Momentary Unity at a Funeral Masks Deep Divisions Among Iran’s Leaders
Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei’s absence has raised questions inside Iranian political circles about who is really running the country and allowed open divisions to fester.
Iranian officials standing next to the coffin of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. Credit... Arash Khamooshi/Polaris for The New York Times
Farnaz Fassihi has covered Iran for three decades living and traveling across the country. She was a war correspondent based in the Middle East for 15 years.
When Iran’s leaders and senior military commanders paid tribute to the slain supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the elaborate, weeklong funeral that began on Friday, it was supposed to be a display of strength, endurance and unity after war with the United States and Israel.
A military band played an anthem. Officials who had not appeared together in public since the war began months ago walked side by side: the president, the speaker of Parliament, the head of the judiciary, and top generals in the Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Missing, notably, was Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who succeeded his father as the new supreme leader and who has not been seen in public since his appointment in March.
