The physical skirmish in the Strait of Hormuz has been revealed as merely the surface tension of a much deeper, more volatile power struggle within Tehran. CNN-News18 has learnt from top Indian intelligence sources that the “warning shots” fired in the vicinity of Indian tankers in the Strait of Hormuz were a direct military veto of Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi’s diplomatic authority.
At the heart of this friction is a fundamental breakdown in the Iranian chain of command following the vacuum left by the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in US-Israeli strikes—an event that has left the Islamic Republic “ideologically adrift”.
Why is the IRGC sabotaging its own Foreign Ministry?
The IRGC, led by Commander-in-Chief Ahmad Vahidi, reportedly views Araghchi’s diplomatic outreach as “bad
and incomplete”. To the hardline military elite, Araghchi and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf are operating too independently on sensitive national security files, including the nuclear programme, missile development, and the management of proxies like Hezbollah and Hamas.
The IRGC’s mouthpiece, Tasnim, has openly criticised Araghchi’s framing of the Hormuz reopening as a standard post-ceasefire measure. The military sees any “positive wording” towards the West as a dangerous deviation. This ideological rift is exacerbated by the fact that Araghchi’s team was partly appointed under the previous leadership, leading the current IRGC top brass to view the diplomats as outsiders who do not represent the Revolutionary Guard’s core interests.
What is the ‘Zolghadr’ factor in the Islamabad talks?
A key flashpoint in this internal war is the composition of the Iranian negotiating team currently in Islamabad. Vahidi has repeatedly pushed for Mohammad-Bagher Zolghadr, the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council with deep IRGC ties, to be embedded in the delegation. The goal is clear: the IRGC wants to transform the diplomatic mission into an operational unit of the Revolutionary Guard.
Araghchi has resisted this move, arguing that Zolghadr lacks the necessary “negotiating expertise”. This tug-of-war has turned the Islamabad talks into a three-way battleground between Iranian diplomats, IRGC hardliners, and external mediators like Munir Trump, whose involvement the IRGC views as a direct threat to its domestic hegemony.
How does the Khamenei vacuum impact global security?
The killing of Khamenei has fundamentally altered the IRGC’s behaviour. Deprived of a singular ideological anchor, the Guard has become more reactive and protective of its remaining spheres of influence—chiefly the Strait of Hormuz. Intelligence sources suggest the IRGC fears that any diplomatic “thaw” orchestrated by Araghchi will diminish their relevance and funding in a post-Khamenei Iran.
For India and the global community, this means that Tehran is no longer a monolithic entity. A promise made by a diplomat in a suit may be physically countered by a commander in a gunboat. As New Delhi navigates this fractured landscape, the “stray bullets” in the Gulf serve as a grim reminder that in the current Iranian vacuum, the most hardline voice often has the loudest echoes.
