Iran's disfigured supreme leader remains invisible six months into an existential war

By Parisa Hafezi and Angus McDowall

DUBAI, Aug 28 (Reuters) - Six months after the ‌airstrikes that began the war and ​propelled a badly wounded ​Mojtaba Khamenei into the role of Iran's supreme leader, he remains entirely unseen and unheard by Iranians — a vacuum at the heart of his country's leadership.

Questions over his condition and role are growing increasingly fraught, with Iran facing critical decisions over a war that has set the Middle East aflame while trashing the country's already fragile economy.

Iranian officials and other senior sources ‌in the country say Khamenei remains in control, ruling from the shadows for security reasons as he recovers from disfiguring wounds while delegating broad daily authority to ⁠a coterie of top figures.

But with no photograph, video or audio message released since his appointment a week into the war, Iranians are ever more sceptical about his position in an Islamic Republic in which the leader's voice is meant to be absolute.

"The question is ‌no longer whether Mojtaba is alive, but whether Iran ‌still has a functioning supreme leader," said Alex Vatanka of the Middle East Institute in Washington.

Khamenei's only messages to the Iranian people have come via a handful of written statements read aloud by news broadcasters and he was even missing from the extravagant week of funeral rites for his father last month.

Top officials and other insiders attribute Khamenei's absence to assassination fears and say he holds frequent meetings with ​top figures, receives all major reports and takes the final decisions on every important issue.

President Masoud Pezeshkian said on August 10 that he had held a seven-hour meeting with Khamenei.

But even among the Islamic Republic's most hardline supporters, doubts are creeping in.

"We need to hear our leader's voice, or see any sign that he is there on top and leading the country to give us more confidence," said a member of ⁠the Basij volunteer militia in Qom, the seminary city at the heart of Iran's theocratic state.

While the Basij member, who requested anonymity to discuss such a sensitive subject, said he believed Khamenei was indeed still making key decisions, the lack of even a photograph was damaging morale ​and not in Iran's interest.

Among Iranians who oppose the ruling hierarchy or want broad reforms, the message is blunter. "How do we know that Mojtaba has not been killed?" said Shahrokh, a pro-reform businessman in Tehran who also requested anonymity.

"It is not logical that there is not a single sign proving he is alive, let ​alone evidence that he is involved in decision-making," he added.

REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS KEY TO POWER STRUCTURE

Iran has weathered six months of ‌war with its most powerful enemies to emerge battered but still standing. Its political system has held. Its military retains the ability to choke off global energy supplies and strike U.S. Gulf allies.

The clerical establishment has shown it can absorb the loss of a supreme leader and senior commanders without collapsing, maintaining a political and military chain ⁠of command loyal to their theocratic ideology.

But Iran's economy is buckling under the cost of the conflict and a months-long blockade of its oil exports, which has cratered the rial currency, risking a resumption of the mass protests that authorities crushed in January by killing thousands of demonstrators.

Meanwhile the ruling establishment has reorganised around a clear imperative: preserve the state, restore deterrence and stop the economic fallout from destabilising the country.

The Revolutionary Guards, long a powerful force, grew in influence from the start of ⁠the war and remain central to strategic thinking at the top of a reconfigured ruling system around the Supreme National Security Council, the sources said.

That upper echelon includes the top Guards commanders as well as senior political figures such as Pezeshkian ​and parliament speaker Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf.

Several senior sources reached by Reuters in Iran said Khamenei was in fact holding meetings with those top figures, was fully involved in deliberations and has the final say on all major questions.

A senior Iranian official said only a small number of officials retained direct contact with Khamenei in person and that no details of him had been published for fear of leaking information that could allow the U.S. to target him.

His health is meanwhile improving significantly, ‌said a person close to Khamenei's inner circle, describing him as sharp and involved in decision-making.

"Despite all the pressures, services to the people have not stopped. Our foreign policy line is unified and our decisions are coherent. All of this shows the supreme leader is in charge," a second official said.

Even before the war, ‌Khamenei preferred a backroom role as his father's top aide, shunning public attention. His wounds in the early hours of February 28, when Israel and the United States launched their war with air strikes that killed his late father, disfigured his face ⁠according to senior sources.

But now elevated to a role seen as conferring divine guidance, ‌and at the country's moment of greatest crisis since the 1979 ​revolution, such considerations look unconvincing.

"A genuine deal with Washington requires Mojtaba's unmistakable approval and so does any decision to sustain a long and costly conflict with the United States," said Vatanka.

"His prolonged absence has created a dangerous situation in which rival factions can all claim to know what the leader really wants," he added.

(By Parisa Hafezi and Angus McDowall; ‌Editing by Sharon Singleton)

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