Natalie Kitroof: It was a chaotic weekend of news out of Washington. There was a shooting at an event where President Trump and top cabinet officials were gathered, which we're following and we'll update on later in the show. And also, Trump abruptly and dramatically called off the latest round of peace talks with Iran at the very last minute, leaving the fate of the ceasefire in limbo.

Natalie Kitroof: One of the main reasons Trump gave was that he doesn't think Iran is sending credible negotiators to the table and says he has no idea who's actually in charge of the country. Today, my colleague Farnaz Faci takes us inside the world of Iran's leaders and explains what her reporting reveals about what they really want.

Natalie Kitroof: Faras, it's wonderful to have you back on the show.

Farnaz Faci: Thank you for having me, Natalie.

Natalie Kitroof: So, what do we know about what just happened? where we saw Trump suddenly back away from face-to-face negotiations with Iran. It almost seemed like over the weekend he kind of turned the team of American negotiators around as they were basically on their way to the airport.

Farnaz Faci: We started this weekend thinking that Iranians and Americans were going to meet in Islamabad for a second round of negotiations. Iran's foreign minister went to Islamabad and the US special envoy Steve Witkov and President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner were scheduled to also fly to Pakistan on Saturday and everyone anticipated another round of talks and then we started getting mixed messages. The Iranians said, "Oh well, we're not meeting directly with the Americans." and the foreign minister left Pakistan and President Trump abruptly announced on social media that he was cancelling the talks and not sending his envoys to meet with the Iranians.

Natalie Kitroof: And now we're in a state of limbo. There's no talks. There's a unilateral ceasefire declared by President Trump without a set deadline and the Iranians are under a sea blockade. So the situation I think is very fragile. And what about the president's claim, which he made on social media over the weekend and he's made before, that the Iranian regime is in complete disarray and that he doesn't even know who's making the decisions in the country?

Farnaz Faci: Well, since the start of this war, some of the big questions have been who's running Iran, who's making the decisions, where is the new Supreme Leader Moshabi, and are there divisions at the top? I spent the past month reporting these questions, talking to sources inside Iran. I interviewed 22 people inside Iran. Some of them were senior officials. Some were members of the revolutionary guards. Some of them known Mushtab or his father. And all of them understand the framework of how decisions are being made in Iran and how the country is being run. And that has helped me answer this puzzle.

Natalie Kitroof: through just extraordinarily deep reporting. So what have you learned?

Farnaz Faci: Well, I'll tell you in my interviews over the past month, every time I would ask that question from sources, I would say, "Who is making the decisions? Who's running the country?" And I would hear sep means the revolutionary guards.

Farnaz Faci: No one said the ayatollah. No one said it's the supreme leader. And that was just such a difference to how things were done before the war where the senior the supreme leader of Iran for 37 years always had the last word on all decisions that were critical to the state. And you know before the war whenever I would ask who's making the decision he would say we're waiting for Mr. Kame to decide. We're waiting for him to say yes or no. And now it's the generals. Since the war started, a cohort of senior revolutionary guards generals have sort of taken over running and managing the war and running the country.

Natalie Kitroof: Okay. You're saying something that's actually pretty stark, which is worth just lingering on for a moment, which is that the Supreme Leader is not the one calling the shots here. And so I have to ask, when we say the revolutionary guards are, who are they? Who are we talking about?

Farnaz Faci: The Revolutionary Guards are the most elite military force in Iran. They were created in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution as sort of a line of defense for the regime. But over the past nearly half a century that the Islamic Republic's been in power, the revolutionary guards have expanded their reach and expanded their power. When we hear think about a military force, we think of people in uniform who are in military bases and making military decisions, right?

Farnaz Faci: But the revolutionary guards are all over the place in Iran. They hold key positions in the government. Many lawmakers, ministers, presidents have been former revolutionary guards. the current speaker of parliament who's leading the negotiations with the US as a commander of the revolutionary guards, the head of the National Security Council is a revolutionary guards commander. And they also have a big footprint in Iran's economy, right? They have a huge conglomerate in every economic sector from energy to transportation to even tourism that you can think of. So they really are the parallel power in Iran. And now as a result of the war, they've become the dominant power.

Natalie Kitroof: That's fascinating.

