Two weeks after the U.S. and Iran signed a tentative peace deal ending a 13-day air war, Iran let a Times reporter into the country for the first time in months — to witness the stage-managed, multi-day funeral of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, killed by the U.S. and Israel in the war's opening days. Abdi Latif Dahir describes minders who filed nightly reports on his movements, millions of mourners bussed in from across the country, and one word dominating every banner, shirt and flag: intiqam, revenge. A weeping woman named Fereshteh Sultan Ali told him she wanted no negotiations, only vengeance — and that Trump could not scare Iranians with death.
The crowds' fury turned on their own government. President Pezeshkian was nearly knocked to the ground by mourners chanting against 'the compromiser'; foreign minister Araghchi had stones thrown at him and fled. Then, as the funeral closed, someone struck three ships in the Strait of Hormuz — an attack Iran conspicuously never claimed. Farnaz Fasihi's sources say it surprised Iran's own president and foreign minister: rogue hardline elements in the Revolutionary Guards, apparently acting without central command to drag the country back to war.
Fasihi maps the real fight, which is now inside the conservative camp itself: ultra-hardliners around Saeed Jalili — perhaps 10 to 20 percent of the country, but the theocracy's loyal base — against the pragmatists in the senior leadership and Revolutionary Guards who want sanctions lifted and the country rebuilt. Hovering over both is the new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei: in hiding for fear of assassination, reportedly burned and unable to speak after the strike that killed his father, and lacking the religious and political clout to end the infighting. Both factions claim him; lawmakers have even accused the government of staging a coup to bypass him. Meanwhile a silent majority — squeezed by 400 percent inflation on basic groceries — signs petitions demanding the pro-war politicians be sent south to live under the bombardments they advocate. By episode's end, the U.S. had resumed strikes, and the fragile peace was crumbling.
“Trump cannot scare us with death.” Fereshteh Sultan Ali · at 5:15 —
“It seems like Iran's government and leadership is at war with itself.” Farnaz Fasihi · at 11:55 —
Dahir is a New York Times correspondent who became the first Times reporter allowed into Iran in months, reporting from Ayatollah Khamenei's funeral in Tehran. Fasihi is a Times reporter and longtime expert on the internal workings of Iran's government.
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