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Akbar Novruz

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US President Donald Trump has questioned who currently holds effective authority in Iran, saying the country's senior leadership has been heavily depleted during the eight-month war with the United States and Israel.

Speaking at an event in Maryland on Tuesday, October 6, Trump said the loss of senior Iranian figures had created uncertainty in Washington over who was now directing the country.

“Their leaders are gone, their second group of leaders are gone, and the biggest problem I have is nobody knows who the hell is running the country,” Trump said.

Trump's remarks came amid continuing uncertainty surrounding Iran's leadership following the death of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the first day of the US-Israeli war against Iran on February 28.

Khamenei's son, Mojtaba Khamenei, subsequently succeeded him as supreme leader. However, he has not appeared publicly since suffering injuries in the same attack that killed his father.

Iran has rejected Washington's suggestion that its decision-making structure is unclear.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said on October 4 that US officials were well aware of their Iranian counterparts and understood how decisions were made in the country.

“The problem is actually the opposite: it lies in the contradictory positions and mixed messaging from US officials,” Baghaei said.

Questions over Iran's current command structure have nevertheless increasingly surfaced in statements by senior US officials.

Vice President JD Vance said Washington was communicating with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi but remained uncertain about how much authority they exercised within Iran's wider political system.

“One of the things we picked up on is it's not totally clear how their country makes decisions,” Vance said.

The comments come as the war that began on February 28 enters its eighth month.

Iran has responded to US-Israeli attacks with strikes against Israel as well as targets in Gulf states hosting US military facilities. US-Israeli strikes against Iran and Israeli military operations in Lebanon have meanwhile killed thousands of people and displaced millions.

Trump also signalled on Tuesday that Washington was approaching a decision over how to bring the conflict to an end.

“We have to finish up, and it's only a question of which way we want to do it: the nice way or the not-so-nice way,” Trump said, adding that a decision would become clear “pretty soon.”

The prolonged conflict is also having domestic economic consequences in the United States, particularly through higher fuel prices, as the country approaches November's midterm elections, when control of Congress will be contested.

Trump has faced pressure over the rising cost of gasoline and diesel while offering changing timelines and objectives for the military campaign against Iran.

Tehran, however, maintains that its political and institutional decision-making structures continue to function and has portrayed Washington's claims of uncertainty over the country's leadership as a reflection of contradictory messaging within the US administration rather than confusion inside Iran.