Israeli officials say divisions within Iran’s leadership are widening as Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, still suffering from physical and psychological injuries, increasingly relies on some of the most hard-line figures in the Revolutionary Guard and Basij.
The assessment follows a New York Times report describing unusually bitter confrontations among senior Iranian officials over
military actionsthat were apparently carried out without the knowledge of key figures in Tehran’s political and security establishment.Israeli officials said Khamenei remains alive but has surrounded himself with commanders whose worldview is shaped by the Iran-Iraq War and who are pressing for an increasingly confrontational approach.
“Their thinking is still rooted in the Iran-Iraq War,” the officials said. “They are taking an extremely hard-line approach, and it will eventually lead them into disaster.”
The officials also pointed to Iran’s deteriorating economic situation as another source of pressure on the regime. They described an economy in severe decline, with soaring inflation, rising unemployment, a sharply weakened rial and virtually no oil exports.
“People are barely managing to survive, and...