TEHRAN — President Trump extended a 54-day ceasefire with Iran on Tuesday, calling it an opportunity for what he described as a “seriously fractured” Iranian leadership to present a unified proposal to end the war. But Iranian officials and independent analysts say the government in Tehran, while not openly split, is functioning with unusual opacity and growing hardline control.
The ceasefire, first announced in early March, has largely halted direct military exchanges between the United States and Iran. But a US naval blockade of Iranian ports remains in place, cutting off an estimated 90 percent of the country’s seaborne trade. Iran has called the blockade an act of war and refuses to enter negotiations unless it is lifted.
“We will not negotiate under the shadow of threats,” Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Amir-Saeid Iravani, said in a video statement on Wednesday.
Who Is in Charge in Tehran
The question of leadership in Iran has become more complicated since early March, when the former supreme leader was killed in an Israeli strike. His successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, was installed on March 8. He has not appeared in public since taking office, and some reports suggest he was wounded in the same attack. Officials say he participates in key meetings by audio conference.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, or IRGC, has tightened its control around the new supreme leader, according to analysts who follow the Iranian government. The corps has limited access to him and has blocked some appointments proposed by President Masoud Pezeshkian, who has been largely sidelined.
Day-to-day negotiations with the United States are being handled not by the president but by the parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a former IRGC commander.
‘Fractured’ or Not?
Mr. Trump has repeatedly described Iran’s leadership as “seriously fractured,” suggesting that American diplomats are now dealing with a new set of decision-makers. But interviews with regional analysts and a review of Iranian state media show little evidence of an open split within the government.
“There is no fracture in the sense of competing factions publicly breaking with one another,” said one analyst who follows Iranian politics closely. “What exists is a paralysis at the top because the supreme leader is wounded and largely invisible, and the IRGC is running the show from behind the scenes.”
That arrangement has made it difficult for Iran to produce the kind of unified negotiating position that Mr. Trump has demanded. The ceasefire extension, announced by the White House on Tuesday, gives Iran additional time to present a proposal. But with the blockade still in place, Iranian officials have shown little willingness to come to the table.
Regional Context
The phrase Israel Attacks Iran has become a shorthand for a wider shadow war that includes Israeli strikes on Iranian targets in Syria and Lebanon, as well as ongoing violence in the West Bank. Neither Israel nor Iran publicly claims responsibility for many of the strikes, but the pattern of escalation has continued even during the ceasefire.
For now, the ceasefire holds, but only narrowly. The blockade remains. The leadership in Tehran is hard to read. And the diplomacy that Mr. Trump says is possible has yet to begin.
