INTREP360 INTELLIGENCE REPORT

05.06.2026

May 6^th, 2026

Greetings!

Fog of war is one thing. Fog of leadership in a time of war is quite another. Yet that is what we are seeing in Iran.

In many ways this fog is fast becoming the first line of defense for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its value to the regime — arguably — is beginning to eclipse Tehran’s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz.

Photo credit: Majid-Asgaripour / WANA News Agency. A man holds a flag with a picture of the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei & new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei in Tehran in an undated 2026 photograph.

We see its effect day in and day out in President Donald Trump’s statements. He keeps saying Iran wants to make a deal. In turn, whether here or on X or on TV media appearances, we keep asking who is the ‘they.’

Spoiler: Iran doesn’t want Team Trump to know the answer to that question. Nor do they want anyone else fully understanding who is in charge of Iran.

A lot has changed in the last 24 hours. Project Freedom was launched. Then — mere hours later — Trump reversed it. Today, erratic as ever, Trump initially said a deal with Iran was likely only to then threaten to bomb Iran if they didn’t agree to it.

We really are in Wizard of Oz territory here. Let’s get started unraveling it all & unveiling who is behind that curtain & why they don’t want to be seen.

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END OF OPERATION EPIC FURY?

Yesterday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Operation Epic Fury “is over.” He added, in announcing the beginning of Project Freedom — a U.S.-led effort to safely escort maritime shipping through the Strait of Hormuz — that the president had formally notified Congress of the end of Epic Fury.

Yet today, in Trump’s early morning Truth Social post, he said that if Iran reaches a deal with the U.S., then “the already legendary Epic Fury will be at an end.” The operative words being “will be at an end.”

Screenshot: Donald J. Trump Truth Social post; dated May 6^th, 2026.

So, which is it?

As Mark noted yesterday on Al Qahera News in Cairo, Egypt, Team Trump — so as to avoid the 60-day clock of the War Powers Act expiring — needs Operation Epic Fury to be technically over so as to avoid a confrontation with Congress.

Trump’s decision to backtrack on that is noteworthy because it likely, wittingly or not, gives us some insight into his frame of mind. More on that below. To that end, was it a Freudian slip? Or was it intentional messaging to the Iranians — especially to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei & Ahmad Vahidi, the head of the IRGC?

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WORD SALAD OR SUBLIMINAL MESSAGING?

When we first read Trump’s post — especially this phrase, “Assuming Iran agrees to give what has been agreed to” — our first thought was that it was word salad. Why would Iran have to agree to something if it was already agreed to?

Then, after pausing a bit, three explanations began to emerge to us that explain Trump’s headache-inducing choice of words. One is that he is signaling to Vahidi that we see you & we get that you are likely playing games as a delaying tactic.

The second is subliminal messaging to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian & Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, the Speaker of Iran’s Parliament, that it is now or never to prove that they can speak for all of Iran — with or without Vahidi’s blessing — and that they can deliver on a deal that includes an end to Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

The third?

Team Trump is perhaps lost in the leadership fog enveloping Tehran & they are trying to flesh out who is really in charge in Iran & who is the ultimate decision maker. Khamenei? Vahidi? Pezeshkian & Ghalibaf?

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A FOURTH DIMENSION?

We’d argue that there is a fourth dimension that is likely in play. Remember — as we have often pointed out here — Vahidi is the man with the guns. Men like Pezeshkian & Ghalibaf only wield political power.

Vahidi could — and at a time of his choosing — easily eliminate them. They would just be two more ‘martyrs’ to Iran’s cause.

Khamenei?

Certainly, he wields clerical power. However, that presumes he is alive and capable — meaning conscious — of ruling Iran & imposing his will on Vahidi.

Either way — meaning dead or alive — we highly doubt that he is exercising absolute power. One way or the other, as we argued here last week, Vahidi is controlling Khamenei — or using his ghost — like a puppet on a string.

Given Vahidi’s kinetic vice grip on power, we assess that it is more likely than not that Team Iran is collectively playing Team Trump as useful negotiating fools. If we are right, then the divide that many believe they are seeing between the clerics, political leadership & the IRGC is simply all designed as Kabuki theater.

If so, then the fog of leadership is intended to mask a unified military, diplomatic, & clerical approach to negotiating with Team Trump.

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SO, WHO IS THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN?

It isn’t likely — in our view — Khamenei. It certainly isn’t Pezeshkian or Ghalibaf. Rather, it is — as our regular readers already know — Maj. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi.

Photo credit: AP. Maj. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, the head of the IRGC, in an undated photograph.

Prior to February 28^th, that man behind the curtain was Khamenei’s father — the now dead Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Trump decapitated the clerics on Day 1, but he failed to eliminate their IRGC vanguard who are now firmly in control in Iran.

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WHY IS TEAM TRUMP FAILING TO SEE THROUGH THE FOG?

There are two likely reasons. One, because Trump’s special envoys to the Middle East — Steve Witkoff & Jared Kushner — are simply out of their league here. The Iranians — likely encouraged by the Pakistanis — are very good at telling Witkoff & Kushner what they believe Trump wants to hear.

