Iran’s supreme leader is MIA, just when negotiators need him most

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Iran’s rulers have a problem as they attempt to negotiate an end to the war: Their new supreme leader is noticeably MIA and silent on the talks.U.S. and Iranian officials say Mojtaba Khamenei was severely injured in a February airstrike, which killed his wife, son and father, former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Since then, the only thing Iranians have heard or seen from their new leader are messages purportedly written by him and images that appeared to be modified or generated by artificial intelligence.His absence is becoming a bigger problem for Tehran as it tries to negotiate an end to the war. Iran’s rulers have shown unity during the fighting, coordinating their political messaging and maintaining command and control over their armed forces.

But they are fracturing over how far to go to strike a deal with the U.S.Khamenei’s protracted absence from the public eye has been particularly unsettling for his hard-line supporters who are questioning the legitimacy of the talks, said Arash Azizi, a historian and lecturer at Yale University who focuses on Iran and has reviewed group chats of hard-line regime supporters.Iran’s hard-liners have taken aim at more moderate Iranian politicians who are playing a prominent role in talks—most notably parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who they see as too compromising.“They wonder about where he is,” Azizi said of the new supreme leader. “They’re dismayed by what they see as Ghalibaf and the team leading the National Security Council negotiating and giving too many concessions to the U.S.”Some hard-line supporters of the regime have posted messages on social media asking Khamenei to at least release a voice message declaring his support