A Deadly Car Crash in Iran Raises Endless Speculation Over the Islamic Regime’s Internal Power Struggle

What — or who — killed Mohammad Akbarzadeh is a question that has been puzzling Iranians and outsiders since the hardline Navy commander was pronounced dead Monday after a car crash.Was the death of the chief spokesman and deputy commander for political affairs at the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ naval force really an accident? A CIA or Mossad operation? An internally-ordered assasination following growing disagreements inside Tehran’s leadership? “I think it’s suspicious. It could be any of the above,” the executive director at United Against Nuclear Iran, Jason Brodsky, tells The New York Sun. Iranian police and Revolutionary Guard officials “immediately” launched an investigation into Akbardazeh’s death, the IRGC-affiliated Fars newspaper reported.Akbarzadeh was a chief advocate for the recent attacks on ships traveling the Strait of Hormuz. The Islamic Republic has “full control of the skies, surface, and underwater areas” of the Hormuz Strait, Akbarzadeh said recently, vowing to strike down any vessel that fails to coordinate travel with the IRGC, and hit ships of certain countries. The naval commander also said ominously that Iran and its Yemeni proxy, the Houthis, would shut down the Red Sea by attacking ships at Bab el Mandeb. Washington says drone and missile strikes aimed at ships traveling in Hormuz violate the June 17 American-Iranian memorandum of understanding as well of international law on freedom of navigation in international waters. Akbarzadeh has been sanctioned by the European Union for his role in restricting ships travelling in the region.On Monday Akbarzadeh was critically injured after his vehicle turned over while travelling on a road leading out of the Yazd region, the regime’s Fars newspaper reports. Speculations rose immediately, with some pointing fingers at Israel’s Mossad, which has been known to conduct targeted killings of Iranian officials. The more intriguing possibility, though, is that Akbarzadeh’s hardline statements on Hormuz irked some figures inside Tehran’s leadership. “It’s a bit complicated because it’s not reformist versus hardliner, it’s hardliner versus hardliner,” a correspondent for Iran International, Negar Mojtahedi, tells the Sun.Figures such as the chief negotiator with America, parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf — who is a former IRGC commander himself — are eager to start reaping financial benefits that the current ceasefire agreement promises. Akbarzadeh’s public militant statements could set back that goal.Most of the Islamic Republic’s leadership is largely intact even after the February 28 killing of the longtime supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. Some current higher-ups, although veterans of the 1979 revolution led by Ruhollah Khomeini, are devising tactics that they hope would bolster President Trump’s and Vice President Vance’s statements that a “new” Iranian leadership is more reasonable than its “death to America” predecessors. One such rumored ploy is a change to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps title. As the name indicates, the corps was designed to protect the Khomeini revolution rather than the Iranian state. A change in name, according to the reported thinking of Tehran insiders, could be convincing to those at Washington who forever seek regime “moderates.” It could look like a true evolution is taking place inside the Islamic Republic. For now, though, Tehran is attempting to stretch negotiations with America for as long as possible. Mr. Trump announced on Monday that his envoys, Steve Witkoff and son in law Jared Kushner, would start technical negotiations with their Iranian counterparts on Tuesday.As the two Americans landed at Doha, Iranians announced that talks were suspended for the time being. Messrs. Witkoff and Kushner “are not here for direct negotiations with the Iranians,” the Qatari foreign ministry spokesman, Majed Al-Ansari, told reporters. Meanwhile “the $6 billion frozen Iranian funds have not yet been transferred to Tehran,” Mr. Ansari added, referring to part of the memorandum that promised carrots to Iran for opening the Strait of Hormuz. Transfer of these funds, the Doha spokesman added, “will be carried out by agreement between the two sides and in accordance with progress of the negotiations.”Despite the delay tactics, the Iranian leadership is eager to start receiving funds in accordance with the memorandum. “They are in a survival mode,” Ms. Mojtahedi says. The need to keep the regime intact could explain a possible elimination of troublemakers like Akbarzadeh, whose public statements impede the removal of American sanctions. “The inside infighting hasn’t really taken shape yet as much as it would,” Ms. Mojtahedi says. “Once the money starts coming in they’re going to start fighting about how to allocate the funds. Who is really going to come out on top?”

A Deadly Car Crash in Iran Raises Endless Speculation Over the Islamic Regime’s Internal Power Struggle

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