Iran's supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei has reportedly issued a final ultimatum to President Masoud Pezeshkian and backed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Ahmad Vahidi on negotiations and the war, according to Israeli media cited by LiveMint on Tuesday. [1] The paper treats that account as reported, not confirmed. No Iranian official statement released Tuesday verified the warning, the resignation threat, or Vahidi's new authority.
The paper's Monday standard on Iran saying there were no negotiations with the United States treated Baghaei's denial as the public line. Tuesday's Mint file does not replace that line. It claims a private fight over who may change it.
Channel 14, citing unnamed sources, said Khamenei weakened Pezeshkian by refusing to talk him out of another resignation attempt. Pezeshkian has reportedly threatened to resign during disagreements and sought to resign in May, saying his administration was "entirely sidelined" from national-security and foreign-policy decisions. [1] Iran International reported in June that he submitted a resignation letter. Tasnim, citing a government source, said he had "not resigned" and was still working. [1]
The Institute for the Study of War cited senior cleric Mohammad Bagher Kharrazi as saying Mojtaba formally warned that he would accept Pezeshkian's resignation if the president tried again, perhaps to stop resignation threats from being used as leverage. [1] That is a research shop quoting a cleric about a warning. It is not a decree on letterhead.
Mint also relayed a claim that Tehran has hardened toward Washington, that Vahidi's approach is becoming official policy, and that Iranian leaders believe Trump will not make a major policy shift before the November midterms. Contacts, the same report said, are largely limited to indirect notes between Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and U.S. envoys, with Qatar and Pakistan still mediating. [1]
X still prices Hormuz. Palace intrigue without a document does not move a tanker. A reader who only reads Mint will think the IRGC now holds the pen. A reader who only reads Baghaei will think nothing inside Tehran changed. Vahidi's name matters only if it appears on an order. Until then it is a reported preference. Pezeshkian's name matters because he is still, on Tasnim's last telling, the president who did not resign. [1] The gap between those two sentences is the story Mint wants to close with palace language. The paper will leave it open.
Indirect notes through Qatar and Pakistan are the same channel the paper has already watched fail to produce a public text. Calling them talks is how Washington fills a briefing. Calling them nothing is how Tehran fills a denial. Calling them reported intrigue is how an Israeli broadcaster fills a segment. [1] None of those descriptions is a signed ultimatum from Mojtaba Khamenei.
If the warning is real, it explains Baghaei's rigidity better than a pilgrimage. If it is not, it is wartime noise aimed at splitting a presidency the IRGC already outranks. [1] The paper can hold both hypotheses without picking a winner from Tel Aviv television.
The completed record is a reported ultimatum, a contested resignation history, and no confirmation from the leader's office. [1] The next edition should ask whether Pezeshkian is still president on the record. This one will not promote a Channel 14 item into a fact.
-- YOSEF STERN, Jerusalem