16APR

Ghalibaf overrules Pezeshkian on strikes

3 min read

14:27UTC

Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf publicly contradicts Pezeshkian's ceasefire order, invoking the late Khamenei's directives — splitting the body meant to exercise supreme authority on whether Iran keeps fighting its neighbours.

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Key takeaway

By attributing the Gulf strikes to Khamenei's pre-death standing directives rather than new decisions, Ghalibaf has constitutionally immunised them from being halted — no Iranian political figure can publicly countermand orders issued by the deceased Supreme Leader.

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.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Iran's government is in a succession crisis: the Supreme Leader, who had ultimate command authority over the military, has died. A temporary council is supposed to share his powers. The elected President told forces to stop attacking Gulf neighbours; they ignored him. Now the Parliament Speaker — a hardliner on that council — is saying the attacks are legitimate because the old Supreme Leader ordered them before he died. This leaves the President with no political ground to stand on: stopping the strikes means overriding a dead Supreme Leader's wishes, which no Iranian official can politically afford. The military is effectively operating outside civilian control.

Deep Analysis

Synthesis

Ghalibaf's invocation of Khamenei's pre-death directives is not merely a political endorsement — it is a constitutional manoeuvre. If the strikes are execution of existing orders rather than new decisions, they fall outside the council's decision-making scope; they can only be stopped by the authority that issued the original orders, which no longer exists. This effectively removes the strikes from the domain of civilian political authority entirely, and it does so using the constitutional framework rather than against it.

Root Causes

The IRGC's chain of command runs directly to the Supreme Leader under Article 110 of the Iranian Constitution, bypassing the presidency entirely. With no successor designated, the IRGC's institutional loyalty is genuinely contested between council members. The IRGC has historically maintained stronger affinity with the hardline clerical establishment than with reformist presidents — Pezeshkian was elected on domestic economic promises and lacks the ideological alignment that generates IRGC institutional loyalty. The structural problem is constitutional design, not individual disobedience.

Escalation

The IRGC's demonstrated willingness to ignore Pezeshkian's direct orders, combined with Ghalibaf's public endorsement of continued strikes, indicates the hardliner faction holds effective operational control of military decision-making — not merely rhetorical dominance. De-escalation is structurally unavailable through the civilian channel regardless of international pressure on Pezeshkian, because he does not control the operational levers.

What could happen next?

Meaning
Iran's interim leadership council is now publicly split on the central wartime operational decision, meaning the body theoretically holding supreme authority cannot exercise it coherently — a condition that will persist until a new Supreme Leader is confirmed.
Immediate · Assessed
Risk
Pezeshkian's diplomatic outreach to Gulf states — including his apology and halt order — is operationally nullified while the IRGC continues strikes, making Iran an unreliable negotiating partner in Gulf eyes regardless of presidential intent or sincerity.
Immediate · Assessed
Consequence
The IRGC's operational independence from civilian constitutional authority, already structurally high, is moving towards de-facto autonomy during the succession vacuum — the institutional precedent set now will outlast this specific conflict.
Long term · Suggested
Risk
External actors seeking a negotiated de-escalation have no reliable Iranian civilian interlocutor: the President cannot commit the IRGC, and the hardliner council members who can influence the IRGC have no incentive to de-escalate while military operations continue to serve their succession-contest interests.
Short term · Assessed

Source Landscape

This story draws on centre-left-leaning sources from Qatar, United States and 1 more

Qatar

United States

Saudi Arabia

The 1979–81 Iranian revolutionary consolidation offers a structural parallel: President Bani-Sadr held formal executive authority while the Islamic Republican Party — aligned with the clerical establishment — progressively stripped him of operational control over the military and security services. By June 1981 he was impeached and fled the country. The pattern was a reformist-leaning president formally commanding institutions whose loyalty ran to the ideological establishment, not the constitutional office.

Pezeshkian's position echoes this structurally: formal authority, eroding operational control.

Why it’s relevant now

The Bani-Sadr precedent suggests Pezeshkian's situation is institutional rather than personal — Iranian constitutional design consistently routes effective power through ideological rather than electoral legitimacy during moments of crisis, making his position structurally precarious regardless of individual capability or intent.