Farnaz Faci: You know, it's part of a pattern of the country becoming more and more militarized and the influence of the clerics fading.

Natalie Kitroof: So this ubiquity of the guards, that's something that's been developing over time, their presence everywhere. This isn't new, per se, right?

Farnaz Faci: It's not new, but it's never been this dominant. The revolutionary guards have been rising for years. The former Supreme Leader really relied on them for securing Iran's borders, for navigating and cultivating relationships with proxy militant groups in the region that were aligned with Iran ideologically such as Hezbollah in Lebanon or Hamas in Gaza and the Shia militia in Iraq. And also whenever there was an uprising inside the country and protests against the government, it was the guards that took over security and crushed those protests. And in exchange, the guards were sort of given more of a free hand to enter politics and to enter the economy. And that empowered them in ways that was far beyond their military role in Iran. But they could only rise so far under the leadership of Ayatah the father because he was the person with the final authority over everything. But this war created an opening for them. And the guards saw the killing of Ayat by the United States and Israel on the first day of the war as an opportunity as an opportunity to put in place as new supreme leader who had close ties to them and through whom they could rule Iran.

Natalie Kitroof: Right. You told us last time on the show that the guards were absolutely critical in putting the younger Hami in place as supreme leader. They basically got him there.

Farnaz Faci: Exactly. They totally got him there. I mean, I think last time we spoke, we talked about the succession war in Game of Thrones that was going on to replace the senior Ayatollah and that the revolutionary guards really pushed to have the son succeeded him. And so the reason you're saying that the new supreme leader has less sway over the guards is in part because he's indebted to them. Is that right?

Farnaz Faci: I think there are a number of factors, Natalie. One is that he's indebted to them for his position as the new supreme leader. He's also indebted to them for the survival of the regime, right? I mean, the revolutionary guards basically managed to contain the threat that this war brought to the regime. When the Israeli and Americans air their strikes happened, two military superpowers attacking Iran, the regime thought that this was an existential threat, right? But now they seem confident that they've contained the threat and there's no signs of them cracking or defecting or the Islamic Republic toppling.

Farnaz Faci: There are other reasons for why he's deferring to the guards as well. Part of it is his injuries. Mhabi was gravely injured in the air strikes that targeted his father's compound.

Natalie Kitroof: Right. That's been a big question mark is exactly how injured.

Farnaz Faci: Very injured. I've heard that one of his legs may be amputated. He's had three operations and is waiting for a prosthetic leg. He's had operations on one of his arms and hands. And his face and lips have been burned severely. And the burns are so extensive that he can't even speak properly, which is one of the reasons why we haven't heard his voice or seen his face.

Natalie Kitroof: Yeah. I was going to ask if that's one of the reasons why he hasn't made a public appearance. I mean, I'd imagine that also limits his clout, but it sounds like he just can't right now.

Farnaz Faci: No, he can't right now. Sources that I talked to who know him said that he doesn't want to appear weak and vulnerable in the first public address that he gives to the people whether it's audio or visual. The extent that the public has heard from him has been several written statements that the state media has read or it's been published on social media. And another reason is also the logistics of his security situation.

Natalie Kitroof: H talk to me about that.

Farnaz Faci: Well, from the first day of the war, the Israeli said that whoever succeeds Mr. Ham will be a target and specifically said that Moshaba is on their assassination target list. So, he's been moved to a very high secure secret place. Access to him is almost impossible for government officials or military commanders. There's no electronics around him. He can't speak on the phone or engage electronically in any way. and communicating with him is sort of, you know, the old ways of writing longhand letters, sealing it in an envelope, and having a human chain of couriers carry the letters to his secure place and then back. And logistically, that takes time. So, you can't imagine that it's hard for him to be making decisions in real time, and he would have to delegate some authority to the generals that he trusts.

Natalie Kitroof: Okay. So, you've described this situation in which there's this empowered group of generals within the revolutionary guards who technically answer to the Supreme Leader, but that Supreme Leader is in hiding. He's badly injured. He's really hard to get to. So, how do they actually make decisions in that scenario? Like, how does that work?

