Iran Reshuffles the Deck. Will it Matter?

Excerpt

What’s old is new again in Iran. Over the course of just one week in August, the Islamic Republic established a new body dubbed the Defense Council, echoing a similarly named entity from the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988). Overseen and established by the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) per Article 176 of the Constitution, the Defense Council is already being framed as a “war cabinet” in Iranian media.

That same week, Iran also played musical chairs and re-appointed veteran politician Ali Larijani as both SNSC secretary and representative of the country’s Supreme Leader to the body. Larijani previously served as SNSC secretary from 2005 to 2007 in this role.

Undoubtedly, the strategic backdrop for these decisions is the 12-Day War with Israel. Taken together, the reorganization signals that Tehran is doubling down and preparing for another round of conflict.

That war, which began with targeted assassinations against the commanding heights of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), exposed regime vulnerabilities in its military command-and-control structure and real-time national security decision making. Israel’s surprise attack also handicapped certain retaliatory options for the regime, rendering pre-set battle plans moot. 

Behnam Ben Taleblu is Senior Director of the Iran Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) think-tank in Washington, DC, where he also serves as a Senior Fellow. Follow him on X: @therealBehnamBT.