The funeral of a Supreme Leader is supposed to be a moment of absolute, state-orchestrated unity. But when Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s coffin moved through the streets of Tehran, the script flipped completely.
President Masoud Pezeshkian didn't hear traditional mourning chants. He heard "death to the compromiser" shouted directly at his face. Nearby, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was pelted with rocks and forced to flee after angry crowds branded him a "traitorous sellout".
This isn't just a minor disagreement over foreign policy. An intense domestic power struggle is tearing through Iran's political core. With the recent US-Iran diplomatic efforts and a highly fragile ceasefire hanging by a thread, Iran's ultra-hardline factions are turning their fury inward. They are openly accusing their own visible government of staging a "soft coup" against the Islamic Republic’s revolutionary values.
To understand how the regime arrived at this internal breaking point, you have to look at what happened behind closed doors after Ali Khamenei was killed in U.S.-Israeli airstrikes.
The Invisible Supreme Leader and the Soft Coup Theory
Following the death of Ali Khamenei, his son Mojtaba Khamenei succeeded him as the new Supreme Leader. But Mojtaba has remained almost entirely out of public view due to intense security concerns. He isn't addressing the nation, and he isn't visible on the streets.
This vacuum created a massive political opening. In Mojtaba’s absence, the visible leadership—President Pezeshkian, Foreign Minister Araghchi, and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf—took the reins to navigate the war and negotiate a preliminary memorandum of understanding with the Trump administration. They managed to secure limited sanctions relief and a temporary ceasefire to give the country an economic reprieve.
But ultra-hardliners see this diplomacy as flat-out treason.
Because radical factions lack direct access to Mojtaba Khamenei, they’ve convinced themselves that Pezeshkian and Ghalibaf are running a shadow government. Outspoken conservative lawmaker Mahmoud Nabavian openly stoked these fires on social media, warning the public by asking if a political coup was underway. Hardline Member of Parliament Kamran Ghazanfari explicitly accused senior officials of trying to elevate the role of the Supreme Council for National Security while deliberately diminishing the power of the Supreme Leader and parliament.
Basically, the hardliners believe the government surrendered to Washington instead of avenging the elder Khamenei's death.
The Real Beneficiaries of Eternal War
It's easy to look at this fury as purely ideological, but there's a massive financial undercurrent that most casual observers miss. Decades of Western sanctions didn't just ruin Iran's mainstream economy; they created a highly lucrative black market.
A specific class of individuals and entities, often deeply embedded within the financial networks of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has grown incredibly wealthy by managing the covert channels used to circumvent U.S. sanctions. They take massive commissions on smuggling oil, moving illicit funds, and importing restricted goods.
If an agreement with the U.S. actually goes through, Iran gets to sell its oil openly on the international market again. The black market dries up, and those highly profitable smuggling commissions evaporate overnight. For these elements, permanent war isn't just a religious obligation—it's an incredibly profitable business model.
Sidelining the Radicals
The visible government isn't just taking these hits lying down. They know that to keep the state from collapsing under the weight of economic ruin and endless bombardment, they have to push back against the loudest voices in the room.
We are already seeing a quiet, deliberate purging of radical elements from key positions of power. Mahmoud Nabavian and another hardline lawmaker who fiercely opposed the U.S. agreement were recently stripped of their seats on parliament’s National Security Commission. This was a calculated move orchestrated by Speaker Ghalibaf to marginalize the extremists and clear a path for state-level decision-making.
But this strategy carries immense risk. The regime relies on these very same ultra-hardliners to do their dirty work domestically. These are the religious zealots, the street thugs, and the radicalized youth who are entirely willing to crack down on internal protests and dissent to keep the clerical establishment in power. By alienating them over a diplomatic deal with the West, the leadership is poisoning the very well of support that ensures its survival.
The Reality of the Front Lines
While hardline figures like Qom Seminary Chancellor Alireza Arafi call for total war and the complete abandonment of negotiations, ordinary Iranians are suffering the consequences. The fragile truce has already fractured, with IRGC-affiliated attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz triggering severe retaliatory U.S. airstrikes across Iran's southern provinces.
Bridges, ports, and power grids are being hit. In the middle of summer, regular citizens are facing massive electricity blackouts and critical water shortages.
This has triggered a secondary wave of internal anger, this time from moderate voices and former officials who are tired of the radical rhetoric. Former National Security Committee chairman Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh publicly hammered the hardline factions, pointing out that these are the exact same people who blocked viable agreements in 2021 and 2022 under the false promise of getting a better deal. Instead of a better deal, their stubbornness brought two devastating military conflicts to Iran’s doorstep.
There is a growing, bitter demand from communities bearing the brunt of the American strikes for these safe-distance patriots to leave their comfortable podiums in Tehran and actually go fight on the front lines themselves.
The Islamic Republic finds itself caught in an impossible vice. Mojtaba Khamenei has conditionally permitted diplomacy, yet his state TV statements still stoke the fires of revenge to appease his core base. The government needs an economic lifeline, but the radical foot soldiers required to keep the regime alive hate the very compromise required to get it. If the leadership moves forward with Washington, they risk an internal rebellion from their most dangerous loyalists. If they yield to the streets, they face total economic and military ruin. The chants of "death to the compromiser" aren't just empty noise; they are a warning that Iran's most volatile conflict might soon be fought within its own borders.
