Reports that US policymakers are considering Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, as a potential diplomatic partner point to a familiar problem in Washington: the persistent search for the “right” insider within the Islamic Republic.

This instinct is not new. It has surfaced in different forms across administrations, each time grounded in the belief that Iran’s trajectory can be influenced through the selection of a more pragmatic or manageable insider. This logic has often been paired with a broader tendency toward accommodation, the hope that engagement with perceived moderates might gradually alter the regime’s behavior. Yet experience suggests otherwise. Policies built on this assumption have not produced meaningful structural change and have frequently reinforced the system they were meant to soften.

But this approach rests on a misunderstanding of how power actually operates in Iran.

Ghalibaf is not an outlier........

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