C14 exclusively revealed this evening (Thursday) that a deeper power struggle may be unfolding behind Iran’s increasingly aggressive posture, raising a fundamental question: Who is actually running the country? According to information obtained by C14 from a source close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei may formally sit atop Iran’s power structure, but he is not receiving an accurate picture of conditions inside the country.
1+Information concerning inflation, cash shortages, damage to employment, hunger and mounting anger in the streets is reportedly not reaching Khamenei in its full severity. Contrary to the image of a supreme leader closely overseeing the regime and fully aware of developments throughout the country, Mojtaba is considerably more detached from Iran’s reality than he appears from the outside.
According to C14’s information, the IRGC—and Ahmad Vahidi in particular—are responsible for keeping him that way. Vahidi and his men are reportedly deliberately misleading Khamenei, presenting him with only a partial picture and filtering the information that reaches him. The objective is to preserve maximum freedom of action for the Revolutionary Guards, allowing them to operate, make decisions and escalate without having to seek the supreme leader’s approval at every turn.
1+While senior IRGC figures are acutely aware of the erosion of public support and mounting anger in Iran’s streets, the leadership surrounding Khamenei is becoming increasingly extreme under the aggressive direction being pursued by Vahidi and his men. From that emerges the regime’s dangerous logic: escalate abroad to survive at home.
The objective is to strike Americans and provoke President Donald Trump into responding, transforming Iran’s economic crisis into a national war in an attempt to rally the public around an external enemy. So while Mojtaba Khamenei may occupy the top of Iran’s pyramid, according to C14’s exclusive information, Vahidi and the Revolutionary Guards increasingly control both the regime’s freedom of action and the version of reality its supreme leader is allowed to see—and with it, the direction Iran takes next.