The Veeps of Tehran
Emergency Throwback
Yesterday, after the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the First President of Iran, Mohammad Reza Aref, announced he would be running the country. Naturally, we here at Down the Hall took note. Reza is a Stanford engineering PhD associated with the reform faction. Could he be the “Delcy” of this war on Iran—the regime figure the U.S. and Israelis worked with to establish a post-war government à la Venezuela’s Delcy Rodríguez?
Reza’s announcement was soon superseded by Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani’s statement that until a new Supreme Leader could be chosen, a council of the president, the top judicial figure, and a member of the Council of Guardians would be in charge. Defacto Larijani will run the country. Putting aside his long official title, Larijani was the elderly Khamenei’s mayordomo. Larijani has quite a resume, holding political posts and technocratic posts as well as being handling international negotiations and being a former commander in the all-powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC). He lacks the religious credentials to be the Supreme Leader (his PhD is in Western philosophy!) He was central in putting down the recent protests and was also tasked with ensuring the regime would survive an American attack.
Larijani is not a moderate, but he is believed to be a pragmatist. With his control over the IRGC, he could be the “Delcy” of Iran. Are the U.S. and Israel in communication with him, was the fix in? Given the deep penetration of U.S. and Israeli intelligence into the Iranian regime, this seems possible.
Back to Iran’s vice presidents…
What’s Old is New
Here’s what I wrote in June, when re-upping my analysis of the vice presidents of Iran (nothing ever changes in the Middle East):
But then the news came from Iran. Turns out Vance has been active on the Iran account within the administration, but also it’s a case study in high-level national security decision-making. And that’s what the study of the VP is really about. So, I’m going to dash something off—keep your eyes peeled.
But first, for your Throwback Thursday, here’s a look at the vice presidents of Iran. This may become particularly timely, as Israel appear is targeting Iranian leadership so an Iranian Veep may become, quite suddenly important.
This was originally published here back in May 2024, after Iran’s president was killed in a helicopter crash. It’s an exploration specifically of the role of the vice president plays in the Iranian system, but more broadly is part of my effort to use the vice presidency as a lens with which to study institutions and decision-making.
It doesn’t look like Iran’s VP is going to be important (although the situation is changing fast). But a look at the vice presidency in the Islamic regime give a glimpse into the regime’s complexity and the interlocking and overlapping institutions by which it governs. It also highlights how robust the regime may be, with all of these centers of power a decapitation strategy will not work.
The Veeps of Tehran
Originally posted on Down the Hall on June 12, 2025.
In a previous life I was a Middle East specialist and news of Iranian President Raisi’s death would have led to analysis of what this meant for power games in Tehran and the region. Now, it isn’t at the top of my concerns, except that it turns out that Iran has a vice president. Actually, Iran has about 12 vice presidents!
Such a surfeit of Veeps, naturally I needed to know more.
The emerging field of Veepology is primarily focused on the U.S vice presidency, but we are interested in similar institutions worldwide. (We’ve got something special on this coming…)
Many nations around the world have vice presidents. They haven’t been much studied, mostly because they are generally inconsequential. Most of the countries in Latin America that have a U.S. style presidency have an appended vice presidency. But in many of these countries, the presidents not infrequently resign or are impeached. This creates few incentives for the president to really make a partner of their VP. That could change.
An Institutional Analysis
But what about Iran and its egg carton of VPs? What is that about?
First, the Vice President (technically the First Vice President) has a mandate, on the president’s death, to be a caretaker head of government until elections can be organized, which is to occur within 50 days.
The fact that the VP isn’t the successor to the president is the beginning of understanding that the Iranian system is very different and doesn’t map neatly onto ours.
To call Iran’s government Byzantine is an insult since the Iranian civilization is far more ancient than that of the Byzantium. Here’s an explainer, but the first thing to understand is that Iran’s president is more akin to a prime minister who runs the day-to-day affairs of the government and is answerable to the Supreme Leader. Parts of Iran’s government are popularly elected, but other parts are overseen by shadowy committees. There are formal executive, legislative, and judicial branches. But they are all ultimately beholden to the Supreme Leader and these committees. Off-hand, the best comparison may be to the various Communist nations which had formal government structures that paralleled that of other nations, but ultimate power was in the hands of the party and the Secretary-General of the Communist Party. That makes the Supreme Leader the Secretary-General of the Islamic Revolution. The President enacts policies that are ultimately determined by the Supreme Leader.
