The world is now 26 days into a war it didn’t want and can’t afford – one that has devoured over 3,000 lives across the Middle East and burned through hundreds of billions of dollars.
It has shocked global energy markets into a crisis – benchmark Brent crude has stayed above the US$100 red line for 12 consecutive days – and triggered a humanitarian catastrophe, displacing over four million people across the region.
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On Monday Donald Trump teased an end to the US-led war. “Nobody knows who to talk to, but we’re actually talking to the right people… they want to make a deal so badly” he said, throwing another curveball into a wartime narrative that has zigged as often as it has zagged.
Trump would not reveal the identity of Washington’s potential partner, or even future head of state, in this barely-disguised regime change op. But such information rarely stays a secret.
Reports named Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf – the 64-year-old who called Trump a “filthy criminal” and vowed to make him “beg for mercy” – as the President’s ‘right person’ in Tehran. Trump told CNN‘s Kaitlan Collins his ‘partner’ is “very reasonable, respected”.
Ghalibaf has personally denied any talks with Washington.
On X he said, “No negotiations have been held with the US, and fake news is used to manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped.”
Screenshot from X post by @mb_ghalibaf
But then again he would say that, for to admit to a power grab paints a bright red bullseye on his back.
Who is Mohd Ghalibaf?
Born to Kurdish-Persian parents in 1961 near Mashhad, a Shiite pilgrim hub in Iran’s northeast, Ghalibaf is an expert in human and political geography. He married Zahra Sadat Moshir in 1982 – their wedding officiated by Khomenei – and has three children.
CNN described him as a ‘war veteran with a record of suppressing dissent’, marking him out straight away as a choice at odds with Trump’s professed support for civilians targeted by the Iranian regime in the December-January protests.
Mohd Bagher Ghalibaf (File)
But his standing for presidential elections five times between 2005 and 2024 indicates he is looking for a position of power, and could, therefore, be open to cutting a deal with Washington.
The choice, though, may have been driven by necessity rather than idealism, having assassinated a clutch of senior Iranian leaders over the past 26 days, beginning with Khamenei and his right-hand man, national security chief Ali Larijani.
Multiple Middle East experts have said Ghalibaf has connections across various power centres, including the IRGC that many believe is waging war on autopilot and a political base at the Parliament. “He is the guy running the show,” Hamidrez Azizi from the Berlin-based German Institute for International and Security Affairs told CNN.
The war hero + mayor past
A battle-hardened combat pilot and military intelligence operative, Ghalibaf fits the Iranian conservative stereotype – wartime past, served in the Revolutionary Guards Corps, and loyal to Khamenei. But he is also ‘pragmatic’ and a ‘technocrat’, a doctorate in political geography and a past role as Mayor of Tehran for 12 years, indicating familiarity with real-time governance.
His time as Mayor saw positive progress on the city’s infrastructure and housing fronts, improving and expanding urban transportation and building entire residential neighbourhoods.
But it was also marred by corruption scandals that dented his ‘competent manager’ image.
He is a “quintessential insider: ambitious.. yet fundamentally committed to the preservation of Iran’s Islamist order”, Ali Vaez, a senior analyst at Brussels-based International Crisis Group told Politico.
But that simultaneously makes him an unlikely option for Washington, and certainly not if Trump expects to extract concessions around Iran’s nuclear programme and/or the Strait of Hormuz.
His is a “security first” approach, Azizi said, pointing to violent putdown of student-led, pro-reform protests in 1999 and again in 2003.
Even if Ghalibaf would want to do this, he would almost definitely be held back by Tehran power centres that have become even more deeply distrustful of the Americans since Feb 28.
The Trump-Ghalibaf fit
For Trump, Ghalibaf is a critical cog in his Iran project, the pivot from prolonged military aggression that is drawing heat back home to a point where the US could potentially walk away from the Middle East after another ‘successful’ regime change operation.
Ghalibaf, a Trump administration official told Politicocould also be the President’s Delcy Rodriguez in Tehran. Rodriguez was installed by Washington as the Venezuela President after US forces captured Nicolas Maduro.
“It’s all about installing someone like a Delcy Rodríguez… we say, ‘We’re going to keep you there. We’re going to not take you out. You’re going to work with us. You’re going to give us a good deal, a first deal on the oil,’” the official said.
Trump wants Ghalibaf to be Iran’s Delcy Rodriguez, officials claimed (File)
Could that work? Maybe.
But Ghalibaf would certainly not be as pliable in Washington’s hands as Rodriguez appears to be. And that assumes Trump can make good on any promise to install Ghalibaf as the new Iranian leader, particularly with the IRGC and the regime’s hackles raised.
There have also been suggestions Ghalibaf may be a smokescreen, a way for Trump and the US to buy time to get oil prices down and get some of the domestic and international pressure off the White House’s back. “He’s definitely buying time…” a Gulf official told Politico, “What’s harder to know is if he’s serious about an off-ramp or if he’s putting unrealistic demands out there so that Iran will say no.”
In any event, Ghalibaf may not be the only ‘right person’ Washington is talking to.
The New York Times, citing unnamed officials, also said there had held “direct communication” between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff “in recent days” – although neither side has confirmed this.
Both the Foreign Minister and the Speaker have reportedly been offered ‘immunity’ by the US during the five-day pause in hostilities.
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