Rezaei Takes the Security Council’s Chair and the Leader’s Seat On It, Both Announced Sunday
Tehran published two separate appointments for Mohsen Rezaei on 9 August — executive head of the Supreme National Security Council, and the Supreme Leader’s representative to it. Most wire coverage has run them together as one job.
Presidency spokesman Mehdi Tabatabaei announced the first on X: “In light of the resignation of Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr from his position as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and his appointment to new functions, President Masoud Pezeshkian has named Mohsen Rezaee as the head of this body.” Rezaei, 71, commanded the Revolutionary Guards from 1981 to 1997, a tenure covering almost the whole of the Iran–Iraq war, before holding a series of senior political posts. Separately the same day, an account attributed to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei published a decree: “Dr Mohsen Rezaee, considering your valuable experience, I am hereby appointing you, who were one of the first commanders in the triumphant 8-Year Sacred Defence, to be my representative in the Supreme National Security Council.” CNN reported the decree closed with “I wish you every success in carrying out this important responsibility,” and that Khamenei thanked Zolghadr for his “tireless efforts.”
Zolghadr’s tenure was short and inherited. UPI reports he had held the secretaryship since his predecessor, Ali Larijani, was killed in an Israeli air strike in March, and that he will now serve as political adviser to Khamenei. CNN’s live file places the change “just days after Zolghadr issued a list of conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz” — a sequence, not an explanation; no source on the record connects the two. “Resignation” is the presidency’s word and no other party has characterised the departure. The appointments were carried by AFP-sourced outlets including Arab News, the Manila Times and the Times of Israel liveblog, as well as CNN, UPI and ANI, none of which reported a competing account of who now holds which post.
Assessment: If both announcements stand as written, the same man now supervises the council on the Leader’s behalf and runs it. That removes the internal friction the SNSC was designed to contain, and it does so at the one node that would have to ratify any Hormuz arrangement — which is the connective tissue to the pricing question this desk has been tracking. Two things to hold loosely: the decree rests on a social-media account attributed to Khamenei rather than a state-gazette text, and the tidy story in which Zolghadr was removed for publishing conditions on the strait is inference, offered by nobody with a name. A wartime Guards commander at that desk is a signal about who Tehran wants across the table, not evidence of a decision already taken.