The Iranian official talked of as a potential interlocutor with the Trump administration as soon as boasted that he personally beat protesters as a younger police commander in the Islamic Republic.
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of the Iranian parliament, has by no means been shy about his function in suppressing challenges to the Islamic Republic.
“Photographs of me are available showing me on back of a motor bike…beating (the protesters) with wooden sticks…I was among those carrying out beatings on the street level and I am proud of that,” Ghalibaf is heard saying in an audio recording from 2013 about protests years earlier.
In latest weeks, because the US-Israeli marketing campaign has killed many of Iran’s top leaders, he has emerged as one of probably the most senior surviving civilian figures, half of a shrinking pool of officers now shaping the nation’s response.
For the 64-year-old Ghalibaf, the safety of the Islamic Republic has at all times been the overriding precedence. His public remarks emphasize resistance, nationwide power, and the necessity to confront exterior stress fairly than compromise.
Little shock then that he’s now issuing declarations nearly each day by means of social media in defiance of the United States and Israel.
President Donald Trump stated Monday that the US was having “very strong talks” and was “dealing with the man who is most respected” in Iran, however declined to call him.
“We’re dealing with some people that I find to be very reasonable, very solid,” Trump instructed NCS’s Kaitlan Collins. “The people within know who they are, they’re very respected, and maybe one of them will be exactly what we’re looking for.”
Some experiences stated he was referring to Ghalibaf, who inside hours denied there have been any negotiations between Tehran and Washington.
He posted on X: “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.”
Throughout the battle, he has repeatedly used social media to goad Trump and exhibit a onerous line on Iran’s situations for ending the war.
“Certainly we aren’t seeking a ceasefire. We believe the aggressor must be punished and taught a lesson that will deter them from attacking Iran again,” he stated on X on March 10.
Ghalibaf was additionally distinguished earlier than the war broke out, warning that such a battle would unfold throughout the area.
“Any war in the region would not be short-lived and would not be confined to a single party or a specific geography,” Ghalibaf instructed NCS’s Frederik Pleitgen in late January.
Experts say he has connections throughout the regime’s facilities of affect that might afford him a vital function in any negotiated settlement.
“He is the guy running the show,” stated Hamidreza Azizi on the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
Ghalibaf is much less in ideology than energy and reveals a Machiavellian contact at instances, says Azizi added. “For him, the ends justify the means,” he instructed NCS, pointing to his shifting views by means of the years on financial and different points.
Across a lifetime of service to the Islamic Republic, Ghalibaf has develop into the consummate regime insider, unfailingly loyal to the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and supportive of its regional ambitions.
As a teenager, he joined the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) throughout the Iran-Iraq war in the Nineteen Eighties.
That marked the beginning of a lifelong affiliation with the IRGC, which has advanced into a highly effective drive to suppress dissent at house and venture Iran’s affect overseas.
Ghalibaf later commanded the IRGC’s air drive and has boasted about his expertise as a pilot. A video from October 2024 reveals him on the controls of an plane approaching Beirut amid Israeli air strikes.
Azizi described him as above all a “security first” official.
Ghalibaf was concerned in crushing of pro-reform scholar protests in 1999 and was amongst IRGC commanders who warned then-President Mohammad Khatami, a reformist, that the unrest threatened nationwide safety and will drive the Guards to intervene. He oversaw the suppression of additional scholar demonstrations in 2003 as police chief and held a senior safety function throughout the widespread protests that adopted the disputed 2009 election.
Yet Ghalibaf additionally has a fame as an efficient supervisor because of a 12-year stint as mayor of Tehran, throughout which he modernized the capital’s infrastructure and oversaw bold housing packages in addition to the creation of inexperienced areas.
Azizi, who lived in Tehran on the time, stated Ghalibaf projected a picture of managerial competence.
But his tenure as mayor was dogged by frequent allegations of corruption, which resurfaced 4 years in the past when his household got here underneath scrutiny over substantial property declared overseas.
Ghalibaf has lengthy harbored ambitions for greater workplace. He ran unsuccessfully for the presidency a number of instances however ended up splitting the conservative vote. In final yr’s election, he completed a distant third, with round 14% of the vote.
His energy base has as an alternative develop into Iran’s parliament, the place he has served as speaker since 2020, thanks in half to the assist of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an airstrike on the primary day of the war.
Throughout his profession, Ghalibaf has remained intently aligned with Khamenei and the IRGC, and has at instances clashed with different conservative figures, together with former President Ibrahim Raisi. He was an early supporter of Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba, who has now succeeded his father, even when the youthful Khamenei was thought-about a lengthy shot for the function.
Ghalibaf can also be tied to the brand new supreme chief by means of household. He is a relative of Mojtaba’s mom, who died of accidents sustained in the Israeli strike that killed her husband on February 28.
If he does tackle the mantle of negotiating on behalf of Iran, his record reveals that he’ll pursue deterrence and power fairly than compromise.