Farnaz Faci: Well, you know, in Iran, particularly in this new era, decisions are being made more collectively and collaboratively. The generals definitely are leading the charge and calling the shots, but there's a debate going on. In fact, people who I spoke to in Iran were telling me that the decision-m is now kind of like a board of directors, that the Ayatollah is sort of the director of the board and the generals are the members of the board and that yeah, it's not a one-man show anymore.

Natalie Kitroof: And when those decisions are eventually brought to the Supreme Leader through couriers to his hideout, is he essentially being asked to rubber stamp them? What's his role in this?

Farnaz Faci: his role is to give them feedback and to approve them because one way that the generals can tell the public that the decisions that they're making is legitimate, particularly when it comes to giving any concessions to the United States, is to say, "Look, what we're deciding is endorsed by the Supreme Leader, so everyone should go along." As to whether it's a rubber stamp, well, to the best of our knowledge, he hasn't objected to any of their decisions yet, and he's gone along. Part of that reason is because of the relationship that he has with the generals and the trust that he has.

Natalie Kitroof: Okay. Talk to me about that that relationship and that trust. How should we understand it?

Farnaz Faci: So, we always knew that he had close ties to the guards, but my reporting shows that these ties go much deeper and they go back decades. One way to understand it is that the Supreme Leader now has some of his best friends, people he has known since he was a teenager and grew up with in charge.

Natalie Kitroof: Huh.

Farnaz Faci: And that story goes back to when he was 17 years old in the 1980s. He volunteered to go fight in the Iran Iraq war. And he was placed in a revolutionary guards battalion called the Habib Brigade. And in the happy brigade there were other young soldiers who had volunteered. And I interviewed one of his close friends who was deployed with him to that brigade. And he told me that look this experience really shaped us. And those bonds we made with the battle buddies really like carried us and became lifelong.

Farnaz Faci: As this group aged, they climbed the ranks of power. Some of his friends from this particular brigade became key influential politicians and military commanders and intelligence officials. And we're kind of seeing that play out right now. It's a relationship of friends who are on firstname basis and of peers.

Natalie Kitroof: So you're saying part of this trust is really that Hame has deep ties with these people that go back years. I mean, he trusts them because he's known them for a very long time and has worked directly with them.

Farnaz Faci: Exactly. And that's become a central dynamic of this relationship right now between the Supreme Leader and the guards.

Natalie Kitroof: So, when you add this whole picture together, what you're describing is a pretty fundamental shift in the way that the entire country and its government works. Before the Supreme Leader empowered the guards, yes, but also directed them. And now it kind of seems like the tail is wagging the dog.

Farnaz Faci: Yes. You know, I think when most people, Natalie, think of Iran, they think of an Islamic theocracy run by clerics. We've always referred to Iran as the a clerical rule, right? And we're seeing that change in real time now. It's shifting away and transforming from a clerical theocracy to a military dictatorship with a cleric as its leader.

Farnaz Faci: So I think this change could have surprising implications for Iran and also for negotiations with the United States.

Natalie Kitroof: Fernaz, just explain why it matters that the power structure in Iran, as you just told us, is shifting to one where the military, the guards really hold all the cards and the clerics are secondary.

Farnaz Faci: Well, for Iranians, it could be worse politically. It could be more repression if that's at all possible because we've seen the guards over the years whenever there's a protest or uprising take control of crackdowns and killings and crushing the protests. So, it's very likely that descent will be less tolerated that there will even be more crackdowns. But in terms of negotiations with the United States or the way that Iran might deal with the West, the guards could be more pragmatic than the clerics and their religious ideology.

Natalie Kitroof: Hold on. What? The military hardliners could be more pragmatic. How?

Farnaz Faci: Well, because these generals are not as motivated and driven by the cleric ideology that defined Iran in the past 47 years, sort of the death to America, the religious theocracy. What motivates these generals is power and money.

Farnaz Faci: And for both of those things to happen, the regime needs to survive and it needs to thrive economically. So when you say these generals are not ideological, it sounds like what you're saying is they're not really driven as much by a cause. They're driven essentially by self-preservation.

Farnaz Faci: It is worth noting that this is definitely not how we've been talking about them up until this point. We've been talking about them as hardliners.

Natalie Kitroof: Right?

