged U.S. Peace Deal
How Iran’s Hard-Liners Prevailed and Sabotaged U.S. Peace Deal
Opponents derailed the agreement with a clandestine effort to attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz, regime insiders say. Iran’s president was furious when he found out.
Masoud Pezeshkian, the president of Iran, was riding high in early July, fresh off the successful negotiation of a peace agreement with the United States, and had traveled to neighboring Iraq for part of a weeklong funeral spectacle for Iran’s slain supreme leader.
Suddenly he got stunning news.
Iranian forces had opened fire on three commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, setting ablaze a Qatari L.N.G. tanker and damaging other vessels. Iran was under siege in world opinion.
Outraged, Mr. Pezeshkian phoned Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, the commander in chief of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, and in a raised voice called the actions reckless and demanded answers, according to five Iranian officials and two Guards members familiar with the events.
General Vahidi told the president that he had neither authorized nor had advance knowledge of the strike, the five officials said. The nation’s Supreme National Security Council, which plays a critical role in both the war and negotiations, had also been in the dark, he said.
In fact, much of the country’s leadership was unaware that a fringe hard-line faction had decided to act on its own. Ultimately, those clandestine efforts derailed a push by more moderate pragmatists in Iran to reach an end to hostilities with the United States and repair their nation’s ailing economy.
The hard-liners succeeded in part because the only figure with the authority to resolve such disputes — the new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei — has been a phantom since taking office in March. He has not been seen, and his voice has not been heard. And the authenticity of written statements and messages attributed to Ayatollah Khamenei has been questioned, including by Mr. Pezeshkian, according to three Iranian officials.
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