More seasoned diplomats & military officials than they are would readily see through Iran’s Kabuki theater productions in Islamabad. It is clear Iran keeps trying to tap the U.S. out believing that domestic U.S. economic & political pressures — especially the upcoming November midterms — will cause Trump to cave.

The other reason is it’s intentional. Trump — ahead of his trip next week to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping — likely wants to buy more time before resuming kinetic military operations in Iran.

Doing it this way — meaning creating a new 30-day window to negotiate an overall final comprehensive peace deal — would (a) calm the oil markets & ease U.S. domestic gas prices and (b) give Trump leverage over Xi while he is in Beijing. Iran — prewar — accounts for roughly 11% of all Chinese oil imports.

There is, of course, one major problem with this approach if we are right. Iran — especially Vahidi — is failing to get Trump’s messaging here. Instead of fearing renewed U.S. military action, Vahidi is only becoming more emboldened to take a hardline approach — as evidenced by the IRGC’s ballistic missile attacks on the U.A.E.

In fighting Iran’s leadership fog with his own strategic ambiguity fog, Trump is likely making it much harder to reach any deal with Iran short of regime change.

Why?

Because this new delay — perhaps soon to be 30 more days if Iran agrees — is strengthening Vahidi’s stature & power inside of Iran.

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MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING

Initially the early reports on Trump’s purported one-page memorandum of understanding (MOU) that had been presented to Iran via Pakistani mediators, felt like the president was caving in to Iran’s negotiating demands.

Photo credit: Sarah Grillo / Axios. President Trump superimposed onto an Islamic Republic of Iran flag.

Especially since he reversed course so quickly by pausing Project Freedom just hours after it began. There are some dispatches suggesting Saudi Arabia was the reason. NBC reported that Riyadh had withdrawn permission to use its airbases to support the U.S. mission due to ongoing backchannel negotiating efforts by Pakistan.

If true, then this bears watching. There is an increasing rift between the UAE who is increasingly aligning with Israel & Saudi Arabia who for now — at least — appears to be tacking closer to Turkey & Pakistan.

The U.S. is trying not to take sides between two key Gulf State allies. If Saudi Arabia does peel away toward Pakistan — even just a bit — then that would be a huge win for Beijing. It would also explain Trump’s rapid U-turn today.

Yet — as the day went on — and reports about Trump’s negotiating redlines started being filed, it became clearer that Trump’s MOU was more likely than not a play for time. Not just for his trip to play out in Beijing, but perhaps to ease the growing tensions between the UAE & Saudi Arabia as well.

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TRUMP’S REDLINES

Trump himself during a UFC fighters’ event in the Oval Office — and no, we didn’t have UFC on our bingo card — said that Iran “can’t have nuclear weapons.” Plus, according to additional reporting in the Wall Street Journal, that also means completely dismantling the Isfahan, Fordow, & Natanz nuclear facilities — and agreeing to a ban of building any nuclear or military related underground sites.

Pickaxe Mountain wasn’t specified. But we concur with the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board that it must be included. Ditto destroying all of Iran’s plutonium capabilities & centrifuges — the devices used to enrich uranium.

The WSJ also reported that under the MOU, Iran must agree to turn over all of its enriched nuclear material. Not just the 440.9 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60%, but its stockpiles of 20% uranium as well.

That’s a start but more is needed. Iran, in our view, can never be allowed to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles and if peace is ever to have a chance in Yemen, Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq & Syria, then the IRGC’s funding, training & support of its Axis of Resistance proxies — including Hamas, Hezbollah & the Houthis — must end.

There should be another redline: the IRGC itself. They are the ones standing behind the fog of leadership in Tehran.

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RADIOACTIVE RINSE & REPEAT

Regime change still is a dirty word on Capitol Hill. Granted, even we are against regime change as a normal course of action. They seldom work out well — and aside from Iran, we have never advocated for regime change.

That said, nothing will change for the better in the Mideast — at least on a permanent basis — for as long as the IRGC is allowed to remain in power in Iran. Trump can end the immediacy of the Iranian nuclear threat now.

And he should & indeed he must.

However, unless he topples the IRGC, that nuclear threat — like a mythical Phoenix rising from a fire — will return. They’d also — at any time of their choosing — be able to close the Strait of Hormuz again.

Why afford them that option? Especially if it becomes a nuclear option?

We’ve come this far. Let the military finish the job — and give lasting peace a real chance throughout the Middle East.

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PROGRAMMING NOTE

Tomorrow, at 7 AM ET in our weekly Thursday national security column at The Hill in Washington, D.C., we argue that Team Trump & Iran are on the road to Abilene via Islamabad, Pakistan.

Abilene, you ask?

It’s a reference to the Abilene Paradox coined by Jerry Harvey in 1974. You can read it here when it goes live.

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Thank you for reading. We will see you tomorrow. Please subscribe, comment & share. We truly appreciate it!

Jon & Mark

Follow Jon on X at @JESweet2022 or on Bluesky at @JonSweet.bsky.social. Follow Mark on X at @MCTothSTL or on Bluesky at @MarkToth.bsky.social.