Why have regime factions intensified their fight over the leadership and the presidency?

What he says

An English translation of the talk, which is in Persian. It was made with AI from YouTube's automatic captions and may contain errors; the Persian transcript is authoritative. Click a timestamp to jump to that part of the video.

0:01 Hello. It is Friday, 11 Mehr 1404, October 3, 2025. Two interviews with two IRGC commanders have raised some noteworthy points. The first is General Esmail Qaani, commander of the IRGC's Quds Force, who, in an interview with Islamic Republic television, confirms that Hassan Nasrallah was aware of the planning of the October 7 operation by Hamas. In fact, he implicitly admits that he himself was also aware of it, because he says, "At the time of the operation, I went to Beirut."

0:54 He also says that neither we, meaning Iran, the Islamic Republic and the Quds Force, nor Hezbollah, nor the Hamas leaders, meaning the leaders outside Gaza such as Ismail Haniyeh and others, knew the exact hour of the operation. We had already heard what Mr. Qaani said from various sources: the October 7 operation was essentially planned in Iran in the month of Mordad two years earlier. More than 300 people had received training in Iran without knowing what they were going to be asked to do,

1:48 and then they went there. Iran also supplied the money. Only a very, very small number of people, no more than one or two in the IRGC, in Hezbollah, and in the Hamas command, knew about the operation. Two hours before the operation, they brought these forces in, brought in the supplies, and briefed them there on what to do at 6 a.m. They poured in, killed 1,200 Israelis, and took 251 people hostage. Khamenei and the IRGC's Quds Force lit the fire of a war that has so far cost the lives of more than 65,000 Palestinians and is still going on.

2:48 But Khamenei and Nasrallah did not know the exact hour of the attack. That was chosen on the spot by the commander there, Yahya Sinwar at the time, who has since been killed, based on the conditions, and it could have happened 24 hours earlier or 10 hours later. The second interview was given by the IRGC spokesman, Ali Mohammad Naini, to the Sepah News website. There he said that the True Promise 2 operation, carried out after Haniyeh was killed in Tehran and amid the events of that time, had been leaked,

3:48 and that they found out two hours before the operation that it had been leaked, but Hossein Salami rejected the proposal to postpone it. In that operation, dozens of American, French, and other aircraft, as well as Arab countries, helped Israel, and Israel itself was fully prepared. The result was that firing hundreds of drones, missiles and so on killed one Palestinian worker, and even he died because the wreckage of a missile fell on his head. Similarly, in the True Promise 1 operation, carried out after Israel struck the building next to the Islamic Republic's consulate in

4:46 Damascus, one Arab shepherd girl was killed. Refusing to postpone an operation that has been leaked, relying on "God willing" and "praise God," divine intervention, and so on, or for any other reason, and going ahead with it anyway, has a precedent among the IRGC people. During the Iran–Iraq War, too, they realized that the Karbala 4 operation had been leaked, but Mr. Mohsen Rezaei, the IRGC commander at the time, and his associates and supporters, such as Mr. Rahim Safavi and others, decided to carry out the operation anyway, a disaster that led to the killing, the deaths, of thousands of young Iranians.

5:46 On this same state broadcaster, for the past two or three days, perhaps longer, they have been constantly reciting war chants, and they have gone back to making harsh and provocative statements against Israel. Mr. Yahya Rahim Safavi, who was at one point IRGC commander and was also one of Mr. Mohsen Rezaei's allies during the war and belongs to that faction, stated on Islamic Republic television that we killed 16 Israeli pilots in the 12-day war, a claim that no one else has made. He should be asked: well, if you killed the pilots, you presumably shot down their planes. Where are they? Why don't you show the downed planes?

