In Iran, Pezeshkian will be the scapegoat for the failed MoU | US-Israel War on Iran

In the past few days, the US-Israel conflict over Iran has seen another escalation that threatens to derail the peace talks. US strikes on Iran have killed at least 18 people and injured many more. The future of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which the US and Iran signed as a framework for peace talks, is now in serious doubt.

As anger grows among the authorities, the government’s claims point to one person who has failed: President Masoud Pezeshkian. Blaming the president is not only a threat to the Iranian people but also to hide the divisions among the ruling elite.

The structure of the crime game

A few days after the MoU was signed, Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei provided his first public statement on the deal. In it, he wrote that he had “different views” on the agreement. He allowed this because the President, “as the head of the Supreme National Security Council”, was committed to protecting the rights of the country of Iran and the “Resistance Front” and “accepted their responsibility”.

Importantly, the statement did not name the person with whom it was discussed. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the parliament and head of the negotiating team, is nowhere to be seen, nor is foreign minister Abbas Araghchi. he said Iranian journalists say that “the responsibility for negotiations was given by the ‘nezam’ (system) to Mr. Ghalibaf”.

Therefore, the only leader whose supreme leader is responsible for the most important alliance in the recent history of the Islamic Republic is the one who did not lead.

Eliminating Ghalibaf’s name is not an oversight. It has designs.

In Tehran, the potential benefits and risks of the deal were deliberately separated. If the MoU delivers, victory will be Ghalibaf’s; if it fails, the failure will be blamed on Pezeshkian. This says a lot about where power lies in post-war Iran.

Fractures in Iran’s ruling bloc

The MoU was drawn up by the ruling class of Iran: which I have elsewhere to be invited army-bonyad. The network includes the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and government security forces with revolutionary religious foundations (bonyads) such as the Mostazafan Foundation, Setad and the Imam Reza Shrine Foundation.

Built by the transfer of what appeared to be business in the 2000s and expanded by the financial networks that sanctions made so important, these centers now dominate Iran’s financial sector and operate beyond civilian oversight. Its leaders are directly appointed by the supreme leader while the Guardian Council protects, making laws to protect those in power and suppress those who challenge them.

But the problem is not monolithic. The latest war masked the structural cracks that the MoU has now opened up. On the other hand, there is the technical and economic wing mentioned by Ghalibaf, whose work as the head of the IRGC Khatam al-Anbiya Construction conglomerate, the mayor of Tehran, the speaker of the parliament and the special representative to China, the reputation of the organization is concentrated in one person.

On the other side is the ideological-maximalist wing formed around the Paydari Front, which sees any engagement with the US as a betrayal and Western investment as a threat to the survival of the state.

One of the clearest allocations is going through the $300bn Private Reconstruction and Development Fund, the main financial pillar of the MoU.

For the Ghalibaf camp, the money is important because stability requires economic recovery and attempts to integrate with the world economy rather than permanent isolation. For Paydari, foreign exchange for these reasons is not a return but an entry. His leading speech argues that the fund would give Washington and its regional partners a say in where reconstruction money goes, which he sees as a right to exchange capital.

Ghalibaf’s wing won the internal conflict and moved to achieve unity. Now that the ceasefire and the MoU are failing, it is impossible to answer for its failure. Ghalibaf has always been close to Khamenei’s group and has the IRGC line and the support of Pezeshkian.

A disruptive president

Pezeshkian was considered suitable for the position of President by the ruling party precisely because of what he lacked. Previous leaders brought their burdens to office: Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was a pillar of political reform and security; Mohammad Khatami had a constituency to mobilize people; Hassan Rouhani had political power and a national security legacy. Pezeshkian has none of the three.

He was promoted in 2024 because a straight face can make people agree again after a series of riots without threatening the authorities. His weakness is not an accident of his leadership; It is this sense of superiority that makes him a good signer of other men’s horrors.

The Iranian leadership, in short, has been recast as a regional destabilizer: it is positioned to execute the operation if the deal fails, and to bypass it if it succeeds.

Interestingly, journalists connected to the IRGC and close to Ghalibaf have recently extended Pezeshkian’s limited protection against Paydari’s attacks. This is correction, not mercy. Implementation requires active leadership and a fault-tolerant database. Protection will continue as necessary for the survival of the agreement and will expire when the MoU expires.

This configuration has not been modified. Khamenei is running his father’s playbook. Ali Khamenei has agreed to a series of nuclear talks while publicly insisting that the US cannot be trusted, and maintaining his image and attitude no matter what happens. The son takes the same approach in one arrangement: While the father fences all the time, the son builds the fence of the office he “accepted responsibility”.

Meanwhile, the chaser Pezeshkian is doing his job. By channeling the anger over the defunct MoU into the leadership, it protects the military-bonyad from conflict between its two wings. But this is a delay, not an end. The division between a group whose means of survival depend on economic recovery and whose position depends on perpetual struggle seems systematic, and no scapegoat can take forever. When this is over, the real race for the leadership of the Islamic Republic will be fought within the ruling party itself.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.