It is interesting that the Iranian presidential and parliamentary elections are more open than those of the Communist countries. Not open by our standards, the Islamic revolutionary apparatus often disallows candidates and has distorted results to favor their chosen candidate in the past. But there have been spirited campaigns and changes in the presidency have also meant shifts in policy.
Iran has a Constitution (I read it so you don’t have to) which outlines the roles of the different offices. Vice presidents are mentioned once in a very specific context. It does however state that the president can have several deputies and that the first of these deputies can preside over the council of ministers and outlines this deputy’s role in the event of the president’s death or incapacitation. There is no mention of these deputies being either elected (like the president) or confirmed by parliament (like the ministers.) These deputies have been dubbed vice presidents, but they are more akin to senior White House aides, with the first of them as a sort of chief of staff. These deputies or vice presidents are generally high-level operatives with specific portfolios, but not public figures.
Mohammed Mokhber, now Iran’s acting president, held top positions in various state affiliated financial institutions. The other vice presidents are not required roles but currently include the head of the Atomic Energy Organization (obviously a key position), a VP for parliamentary affairs (equivalent of the White House legislative affairs office, perhaps), a VP for planning and budget (maybe akin to the OMB director), and a VP for women and family affairs.
Origin Story
Until 1989, Iran had a prime minister. We’re talking about under the Islamic regime, although through much of its ancient history Iran had a prime minister or grand vizier. The position was eliminated in the new 1989 Constitution and replaced with the deputies, who are known as vice presidents. I don’t know any Farsi, but it would be interesting to look at the language to understand the origin and use of the terms for deputy and vice president in this context.
The Prime Minister under the Islamic Revolutionary regime is an interesting position. The PM was appointed by the President and confirmed by Parliament. This model of PM seems comparable to the vice presidency the way we here at Veepology think about it – a fellow politician and governing partner. But there were problems. The Iranian PM would have more formal power than the U.S. VP, and parliament’s role in the selection could create tensions and diverging incentives. That is precisely what happened and why the position was eliminated.
In 1981, Ali Khamenei (now the Supreme Leader), became President. He selected his ally Ali Akbar Veleyati as PM, but the Majlis rejected him and pressed for the appointment of Mir-Hossein Mousavi – who was of the more liberal faction. Interestingly, then Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini (definitely not a liberal reformer within the Iranian regime), favored Mousavi – and Mousavi was competent (managing Iran’s economy during the terrible Iran-Iraq war). The PM was becoming a power center separate from the President. When Khomeini died and was succeeded by Khameinei, the regime developed a new Constitution that eliminated the Prime Minister and this potential rival and instead created this squad of deputies beholden to the president.
Analysis
The study of institutions is examining form, not substance. The Iranian regime is morally abhorrent, committing murder and repression at home while sponsoring brutal acts of terror abroad. But institutional arrangements and the ways in which they shape power politics have a logic of their own that can be studied across regimes.
In the last edition of Down the Hall, I mentioned the work of Ted Lowi, and how the U.S. presidency has accumulated more power and capability to cope with ever increasing demands. The White House now has a plethora of executive aides and offices to enable presidents to enact and implement policy that are beholden only to the president – independent of both Congress and the cabinet departments. From a distance, the Iranian VPs look to occupy a similar role, allowing Iran’s president to centralize key policy-making functions directly under his control. The centripetal forces driving the concentration of power may be a constant.
Coming Soon
I’ll have a lot more to say about vice presidents and Iran in the coming days. Tomorrow I’ll share a post how VP Vance tried to steer Trump away from attacking Iran. Obviously Vance wasn’t successful, but his efforts are a case study in how vice presidents operate. In the process of considering Vance’s concerns we’ll also look at some good and bad outcomes from Operation Epic Fury.
This Tuesday is the Jewish holiday of Purim, which is about foiling a plot by a top advisor to the Persian emperor to murder the Jews. A little on the nose. In Jewish tradition it is a day of merriment and drunkenness—so I’ll have something fun for that.
Looking farther ahead, I’m going to talk about the best politician in America, who happens to be Jewish, and how he will manage the growth of anti-Semitism in America and the strains in U.S.-Israel relations.