Who runs Iran: key figures of the Islamic Republic

Ali Khamenei — Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic since 1989

Born 1939 in Mashhad. President of Iran 1981–1989, then appointed Supreme Leader on Khomeini's death in June 1989. Under Iran's constitution he is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, appoints the head of the judiciary, half of the Guardian Council, and the directors of state broadcasting (IRIB). He has the final word on nuclear policy, regional strategy and the handling of protests. He is designated by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Canada in connection with human-rights abuses and the suppression of the 2022–2026 protests.

Mojtaba Khamenei — Cleric, son of the Supreme Leader, frequently named as a succession candidate

Born 1969. Holds no formal state office but is widely reported by Iranian and international media to exercise influence over the Supreme Leader's office and parts of the security apparatus. Repeatedly named in succession speculation since the 2009 Green Movement, when opposition figures accused him of coordinating the crackdown. Claims about his exact role are contested and largely unverifiable from open sources.

Esmail Qaani — Commander of the IRGC Quds Force since 2020

Succeeded Qassem Soleimani after the January 2020 US strike in Baghdad. The Quds Force is the IRGC's extraterritorial arm and the channel through which Tehran funds, arms and directs allied militias in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. Sanctioned by the United States, the EU and the UK.

Hossein Salami — Commander-in-Chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps

Career IRGC officer, appointed commander-in-chief in April 2019. The IRGC controls Iran's missile and drone programmes, a large share of the economy through affiliated conglomerates such as Khatam al-Anbiya, and — through the Basij — the domestic force most frequently identified in protest killings. The IRGC is designated a terrorist organisation by the United States and proscribed or sanctioned by several other states.

Gholamhossein Mohseni-Eje'i — Head of the Judiciary since 2021

Former intelligence minister and prosecutor-general. As judiciary chief he presides over the system that issues Iran's execution orders — the highest per-capita execution rate in the world, with more than 900 executions recorded in 2024 and higher totals reported for 2025. Sanctioned by the EU since 2011 for serious human-rights violations.

Ahmad Jannati — Secretary of the Guardian Council; chair of the Assembly of Experts

Born 1927. Has led the Guardian Council since 1992. The Council vets every parliamentary and presidential candidate, and its mass disqualifications are the mechanism by which electoral competition in Iran is closed off before voting begins. Sanctioned by the EU and the United States.

Mohammad Mehdi Mirbagheri — Hardline cleric and member of the Assembly of Experts

A Qom-based theorist of 'Islamic civilisation-building' and one of the most cited hardline clerical voices in Iranian domestic debate. His lectures argue for the subordination of modern social science, technology and governance to clerical authority, and he is a consistent opponent of negotiations with the West and of loosening hijab enforcement. He is often read as a bellwether for the ideological wing that expects to shape the post-Khamenei succession.

Mohammad Marandi — Tehran University professor and the regime's most visible English-language commentator

An Iranian-American academic who serves as the Islamic Republic's principal English-language interlocutor with Western broadcasters and served on the Iranian team during nuclear talks. Iranian journalists in exile and press-freedom monitors describe his output as state-aligned messaging rather than independent analysis; he rejects that characterisation. His prominence makes him a useful case study in how the Islamic Republic projects narrative abroad.

Hossein Taeb — Former head of IRGC Intelligence Organisation

Led IRGC intelligence from 2009 — the year of the Green Movement crackdown — until his removal in June 2022. His tenure covers the period in which the IRGC's intelligence arm eclipsed the Ministry of Intelligence in handling dissidents, dual nationals and hostage diplomacy. Sanctioned by the EU and the United States.

Esmail Khatib — Minister of Intelligence

Heads the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (VAJA/MOIS), which runs surveillance of activists, the interrogation wings of Evin Prison, and operations against Iranians abroad. The ministry has been sanctioned by the United States and the EU over transnational repression and the treatment of detainees.

