Trump claims Iran’s regime is fractured. The reality is more complicated.
By Mostafa Salem, CNN
(CNN) — “Seriously fractured” is how President Donald Trump described the Iranian government when he extended a ceasefire to give it time to come up with a “unified” proposal. Iran’s failure to show up in Pakistan for a second round of talks with Vice President JD Vance showed just how disjointed the leadership had become, the White House argued.
Observers of Iran see things differently. Iran has insisted that the United States must end its blockade of Iranian ports before talks can resume, and many analysts say the leadership is more cohesive than is being portrayed.
“I think that’s a serious misreading of the Iranian leadership,” Mehrat Kamrava, a professor of government at Georgetown University Qatar, told CNN’s Becky Anderson. “The leadership has been quite cohesive, and we’ve seen this in the conduct of the war and the negotiation.”
Governance in Iran has become far more complicated since the United States and Israel eliminated most of the regime’s top military and political leaders, including Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. A group of once-competing officials from across the Islamic Republic’s political spectrum is now deciding the country’s future under the threat of an existential war, and amid the conspicuous absence of the ultimate decision-maker, Mojtaba Khamenei, who succeeded his late father as the new supreme leader.
These officials are also forced to balance their vision for the future of Iran with domestic pressure from hard-line groups refusing to declare defeat and external pressure from Trump’s push to declare victory.
Yet despite their political differences, this group of officials appears determined to publicly project cohesion, even if they diverge on how to navigate the war and conduct diplomacy with the US, according to experts.
“Different factions of Iranian leadership are more aligned now than before the war,” Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told CNN. “Because this is a much smaller circle … this circle is more united about the strategy they use in the war” compared to previous restrictions under Ali Khamenei.
Demonstrating unity
Amid feverish speculation over whether Iran would attend talks this week, Tehran maintained a consistent public stance that its negotiators would not participate. It accused Washington of violating the ceasefire and lacking “seriousness in pursuing a diplomatic solution.”
Even before the war, the Islamic Republic under Ali Khamenei maintained a clear list of “red lines” — including the right to enrich uranium, continued missile development and supporting its proxy groups — demands it has carried into the current negotiations with the Trump administration.
Iran’s political leadership has been at pains to dispel reports of infighting and to project a unified approach to the country’s military objectives and negotiating strategy.
“Talk of divisions among senior officials is a tired political and propaganda ploy by Iran’s adversaries,” Mehdi Tabatabai, the Iranian president’s deputy spokesman, wrote Wednesday on X. “Unity and consensus between the battlefield, the public, and diplomats at this time have been exceptional and noteworthy.”
The regime has elevated one official to embody that unity. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the country’s long-serving parliament speaker and former Revolutionary Guard commander, has led the first round of negotiations with the US in Islamabad and is now viewed as one of the main figures representing the Islamic Republic.
Yet, even when Ghalibaf landed in Islamabad for the first round of talks, he was accompanied by an unprecedented team of Iranian officials representing a diverse political spectrum in what appeared to be a deliberate attempt to showcase cohesion.
“Are there differences? Of course there are,” Parsi said. But to assess that the reason both sides can’t strike a deal is not because of Trump’s conflicting messaging but rather due to Iranian fractured leadership is “detached from reality,” he said.
Over the weekend, the US and Iran appeared to be closing in on a deal to end the seven-week war, CNN reported. Trump then began posting about ongoing talks on social media and speaking to several reporters by phone Friday morning as Pakistani intermediaries updated him on ongoing talks with Iranian officials in Tehran.
Some Trump officials privately acknowledged to CNN that the president’s public commentary has been detrimental to talks, noting the sensitivity of the negotiations and the Iranians’ deep mistrust of the US.
Wartime structures
Facing the threat of annihilation, Iran’s regime has dismantled its traditional system of rival power centers that competed for almost five decades. A new wartime structure has instead consolidated negotiators and political operators under a single military umbrella, aimed at guiding the Islamic Republic out of the crisis without admitting defeat.
On the streets, large crowds representing the country’s hard-line factions have rallied daily in support of the regime and against any agreement with Washington that would place Iran in a position of defeat.
These hard-line views dominate parliament and state media, where any perceived willingness by Iranian officials to let Trump declare victory draws fierce criticism. When Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi noted that the Strait of Hormuz was open for commercial shipping last week, he was sharply attacked by regime hard-liners, forcing other officials to issue swift clarifications.
This wartime structure differs sharply from the way the Islamic Republic was governed for 37 years under Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
His son, Mojtaba, has been appointed to lead the country but remains in hiding. Reports suggest he has been injured or severely incapacitated, adding to uncertainty over whether he is giving his subordinates clear directions — or if they’re simply having to guess what he wants without specific instruction.
“The system is now operating in a different manner. In the past we had institutions … that were supposed to discuss strategic matters and present the supreme leader with advisory notes for him to make the final decision,” said Hamidreza Azizi, a visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
“Access to the supreme leader cannot be as regular as it should be,” he said. “That automatically means other officials have more room to maneuver in deciding the steps that have to be taken on war and peace.”
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
