Iran International
Iran has established a new Defense Council under the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), aiming to centralize military decision-making and prepare for crises ranging from war to potential leadership transition.
According to the SNSC Secretariat’s August 3 announcement, the council’s core responsibility is to enable swift, centralized defense decisions in wartime or national emergencies.
While it functions under Article 176 of Iran’s constitution alongside other SNSC sub-bodies—analysts say its timing and composition signal deeper institutional concerns.
Why now?
The move comes amid heightened tensions with Israel and the United States, and growing doubts over Iran’s ability to respond quickly in moments of crisis.
Abdulrasool Divsalar of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research said on X that Iran’s delayed response to Israel’s June attacks exposed “a crisis in the strategic military decision-making structure.”
Without secure digital infrastructure, he said, assembling the full SNSC during wartime could be dangerously slow and vulnerable to decapitation strikes.
The new council, by concentrating authority in a smaller group of key officials, is designed to reduce those risks.
MP Mohammad-Esmaeil Kowsari told Jamaran the Defense Council avoids the SNSC’s sluggish consensus model, replacing it with a “smaller, more focused group—allowing for faster and more effective decision-making.”
Lawmaker Mohammad Seraj added that in wartime, “any decision made by the Defense Council is equivalent to one made by the SNSC.”
Function and composition
The council will be chaired by the President and include the heads of the Judiciary and Parliament, two SNSC representatives appointed by the Supreme Leader, the Intelligence Minister, and the Chief of the General Staff.
A key difference from the SNSC is the Defense Council’s permanent inclusion of the top commanders of the Army, the IRGC, and the Khatam-al-Anbia Central Headquarters, which oversees joint military operations.
Though officially a sub-body, some observers see the council as more than a bureaucratic fix.
Writing in Ham Mihan, journalist Ahmad Zeidabadi called it “a move to re-centralize fragmented political authority amid a time of crisis,” alluding to doubts over what might happen if Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei becomes incapacitated.
In that case, the President—who chairs both the SNSC and Defense Council—would be the highest-ranking official in the country.
Institutional context
While the SNSC has long held final authority over Iran’s national security matters, its broad membership—spanning political, military, and economic leaders—makes it unwieldy in urgent situations.
Several lesser-known sub-councils already function under its umbrella, including the Passive Defense Council for critical infrastructure, the Intelligence Coordination Council made up of agency chiefs, and the National Security Council chaired by the Interior Minister.
The Defense Council is distinct in its mandate and composition: focused exclusively on defense, it aims to function as a standing wartime command center. Like the SNSC, its decisions require final approval from the Supreme Leader.
His comeback underscores not only his enduring relevance in Iran’s power circles but also a career defined by strategic shifts, navigating factions and consistent loyalty to the country’s ultimate authority Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
For much of his career, Larijani was known as a staunch conservative.
He vocally opposed reformist President Mohammad Khatami and the broader reform movement, using his position as head of the state broadcaster IRIB to discredit Iranian intellectuals.
The program Hoviat ("Identity") targeted cultural figures like poet Ali Akbar Saeedi Sirjani, some of whom were later victims of the Intelligence Ministry’s multiple targeted murders.
‘Problem solver’
Yet by 2015, Larijani emerged as a key supporter of the Iran nuclear deal, helping secure its approval in parliament in under 20 minutes despite conservative opposition. The move aligned him with then-president Hassan Rouhani and marked a dramatic pivot from his earlier hardline stance.
Khamenei publicly praised Larijani at the time as a "problem-solver," though his growing closeness to Rouhani reportedly raised eyebrows in the Supreme Leader’s inner circle.
Throughout these shifts, Larijani remained attuned to the political winds.
His alliances with Presidents Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Khatami cooled as soon as Khamenei distanced himself from them—underscoring a deeper, more consistent alignment with the Supreme Leader over any political faction.
Return to the fold
Despite being sidelined in recent presidential elections—disqualified by the Guardian Council in both 2021 and 2024 allegedly over his daughter studying abroad—Larijani has evidently regained the trust of Iran's theocrat.