How power is structured

The Supreme Leader is not one office among many; he sits above the elected ones. He appoints the head of the judiciary, six of the twelve Guardian Council members, the commanders of the armed forces and the head of state broadcasting. The Guardian Council then decides who may stand for election, and the Assembly of Experts — itself vetted by the Guardian Council — selects the next Supreme Leader. The IRGC supplies the coercive and economic weight that keeps the structure in place. Understanding these interlocks explains why elections in Iran change ministers but not direction.

Frequently asked questions

How authority is arranged

Iran's constitution creates two parallel structures: an elected layer of president, parliament and local councils, and an unelected layer of the Supreme Leader, the Guardian Council, the Expediency Council, the judiciary and the armed forces. The second layer appoints, vets and can overrule the first. For accountability purposes this matters enormously: orders to use lethal force travel down the unelected chain, which is why sanctioning a minister rarely changes street-level conduct.

Reading the chain of responsibility

Accountability work rarely begins with the top of the structure. It begins with a documented act — a sniper on a rooftop in Zahedan, a beating in a detention centre, an execution scheduled at dawn — and works upward through four questions:

1. Who carried it out? Unit, rank and, where evidence allows, name.
2. Under whose effective control were they? Provincial IRGC or police command, prison director, presiding judge.
3. What did that commander know? Contemporaneous orders, patterns repeated across cities, public statements endorsing the conduct.
4. What did they do about it? Failure to investigate or punish converts knowledge into liability.

Each answered question is a building block for a universal-jurisdiction file, a sanctions designation or a future domestic prosecution. This is the practical reason the archive insists on named cases and dated documents rather than aggregate outrage.

The other side of the ledger

Alongside the officeholders, the record contains the people who resisted them: imprisoned lawyers and human-rights defenders such as Narges Mohammadi and Nasrin Sotoudeh; artists such as Toomaj Salehi; families such as the Aminis who refused the official account of a death; and the exile political spectrum described on the opposition page. The archive documents that spectrum without endorsing any faction within it, and takes no funding from any of them, as stated on the about page.

Where designations stand

Since 2022 the EU, UK, US and Canada have listed hundreds of Iranian officials, entities and IRGC commanders, and further tranches followed the January 2026 killings. Designations freeze assets and bar travel; they do not reach officials with no external exposure, and they have not stopped executions. The sanctions page sets out what each instrument can and cannot do, and the campaigns page lists the proscription efforts currently under way.

Frequently asked questions

Who actually holds power in the Islamic Republic?

Ultimate authority rests with the Supreme Leader, who appoints the heads of the judiciary, the armed forces and state broadcasting and controls the Guardian Council's vetting of candidates. The elected presidency and parliament operate inside limits that unelected bodies set.

What is the Supreme Leader's role in repression?

The office sets the strategic line and appoints the commanders and judges who implement it. UN experts and human-rights bodies have repeatedly identified command responsibility at that level for policies of lethal force, mass detention and execution.

Which bodies decide who is executed?

Revolutionary Courts issue capital sentences in political cases, the Supreme Court reviews them, and the judiciary chief and prison authorities schedule implementation. Charges such as moharebeh and efsad-e fel-arz are the standard legal vehicles.

Are individual officials under international sanctions?

Yes. The European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada have designated large numbers of Iranian officials, IRGC commanders, prison directors and judges over the 2022 and 2026 crackdowns. The sanctions page tracks the categories and their limits.

What is command responsibility and why does it matter here?

It is the principle that commanders are criminally liable for crimes committed by forces under their effective control when they knew or should have known and failed to prevent or punish them. It is what allows accountability to reach beyond the individual who fired a weapon.

Has any senior official ever been prosecuted?

Not inside Iran. Outside it, universal-jurisdiction cases have produced convictions — most prominently the 2022 conviction in Sweden of a former Iranian prison official over the 1988 massacres — which is why documentation with named perpetrators matters.