Mojtaba Khamenei signed six military decrees in Tehran on Monday 10 August: Ali Abdollahi as Armed Forces chief of staff, Kioumars Heydari as deputy chief of staff, Ahmad Vahidi as IRGC commander with promotion to major general, Mostafa Izadi as IRGC deputy commander, Ali Ozamaei at the IRGC Navy and Hossein Taeb over the Basij, the Guard's volunteer militia1.
Two of the six alter nothing about who gives orders. Ozamaei, whose name Iranian media also renders Azmaei, has run the IRGC Navy since early July, when he surfaced in the post through a public message issued during Ali Khamenei's funeral proceedings with no decree behind it. He took over from Alireza Tangsiri, killed in the March strike on Bandar Abbas. Vahidi has commanded the Guard throughout the war. Monday supplied the written orders those posts normally require.
A decree is how an outside government identifies who holds Iranian command authority, and for months there were none to read. The IRGC Navy patrols The Persian Gulf and enforces whatever Tehran decides about passage through it, so putting a signature next to its commander tells foreign planners which name attaches to that campaign. It does not tell them the tempo will change.
The Basij appointment points the other way, inward. That militia handles domestic unrest rather than shipping, and Iran has spent the summer rationing fuel and cutting power. Six decrees in a day cover both fronts the leadership is managing, the one at sea and the one at home.
