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Khamenei's Team of Rivals: Iranian Decision-Making, June-July 2014
(American Enterprise Institute) Frederick W. Kagan - The recent crisis in Iraq and the nuclear negotiations in Geneva have opened a fascinating window into the efforts of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to bring rival groups within his government together behind a single set of policies. He appears to have been remarkably successful in mediating tensions between President Hassan Rouhani and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps senior leaders. Much of the hopefulness about the negotiations has stemmed from the assessment that Rouhani is a determined reformer willing to buck the pressures of the "hard-liners," the IRGC and the clergy. But IRGC and clerical criticism of Rouhani has died away. Indeed, Rouhani's interactions with the Supreme Leader and with the IRGC do not show a factionalized government riven by power-struggles.