Farnaz Faci: The view of the Islamic Republic from the outside is an ideological theocracy driven by anti-american and anti-Israeli and religious Islamic ideology. And that's sort of how they've organized themselves for much of the time that they've ruled. There's definitely a faction still within the system that is very hardline that is driven exactly by those ideologies but they've been kind of sidelined from decisionm and the generals who are now in charge have a real interest in making a deal with the United States because they view this as survival.

Farnaz Faci: And that's a real shift because remember just up until a few months ago the former ayat the supreme leader had banned Iranian ians from directly engaging with Americans. But 5 weeks after the US killed their supreme leader and waging a vicious war against Iran, suddenly the commanders of the revolutionary guards are sitting across the table from Vice President JD Vance. I mean, I would not believe it if someone had told me that 5 weeks ago.

Natalie Kitroof: But can I just raise a question about this on their pragmatism? We have seen these generals in charge really willing to use hardline tactics like they've been willing to hold up the strait. They've been willing to bomb their neighbors to seow chaos in the region. Does that bear on their pragmatism? Like how do you make sense of that?

Farnaz Faci: We've seen the generals deploy tactics that they thought would preserve the Islamic Republic system and regime by escalating the war and making it very costly for not just US and Israel but also for the all the Arab countries by blowing up the region thinking that this would create deterrence. Right? But we've also seen that they've discovered the strait of hormones as a new card, as something that they could upend the global economy with and have impact on the energy supplies of the world at fertilizer supplies and all commercial ships, oil tankers. They're using these tactics because they want to gain leverage at the negotiating table. leverage that they can come sit across this table from the United States and say in exchange for opening the strait we want you to lift the sanctions against us or we want you to unfreeze billions of dollars of our assets that are frozen.

Farnaz Faci: So that's the key thing to remember is that there's a strategy behind the Iranian revolutionary guards moves.

Natalie Kitroof: Okay, you're starting to get into this, but let's talk about the actual terms of any deal. You said these generals are open to a real give and take with the American side. So what are they willing to offer and what do they want?

Farnaz Faci: The most important incentive for Iran, for its leaders and the revolutionary guards is to reach some sort of an end to hostilities and to get sanctions relief. Iran's economy was in shambles even before the war. its currency was plunging and inflation was skyrocketing and the war has just made everything worse and there's also on top of that an estimate of from 300 billion to1 trillion dollars of economic losses as a result of the war. In order for Iran to rebuild and reconstruct, it needs to lift sanctions and it needs to get access to its funds and sort of the global financial markets.

Natalie Kitroof: From Iran's perspective, basically the idea is, look, the United States and Israel have really destroyed a lot of our country. We need money to rebuild it.

Farnaz Faci: Exactly. We need money to rebuild it. We need money to improve the economy because one of the big sources of dissent and protests has been economically driven. And you know, one of the things that they've done is they've proposed a very detailed list of ways in which American companies can come to Iran and invest in Iran. For the first time in 47 years, the generals have gone to the Americans and said, "If there's a deal, your oil and shipping companies can come to Iran and invest in Iran. You can help us reconstruct and rebuild." And that's something that's never been done before. The senior Ayat had specifically banned all American companies from coming to Iran after the 2015 nuclear deal. And now the generals are doing away with that order.

Natalie Kitroof: They're actually, you're saying, talking about inviting the Americans in as investors, as collaborators. You're saying working with them to rebuild the country? Really?

Farnaz Faci: Yes. Exactly. These generals are basically appealing to President Trump's business side and dealmaking side. They're trying to create financial incentives for the Trump administration to engage with Iran, similar to what a lot of other countries have done.

Natalie Kitroof: Just fascinating. What about the other sticking points of any deal? For example, the big one, restricting the enrichment of uranium that the Iranians could use to build a bomb. Where do they stand on that?

Farnaz Faci: These are sticking points, Natalie, to what level Iran is willing to stop enriching uranium, whether it's going to be a suspension or shutting down its nuclear programs, and what it's going to do with the stockpile of highlyenriched uranium that it has. These are issues that have not been resolved. But I think the most important thing for Iran is to save face.

Natalie Kitroof: They don't want to look as if they've surrendered. President Trump really likes to keep saying that I have achieved something that no American president has achieved. have destroyed Iran's military and nuclear capabilities and he wants to say that the war forced Iran to capitulate and Iran is absolutely adamant whatever deal it reaches it's also able to save face and a lot of I think the tension is now around this idea that how do we reach a deal where we don't look like we gave something that we weren't willing to give before the war as a result of the war.

