Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf — Iran's Parliament speaker, third-ranking political figure, and member of the Interim Leadership Council — publicly contradicted President Pezeshkian's halt order on Saturday evening. The Gulf strikes were not "miscommunication within the ranks," the explanation Pezeshkian offered after the IRGC ignored his ceasefire directive within hours. They followed directives from the late Supreme Leader Khamenei himself. As long as Gulf nations host US bases, Ghalibaf wrote, "the countries will not enjoy peace."
Hardliner lawmakers had already denounced Pezeshkian's apology to Gulf neighbours as "humiliating" and "treason". But Ghalibaf is not a backbencher venting on state media. He sits on the Interim Leadership Council that theoretically inherited The Supreme Leader's military authority after Khamenei's death. Iran has not operated without a functioning Supreme Leader since the Islamic Republic's founding in 1979 — when Khomeini died in June 1989, the Assembly of Experts selected Khamenei within hours. This time, the funeral remains postponed, the Assembly of Experts was struck in the war's early days, and Ghalibaf has invoked the dead leader's standing orders to override the living president. He has reframed the IRGC's defiance not as insubordination but as fidelity to supreme authority — authority that outranks the presidency in Iran's constitutional hierarchy.
The consequence is operational, not theoretical. Egypt, Turkey, and Oman have launched mediation. Iran's foreign minister closed the door on negotiations days ago. The interim council that commands Iran's military is now publicly split on whether to keep fighting. A ceasefire would require agreement from a body that cannot agree, delivered to forces that have already demonstrated they answer to the dead leader's directives rather than the living president's orders. The conflict has shifted from a war between states with identifiable decision-makers to a campaign against a military apparatus whose political command structure has fractured — and no constitutional mechanism exists to repair it before Khamenei is buried.
