One of the founding figures of Iran's IRGC Mohsen Rezaei has been appointed secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council — giving one of the country's most controversial senior figures formal authority over the institution responsible for Tehran's strategic decisions.
The appointment was made in a presidential decree signed by Masoud Pezeshkian on Sunday.
Hours earlier, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei had separately appointed Rezaei as his personal representative on the council.
With nearly five decades at the top of the Islamic Republic's security and military apparatus, Rezaei, 71, succeeds Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, a veteran IRGC commander who resigned after around four months in the post and was appointed as a political adviser to Khamenei.
Right after his appointment was announced, Rezaei has said publicly that Iran will not open a second shipping corridor in the Strait of Hormuz, that US warships entering the strait will be targeted, and that the war must end and Iran's frozen assets must be released before Hormuz can be reopened.
