Former Revolutionary Guard commander Mohsen Rezai takes over as head of Iran’s security apparatus

Former Revolutionary Guard commander Mohsen Rezaei has become the head of Iran’s highest security body, the Supreme Security Council, where he will now serve as secretary and representative of the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Mokhtaba Khamenei.

Rezaei, 71, becomes the main link between the military, the government, and the clerical establishment that governs the country, having held positions of enormous importance within the Iranian political structure during his long career: in addition to commanding the all-powerful Revolutionary Guard, he has been vice president for economic affairs and secretary of the Expediency Discernment Council, a liaison between Parliament and the Guardian Council, which is responsible for vetoing presidential candidates and members of the Assembly of Experts that ultimately elects the Supreme Leader.

Therefore, and considering “his valuable experience,” Khamenei has appointed the former commander to head this body with the blessings of the country’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, and another key figure, the Speaker of Parliament and chief Iranian negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Qalifab.

Rezaei’s predecessor, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, will now occupy a highly prestigious position as a political advisor to Ayatollah Khamenei. It should be recalled that Zolghadr assumed the leadership of the Supreme Security Council after the previous head of the body, former nuclear negotiator, and former Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani was killed in an Israeli attack during the US-Israeli strikes against Iran earlier this year.