A fierce political feud is tearing through Iran’s ruling elite, exposing deep fractures within a regime long defined by unity in repression and control.
Analysts in Tehran are calling it a “war of wolves” — a brutal contest for survival among insiders as Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s grip weakens and his eventual succession looms ever closer.
The turmoil reached a public crescendo this week when Ali Larijani, a former parliament speaker and one of Khamenei’s most trusted lieutenants, issued a rare public appeal for restraint.
Writing on X, the social media platform banned for ordinary Iranians but routinely used by officials, Larijani warned that senior figures “still fail to grasp the sensitivity and gravity of the current situation,” urging them to “move beyond differences and strengthen national unity.”
For many Iranians, that call rang hollow. Citizens mocked the appeal, noting that the Islamic Republic has lived in “sensitive circumstances” since 1979, yet has never tolerated dissent or accountability.
Behind the public bickering lies a deeper, more dangerous struggle: the competition for wealth and influence in a crumbling, corrupt system.
Since the devastating Israeli air campaign in June 2025, which destroyed key elements of Iran’s nuclear and air defense infrastructure, Khamenei has largely vanished from public view.
His frail appearance and absence from major state functions have left Iran’s elite guessing who actually runs the country.
Former President Hassan Rouhani reignited tensions in July by criticizing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for wasting national resources on “inefficient” military programs.
The IRGC struck back, accusing Rouhani of cutting defense budgets and undermining national security during his presidency.
Rouhani went further, warning that Russia’s alliance with Tehran was “self-serving and unreliable,” a rare challenge to the Kremlin-friendly faction now dominant in Iran.
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a former IRGC commander, lashed out at Rouhani and former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif for their remarks.
By early November, the feud had escalated to open confrontation: parliamentary spokesman Abbas Goudarzi urged the judiciary to prosecute Zarif for “anti-Russian statements” and “disturbing national unity.”
The IRGC-aligned hardliners have crushed Rouhani’s reformist bloc since 2020, seizing control of parliament through tightly managed elections. Yet their dominance has not brought cohesion.
Instead, competing factions within the conservative camp are now fighting over who will control Iran’s political and financial machinery once Khamenei — now 86 and visibly frail — is gone.
At the heart of the struggle lies Iran’s crony capitalist economy, which rewards loyalty over competence and has bred staggering corruption.
Most members of the political elite depend entirely on state contracts, monopolies, and subsidies — systems they built and now cling to for survival. “They have no skills to thrive in a free-market economy,” one Tehran economist said. “Without the regime, they lose everything.”
That fragility was laid bare by the collapse of Bank Ayandeh in October, a scandal that revealed decades of insider theft and mismanagement.
The Central Bank’s decision to absorb the institution rather than prosecute its operators provoked outrage — even among loyal conservatives. Seyyed Yasser Jebraily, a regime insider, admitted on X that “nearly one hundred billion dollars of the nation’s capital has been plundered” since 2018.
For many Iranians, this confirmed what they already believed: that corruption, not foreign sanctions, has impoverished the country.
Decades of cronyism have gutted Iran’s productive economy and concentrated power in the hands of a few families and security networks.
As uncertainty grows over Khamenei’s successor, those networks are turning on each other — looting what remains of the state before the system they built begins to devour itself.
