A faction of hardliners in Tehran exploited the absence of Iran’s elusive supreme leader to launch summer attacks in the Strait of Hormuz, undermining a peace agreement with the United States, according to a new report.
Following the US-Iran agreement on a Memorandum of Understanding in June, Iranian moderates led by President Masoud Pezeshkian believed the cease-fire could pave the way for a permanent end to the conflict.
Those hopes collapsed after Iran attacked three vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. The strikes were reportedly authorized not by Iran’s army, but by newly appointed paramilitary commander Hossein Taeb, The New York Times reported.
Taeb, who oversees the brutal Basij militia responsible for the deadly crackdown on protesters in January, allegedly ordered the July attacks to prevent peace at any cost, convinced that Iran should not compromise with Washington.
“The attack on the ships was orchestrated with the goal to blow up the memorandum of understanding with Trump and to kill the prospects of any future negotiations and deal,” Alireza Namvar Haghighi, an Iranian expert with contacts inside Tehran, told the Times.
Although Taeb commands a force separate from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, he was reportedly able to carry out the orders while Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei remains absent from public view.
Khamenei’s whereabouts remain unknown after he was reportedly seriously injured during the war’s initial strikes. Questions have also mounted over his physical and mental condition, as orders attributed to him have been communicated only through readouts.
Pezeshkian, who has advocated renewed peace talks with the US, previously acknowledged that the man he secretly met last month may not have been Khamenei.
The supreme leader’s prolonged absence has fueled speculation that Taeb and other hardliners, who have long been allied with Khamenei, are using the situation to advance their own agenda while portraying their decisions as commands from the highest level.
When Pezeshkian sought an explanation for who had ordered the July attacks, Iranian military officials repeatedly deflected responsibility or said the instructions had come from the top, sources told the Times.
Notably, the IRGC’s Khatam al-Anbiya headquarters did not issue a statement claiming responsibility for the July 7 strikes, breaking with the military’s usual pattern of publicly celebrating similar attacks.
The episode underscores the deep divisions within Tehran and shows how hardliners have allegedly manipulated events to keep Iran locked in conflict.
Since the July 7 incident, Tehran has regularly fired at ships attempting to cross the Strait of Hormuz, with Iran and its terror proxies and the US and its allies now trading regular attacks in the region.