6:43 There have been claims like this before. For example, Iran said it had captured a female F-35 pilot, these same regime associates and supporters, and they have never been able to prove these tall tales. Ahmad Khatami, Tehran's Friday prayer leader, again chanted that if there is another war, we will raze Tel Aviv and Haifa to the ground. There was also a coordinated chain of Friday prayer leaders today, which actually shows that the Leader's office, the Beit, had given them instructions. The so-called talking points they send them before Friday prayers so that these things get said. They all rode the wave of war chants: that we will strike Israel, we will kill, we will tame lions

7:41 and slay leopards, they are afraid of us, and things like that. As for why they have gone back to these war chants, one reason could be fear of another Israeli attack, which has risen sharply, and they say these things perhaps to instill fear. Another is perhaps to give hope to the people, their supporters, and others. And part of it may also be that these gentlemen have come to believe the lies told inside the regime, and the Friday prayer leaders and others come and repeat them. But inside the Islamic Republic regime, rivalry between the factions has intensified for some time now. On the one hand, the Paydari people have become active and have sharply accelerated their hardline course, both against

8:45 the government and against negotiations, saying the JCPOA is nothing, it is this way, it is that way, mixed somewhat with pro-Russia propaganda, and they are beating the drums of war. On the other hand, those around Mr. Ghalibaf have also started a strong wave to build him up, for example claiming that during the 12-day war IRGC commanders were in contact with him, and both those around him and Mr. Ghalibaf himself have started attacking the government's policies. Likewise, Ahmadinejad's people and supporters have also become active, under the banner of the bad economic situation, saying that if

9:40 Ahmadinejad were in office things wouldn't be like this, the economy was good, and so on and so forth. But why have these efforts accelerated? There could be two or three reasons. One is that after Khamenei in effect left Mr. Pezeshkian out in the cold, having first told him to go and negotiate, and then, while he was in mid-air, releasing that video saying that he should neither negotiate with America nor back down, nothing, and so on, after the New York trip it has been widely said inside the regime that Pezeshkian has given up and wants to resign. He has already resigned once before. Although he makes harsh statements against America and Israel,

10:34 on the other hand, for some time now Pezeshkian has constantly been reciting verses of despair about the country's wrecked condition, saying nothing can be done in this situation and so on. So his disagreements with Khamenei may signal his resignation, and therefore some people are after taking over the government. On the other hand, since there is talk that Israel may attack and this time kill Khamenei, part of this rivalry is also aimed at the seat of the Guardian Jurist and the Leadership: how, with the reach of their own power, they can capture that seat and put it in the hands of someone from their own faction. We know the Paydari people were at one time very close to Mojtaba Khamenei, and they still champion him. But as Mojtaba Khamenei

11:33 has faded and, in fact, been largely absent, other successors have been floated, and even options such as stepping aside, or abandoning the Guardianship of the Jurist altogether, are being whispered about within the regime. Meanwhile, the US dollar on the open currency market crossed 118,700 tomans today, and apart from imported goods, the prices of other goods are also rising rapidly due to runaway, chronic inflation that has accelerated, and especially for food, prices sometimes change daily. This is something that has left people at the end of their rope.

12:33 Some believe that this acceleration of inflation is the beginning of the deadly disease of hyperinflation, in which the national currency suddenly collapses again and again and the fabric of normal economic exchange will fall apart. Meanwhile, in Madagascar, an island country in the Indian Ocean roughly opposite Mozambique with a population of 30 million, protests began on September 19. They were started by the young generation, Gen Z, a movement called Gen Z that found each other through social media.

13:30 They started protesting first in the capital, and then it spread to at least eight other cities. Their main grievance at first was water and power shortages, as well as government corruption and incompetence. After a while, as the protests continued, labor unions, civil society groups, and opposition leaders joined them. Eventually the president dismissed the government and introduced a new prime minister, but the protests have not stopped, and they are now demanding the removal of the president himself and the dissolution of parliament. So far this has left at least 22 dead and 100 wounded, and the fate of this movement now depends on two things. One is the army: whether

14:31 it comes over to the people's side or not. The second is the movement's resilience: whether it has the capacity to keep the protests going, as well as tactical diversity and moving toward other tactics, networking, strikes, and so on, or whether it will stop at this stage, the protesters will tire, or they will be crushed. In any case, Madagascar is another country where, after Nepal, we see how protests intensify, escalate, and move forward, especially the role of social media. In hope of victory for Iran and Iranians.