A pillar of the Iranian establishment for some three decades and one of its most prominent non-clerical figures, Ghalibaf, 64, has spearheaded the war effort and now leads the high-stakes negotiating process.

Ghalibaf survived more than five weeks of US-Israeli attacks on Iran that killed supreme leader Ali Khamenei, top security official Ali Larijani and a host of other key officials.

He also came into public view for the first time in weeks last weekend to lead the Iranian delegation in talks in Islamabad with the United States, meeting Vice President JD Vance, the highest level contact between the two foes since before the 1979 Islamic revolution.

An image published on social media by Iranian embassies abroad put Ghalibaf centre stage in the Iranian negotiating team, looking animated and gesturing with his hand, as Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi busied himself with the tea cups.

The workings of the Iranian leadership without Khamenei, who dominated it for nearly four decades, remain unclear.

Khamenei's son Mojtaba was named as his successor but has yet to appear publicly amid reports he was wounded in an air strike.

"Following Larijani's assassination, Ghalibaf has emerged as the new public face of the Islamic republic's war effort and diplomacy," said Farzan Sabet, a managing researcher at the Geneva Graduate Institute.

"But we shouldn't overstate the extent to which he's in the driver's seat: He still answers to higher powers in Tehran," he added.

These include Mojtaba Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards, Iran's ideological army, where Ghalibaf was a key figure as aerospace forces commander, Sabet said.

- 'Professional bargainer' -

The trip to Islamabad marked Ghalibaf's first appearance in public since before the war, although he has kept a high profile with almost daily social media posts.

His posts on X in idiomatic American English have garnered wide attention and raised questions over who is actually writing them, given Ghalibaf is not known to be a fluent English speaker.

Referring to threats of a ground invasion, a post on Ghalibaf's X account said on April 1: "You come for our home... you're gonna meet the whole family. Locked, loaded and standing tall. Bring it on."

The IranWire news site has said the posts appeared to have been written by a former adviser based in the United States, but this has not been confirmed.

But while the Islamabad talks failed, The Washington Post reported that Ghalibaf left a striking impression on the US delegation after years when Washington never dealt directly with key Iranian decision makers.

Ghalibaf "impressed the American team as a refined and professional bargainer -- and potential leader of a new Iran", said the Post.

- 'Ambitious and opportunistic' -

Ghalibaf's varied experience, which spans military and civilian life, has seen him work as a commander in the Revolutionary Guards, Tehran police chief, Tehran mayor and now speaker of parliament.

It is unclear if he is fully trusted by the new hardline hierarchy of the Guards, including commander-in-chief Ahmad Vahidi and Larijani's successor as national security council chief, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr.

Known to be fiercely ambitious, he has stood for the Iranian presidency on multiple occasions but has never been successful, most notably in 2005 when the ultra-conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, little-known at the time, took the presidency.

A qualified pilot, Ghalibaf is known for boasting that he is able to captain jumbo jets.

Human rights groups have accused Ghalibaf, in his various functions, of playing a key role in suppressing protests, from the 1999 student demonstrations through to the 2009 Green movement that erupted after a disputed election, right up to the nationwide protests that peaked in January 2026.

"As a politician he's shown himself to be ambitious and opportunistic, but also cautious, a trait that has helped him advance his career to the top of the Islamic republic's power structure without getting purged like so many others have been," said Sabet.

"So he will show some flexibility to test Washington's redlines and see if he can extricate Tehran from the war, but will still largely colour within the lines and ensure his negotiating positions have buy-in from the key players back home," he added.

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