Article 110 of Iran's Constitution assigns exclusive armed forces command authority to The Supreme Leader; the Interim Leadership Council inherits this collectively, but 'collectively' is constitutionally ambiguous on questions requiring a single command decision. Iranian constitutional scholars have noted that any council member can plausibly claim to speak for the collective, particularly when invoking pre-existing directives from the previous office-holder. Ghalibaf's manoeuvre exploits this ambiguity precisely: by framing the strikes as execution of Khamenei's standing orders rather than a new council decision, he sidesteps the unresolved question of whether the council has actually voted to authorise continuation — and forecloses a clean legal mechanism for Pezeshkian to override.

Sources:Al Jazeera·PBS·Arab News

Mentions:Ali Khamenei →Assembly of Experts →Persian Gulf →Oman →Parliament →Interim Leadership Council →Time →Masoud Pezeshkian →Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) →Iran →National Security Council (Iran) →Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf →

First Reported In

Update #28 · Iran and Israel swap refinery strikes

Al Jazeera· 8 Mar 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Pezeshkian apologises; IRGC ignores him

Ghalibaf's public contradiction directly responds to and overrides Pezeshkian's televised halt order to stop attacking neighbouring countries

Occurred 7 Mar 2026

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IRGC fires hours after halt order

IRGC's immediate defiance of Pezeshkian's halt order — which Pezeshkian attributed to 'miscommunication' — preceded and enabled Ghalibaf to reframe the defiance as deliberate policy under Khamenei's directives

Occurred 7 Mar 2026

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Clerics call ceasefire treason

Hardliner lawmaker backlash calling Pezeshkian's order 'humiliating' and 'treason' escalated to senior leadership-level contradiction when Ghalibaf endorsed continued strikes with claimed supreme authority backing

Occurred 6 Mar 2026

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Khamenei funeral postponed indefinitely

Khamenei's unresolved succession and postponed funeral leave the interim leadership council's authority contested — enabling Ghalibaf to claim Khamenei's directives as binding while Pezeshkian claims presidential authority to halt strikes

Occurred 6 Mar 2026

Read story →

This Event

Ghalibaf overrules Pezeshkian on strikes

The public fracture between Pezeshkian and Ghalibaf means the interim body that inherited the Supreme Leader's military authority cannot issue coherent orders. Any ceasefire negotiation requires a counterpart who controls the forces with launch authority — and that counterpart does not exist.

Led to

Pezeshkian swings apology to threats

Ghalibaf's public repudiation of the halt order — attributing strikes to Supreme Leader's directives — undermined Pezeshkian's authority and contributed to his reversal

Occurred 7 Mar 2026

Read story →

Different Perspectives

China

Beijing has not publicly commented on the dual Oreshnik launch. China's declared position of urging restraint and dialogue sits awkwardly alongside its continued economic ties with Russia; the weapons escalation tests whether Beijing's neutrality framing can survive a European IRBM normalisation event.

IAEA

Director General Grossi condemned the ZNPP reactor-6 turbine building strike and stated "there should be no attack of any kind from or against the plant." The agency confirmed normal radiation levels but has not resolved attribution; Rosatom CEO Likachev warned the region is "one step closer to an incident."

Turkey

Ankara hosted Istanbul Round 2 at Ciragan Palace on 2 June and secured a 1,200-for-1,200 prisoner exchange, consolidating Turkey as the war's sole diplomatic venue after Rubio confirmed US mediation has ended. Erdogan's leverage over both parties grows with each round.

European Union

EU Ambassador Mathernova answered Lavrov's evacuation demand with "We stay in Kyiv. We stay with Ukraine." The Verkhovna Rada approved the EUR 90bn EU loan on 28 May; the EUR 9.1bn first tranche, the EU's first explicit defence-procurement financing, arrives mid-June.

United States

Rubio declared US mediation stagnated on 22 May and confirmed no talks were occurring, then received Lavrov's evacuation demand three days later without ordering embassy drawdown. Washington's leverage now runs through the GL 134C sanctions cliff on 17 June rather than any active diplomatic channel.

Ukraine

Zelenskyy called Russia's 2-3 day ceasefire counter-offer at Istanbul Round 2 "shortsighted" and submitted a full peace memorandum covering EU membership, international guarantees, phased sanctions relief and frozen-asset reparations. Kyiv's position is that a partial ceasefire freeze aids Russian reconstitution; only an all-domain 30-day pause is acceptable.