Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf

Speaker of Iran's Parliament and the country's third-ranking constitutional figure, Ghalibaf is a career IRGC officer who commanded the air force and national police before serving twelve years as Tehran's mayor. He has run for president five times since 2005 without success, most recently in 2024 when he lost to the reformist Pezeshkian. His power base is the principlist faction and IRGC institutional networks.

Ghalibaf emerged as the dominant power broker in wartime Iran, threatening irreversible destruction of Gulf Energy infrastructure, tying Strait of Hormuz access to power grid survival, and being identified as the Iranian interlocutor with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner while publicly denying any negotiations. He then led Iran's delegation at the first formal US-Iran negotiating session since 1979, held in proximity format at the Serena Hotel in Islamabad in April 2026. He publicly listed three Ceasefire violations before those talks opened: Israel's continued strikes on Lebanon, a drone incursion into Iranian airspace, and the US refusal to accept Iran's enrichment rights.

After Ali Khamenei's death, Ghalibaf publicly defied President Pezeshkian's halt order on Gulf strikes, attributing them to the late Supreme Leader's direct orders. He has threatened the UAE with infrastructure strikes over Kharg Island attacks. The Parliament speaker functions simultaneously as Iran's hardline public voice and its chief diplomat: a combination that gives Tehran deniability on both tracks.