Following President Ebrahim Raisi’s death last yer, he was handed two sensitive tasks: overseeing the Iran-China strategic accord and acting as an intermediary with Russia after Israeli strikes on Iranian soil.
While many establishment figures kept a low profile during the crisis, Larijani reemerged as a visible supporter of the Islamic Republic and its top leadership.
An operator without a party
Though courted by moderate conservatives to form a party during Rouhani’s presidency, Larijani resisted. One reason may be his limited popular base.
In parliament, he represented Qom, where a few thousand votes suffice to win a seat—far fewer than the million-plus votes typically needed in Tehran.
Larijani’s political instincts appear rooted more in elite maneuvering than popular mobilization, consistent with his background in a deeply clerical family tied to the seminaries of Qom and Najaf.
The Larijani legacy
Ali Larijani is part of one of Iran’s most influential political dynasties. His father, Hashem, was a respected cleric who steered clear of politics, but his sons embraced the Islamic Republic’s institutions.
Ali's four brothers have held senior roles across Iran’s judicial, legislative and security branches. Ali, the only full-time politician in the family, carved out a career that included 12 years as Speaker of Parliament, top roles in the media and culture ministries and ongoing membership in the Expediency Council.
Educated at the Qom Seminary and Tehran University—where he earned a PhD in Western philosophy—Larijani blends ideological training with technocratic credentials.
He is married to the daughter of Ayatollah Morteza Motahari, a key architect of the Islamic Republic, further cementing his position within Iran’s ruling elite.
A Loyal chameleon
While Larijani now often echoes hardline rhetoric against the United States, he has occasionally voiced cautious support for dialogue.
Deeply skeptical of Europe but pragmatic when necessary, he remains one of the few establishment figures with the credentials and adaptability to help steer Iran toward diplomatic de-escalation, should that path ever open.
Few Iranian politicians have changed stripes as fluidly as Larijani. Yet through all the turns—from hardliner to moderate broker, from sidelined veteran to high-level envoy—his loyalty to Khamenei has never wavered.
In a system where ideological purity is often less important than proximity to the Supreme Leader, Larijani has mastered the art of staying close to the only power that truly matters.
An official from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Tehran confirmed to The Telegraph on Monday that the IRGC has formally asked the Taliban for the list of nearly 25,000 Afghans.
The list, dubbed the “kill list” in British media was leaked in 2022 and contains the full names, emails, and phone numbers of people in Afghanistan who applied for relocation to the United Kingdom following the military withdrawal in 2021.
It includes personal data of Afghan soldiers, government employees, and their families, as well as around 100 British special forces members and intelligence operatives who had endorsed Afghan applicants.
A Taliban official told The Telegraph that since discovering the value of the list, the group has been working to locate and detain those still in Afghanistan, intending to use them as leverage in diplomatic pressure on the UK.
"Taliban leadership in Kandahar has also ordered officers in Kabul to arrest as many individuals as possible from the leaked document to use them as leverage in exerting diplomatic pressure on London," according to the report.
The Telegraph says the IRGC appears to have similar intentions, particularly with renewed nuclear negotiations and the threat of snapback sanctions looming over Iran.
Since the June 25 ceasefire between Iran and Israel, Tehran has accelerated the deportation of Afghan nationals from Iran, citing an inability to continue hosting large numbers of migrants and asylum seekers.
On July 25, senior Iranian diplomats met with counterparts from the UK, France, and Germany in Istanbul to discuss the path forward. They agreed to continue negotiations.
European governments are pressing Iran to resume full cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), including the reinstatement of inspections and other obligations. Following the war with Israel, Iran has moved to further limit cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog.
Under UN Security Council Resolution 2231, any party to the now-lapsed 2015 nuclear agreement—including France, Germany, the UK, Russia, or China—can file a complaint accusing Iran of non-compliance.
If no progress is made on Iran's nuclear dossier by August 30, the so-called snapback mechanism can reinstate UN sanctions removed under the 2015 deal.
“We have made it clear to the United Nations and the Security Council that such a step is a misuse of international mechanisms, and the Islamic Republic will respond decisively,” Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said Sunday.