Loading ...A TALE OF 2 IRANS
BREAKING:
IRGC Commander Ahmad Vahidi is moving to sideline Ghalibaf and FM Araghchi (Trump’s favorites in Iran)
The people with real power in Iran aren’t the ones heading to Islamabad. The Revolutionary Guards are.
In other words, the same ones in power before the war, remain in power today
………..
The Reckoning
@sethjlevy
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Mujtaba authorized the negotiations.
This is at the heart of the entire Iranian problem.
And I mean that internally to Iran.
In fact, I believe this is why Mujtaba and Ghalibaf concluded that Ali had to go.
He had seeded too much power to the IRGC.
Theoretically they follow the orders of the Supreme Leader.
But, it had evolved to a point where the IRGC had their own funding through the oil revenue and were behaving more and more independently from the SL.
So, for the IRGC this is about preserving the power and wealth they have captured.
They realize the threat to their power posed by these negotiations and the relinquishing of the strait.
MORE IN THE COMMENTS
Iran’s delegation is in Islamabad. Iran’s state media says it is not.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf arrived late Thursday. Al Jadeed News, citing Pakistani media, reported the specific aircraft: an Iranian Air Force RJ85 that departed Tehran with the reported approval of the United States and Israel. Pakistan’s ambassador had posted on April 9 that a 10-member delegation would arrive that evening. He deleted the post hours later. The embassy told AFP the timing was “premature, we were not supposed to send it.”
On the same day, Fars News, Tasnim, and Mehr all reported that claims of an Iranian delegation arriving in Islamabad were “completely false.” Press TV quoted a “well-informed source” saying neither Araghchi nor Ghalibaf had left the country. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Baghaei stated that talks remain “contingent on the US’ adherence to ceasefire commitments on all fronts, especially in Lebanon” and that halting the war there is “an inseparable part” of Pakistan’s proposed framework.
The delegation flew to Islamabad on a military aircraft. The state media said nobody left Tehran. Both statements were issued within hours of each other by the same government.
This is not confusion. This is the negotiation.
Iran has arrived at the table while publicly denying the table exists. The denial is not a boycott. It is a position. By maintaining that no team has departed, Tehran preserves the right to walk out at any moment citing the Lebanon precondition. By being physically present, it ensures it does not lose three days of the fourteen-day clock. Iran is simultaneously inside the room and outside it, committed to nothing, present for everything.
Ghalibaf is a former IRGC commander. Araghchi is the man who told 3.69 million people on X that the US must choose “ceasefire or continued war via Israel.” These are not junior diplomats sent to feel out the room. This is the senior leadership of the Islamic Republic sitting in a hotel that was emptied for them, in a city locked down by 10,000 security personnel, behind a Red Zone sealed by the Pakistani army, while their own media tells the Iranian public they never left home.
The domestic audience sees defiance. The diplomatic audience sees presence. And the gap between the two is the space where the actual negotiation happens, before anyone sits at the formal table, before any agenda is tabled, before Vance’s main delegation even lands.
Every party is negotiating while denying it is negotiating. Every denial is itself a negotiating position. IDF Chief Zamir declared Lebanon the “main battlefield” and said Israel is “in a state of war, not a ceasefire” there. The State Department confirmed it will host separate Israel-Lebanon ceasefire negotiations in Washington next week. Pakistan’s defense minister called Israel a “cancerous state” and deleted it. The mediator, the adversary, the ally, and the host are all performing for different audiences in different languages on the same stage. And the Iranian Air Force RJ85 that officially never left Tehran is parked somewhere in Islamabad tonight, waiting for a meeting that its own government says will not happen, at a hotel that was cleared for guests who do not exist, in a country whose defense minister was forced to delete his opinion of the other side twelve hours ago.
The talks have not started. The negotiation began days ago.
https://x.com/shanaka86/status/2042579791686308227