Since the launch of Operations Midnight Hammer and Epic Fury, Israeli and US strikes have thinned out Tehran’s political, military and security elite with a series of decapitation strikes.

As the Trump administration seeks to explore diplomacy with the remnants of the Iranian regime, a core group of hardened men remain. The new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has been injured and hasn’t appeared in public. Surrounding him are a group of influential Islamic Republic loyalists. They include parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf; the new secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr; military advisor to the Supreme Leader Mohsen Rezaei, and commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Ahmad Vahidi.

The Trump administration is currently weighing up Ghalibaf as a partner and potential leader of Iran. Ghalibaf is the ultimate survivor of Iranian politics. Born in Torqabeh near Khamenei’s hometown of Mashhad, as a young man he signed up to the IRGC during the Iran-Iraq war and allied with a group of commanders such as the late Quds force leader Qassem Soleimani and his successor Esmail Ghaani. He also frequently met then-president Ali Khamenei, during Khamenei’s visits to the battlefield.

Ghalibaf’s rise coincided with Khamenei’s appointment as supreme leader in 1989. He was first appointed deputy commander of the Basij, then commander of the IRGC’s economic conglomerate the Khatam Al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters, then commander of the IRGC’s air force. Ghalibaf has always been something of a hardliner. As head of the air force, he signed a letter threatening then-president Mohammad Khatami with consequences if he didn’t decisively quash the 1999 student........

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