Natalie Kitroof: right and part of the tension there is that President Trump also needs to be able to save face and message to the American public that he actually got something out of this war and that what he got was better than the deal that had already been achieved under Obama to restrict and cap uranium enrichment in Iran. So both sides are dealing with that face saving impulse.

Farnaz Faci: Exactly. Both sides are dealing with that. President Trump also needs to be able to say that I achieved something from this very unpopular war as well.

Natalie Kitroof: Okay, let's talk about the straight of Hormuz, the million-doll question on everybody's mind. Will things go back to normal in the straight or does Iran and its leaders now see this as theirs to control as they see fit?

Farnaz Faci: Iran and its leaders view the straight of Hormos as their territory. They've now discovered that they can control it, that they can even threaten ships by suggesting there are mines at the bottom of the seas. And of course, insurance companies are not going to risk it. And that alone will upend the global shipping and energy and economy. So they now have a tool in their disposal and they're trying to figure out how to monetize it because they've calculated that if they told the ships that are passing through the straight of Hormos, they can make a lot more money than they do from their oil revenues.

Natalie Kitroof: Oh wow. So even here you see their pragmatism at work looking for money-making opportunities, calculating the best way to do that. Fernaz, what about Israel? because Israel's been this other major factor that's been affecting the negotiations. A potential Israeli attack is part of what's keeping the Ayatollah in hiding and really affecting the way the leadership works. Are the guards assuming that Trump can keep Israel from waging the kinds of attacks that we've seen destabilize these negotiations? How do they view Israel in this?

Farnaz Faci: They view Israel as a major threat that could still be a threat even after conventional war is over. Iran and Israel were engaged in a shadow war for many, many years that I've written about with my colleague in Israel, Ronan Bergman. Israel had assassinated multiple Iranian nuclear scientists and military commanders and done covert operations and attacks on military sites and nuclear sites. the threat of Israel will be there and also the threat that they might covertly try to assassinate the supreme leader or any other official. So I think that they believe that the United States has a lot of influence and power over Israel and that once there's a ceasefire it also extends to Israel but I don't think there's a guarantee that Israel is going to not continue the covert operations.

Natalie Kitroof: Got it. So essentially, Israel remains this big wild card and the negotiations are now stalled on the other sticking points. But can I ask what is the ideal realistic outcome of these negotiations for the people leading Iran right now?

Farnaz Faci: That's a really good question and the answer might surprise you. I think the generals leading the negotiations are looking at a kind of a deal that ends this limbo status they've been in with the United States for 47 years where Iran is not really at war with the US but there's this threat hanging over it. They keep saying we want a grand deal. We want to reach a big deal that will be the end of hostilities and it could sort of stabilize Iran if that happens. Now it's not clear whether that's going to happen or not. This is sort of the ideal situation for them that they have lasting peace, sanctions are removed, American companies come in, investments come in and Iran can stabilize economically as well as politically.

Natalie Kitroof: It's interesting. We did not get in Iran the kind of regime change that President Trump and his allies forecast and maybe imagined would come of this war. But just in terms of these negotiations, these peace talks, is the president right in some sense when he says that there are now more reasonable people in charge in Iran just in terms of reaching a deal.

Farnaz Faci: I think in some ways, yes. The president has said the war brought regime change in Iran. There's clearly not been a regime change. The Islamic Republic is still very entrenched and we still don't know how this new era of leadership is going to evolve when things stabilize when Moshaba comes out of hiding. Is he going to retain power? What that dynamic will be if the revolutionary guards get the money? How they're going to spend it? Are they going to rearm their proxies? And what the political repression in Iran is going to look like. the situation is very fluid, right? And of course, there's a risk that they're going to overplay their hands using all the levers that they think they have in negotiations.

Farnaz Faci: But on this very narrow question of whether the people sitting across the table from the American negotiating team are more motivated to reach a deal. I think yes, they are.

Natalie Kitroof: Well, Farnas, thank you so much. We really appreciate it.

Farnaz Faci: Thank you so much for having me, Natalie.