Iran’s Supreme National Security Council brings together the country’s most powerful officials, but its workings are less straightforward than its name suggests, as even its secretary, often dubbed Iran’s security chief, does not automatically have a vote.
That distinction has come into sharper focus with Mohsen Rezaei’s appointment as secretary of the council. Rezaei was first appointed by Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei as one of his two representatives on the SNSC, giving him a constitutional seat and a vote. President Masoud Pezeshkian then appointed him secretary, putting him in charge of the council’s secretariat as well.
The order was notable, as in recent decades, the more familiar pattern had been for the president to choose a secretary first and for the Supreme Leader to subsequently appoint the same person as one of his representatives, effectively giving the secretary a vote.
With Rezaei, the process worked the other way around: Khamenei placed him on the council first, and Pezeshkian followed by making him secretary.
The move was welcomed by some hardliners as a sign that Pezeshkian was deferring to the new Supreme Leader and demonstrating his loyalty, amid lingering uncertainty over Mojtaba Khamenei’s authority after months out of public view.
The episode also highlighted something that is often lost in descriptions of the SNSC: being secretary and being a voting member are two separate things.
What is the SNSC?
The Supreme National Security Council was created in its current form when Iran’s Constitution was revised in 1989, shortly after the end of the Iran-Iraq war and the death of Islamic Republic founder Ruhollah Khomeini.
Article 176 of the Constitution gives it three broad responsibilities: determining defense and national security policies within the general policies set by the Supreme Leader; coordinating political, intelligence, economic, social and cultural activities related to national security; and mobilizing the country’s resources against internal and external threats.
Its remit is therefore much broader than military affairs. Questions involving war and peace, nuclear policy, negotiations with foreign governments, sanctions, domestic unrest, internet restrictions, intelligence matters and major regional security issues can all fall within its orbit.
The president chairs the council, but that does not mean the president controls it. The SNSC was designed to bring together several centers of power that do not answer to the president alone, including the judiciary, parliament, the armed forces and the Supreme Leader’s office.
And there is another important limit on its authority: its decisions do not become binding simply because the council approves them. Under the Constitution, SNSC resolutions take effect only after approval by the Supreme Leader.
Once approved by the Leader, no other state body, including parliament or the judiciary, has a formal veto over them.
Who are the permanent members?
Article 176 provides for 10 officials who hold seats on the council by virtue of their positions.
They are the president, who chairs the council; the speaker of parliament; the head of the judiciary; the chief of the Armed Forces General Staff; the official responsible for planning and budget affairs; two representatives appointed by the Supreme Leader; the foreign minister; the interior minister; and the intelligence minister.
Those 10 positions form the fixed constitutional core of the SNSC.
The two representatives of the Supreme Leader are particularly important. They are not representatives of the government or of another state institution. They sit directly on behalf of the Leader and have the same right to vote as the other constitutional members.
At present, those two seats are held by Saeed Jalili and Mohsen Rezaei.
Who can be added when needed?
The Constitution also names three additional categories of officials who can join the council depending on the issue being discussed.
These are the highest-ranking officer of the regular Army, the highest-ranking officer of the Revolutionary Guards, and the minister responsible for the matter under consideration.
That distinction matters because the Army and IRGC commanders are often casually described as permanent members of the SNSC. In practice, they attend many important meetings and may appear to be part of the council’s standing membership. Constitutionally, however, their participation is tied to the subject before the council.
When they participate in that capacity, they are members of the council for that discussion and have the right to vote.
The same applies to an additional minister. If the council is discussing an issue that directly concerns energy, communications, health, transport or another government portfolio, the relevant minister can be brought in as a member for that issue and can vote.
This means the number of voting members is not necessarily the same at every meeting. The council has 10 fixed members, but the number can rise depending on which military commanders or ministers are required for a particular discussion.
In June, Iranian state media reported that twelve out of the thirteen voting members of the Council voted to approve the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the United States.
Who can attend without a vote?
The SNSC can also invite other officials whose expertise or institutional role is relevant to a discussion.
That could include, for example, the head of state broadcaster IRIB, the central bank governor, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization, senior police officials, economic officials or military commanders who do not hold one of the positions specifically named in Article 176.
Their presence does not make them members of the council.
They may brief the SNSC, take part in discussions or answer questions, but they do not acquire voting rights simply because they have been invited to a meeting.
This creates an important distinction between three categories of people in the room: fixed constitutional members, issue-specific constitutional members who can vote, and invited officials who can participate but cannot vote.
Why the secretary is different
The secretary is one of the most visible figures associated with the SNSC and often acts as the day-to-day face of Iran’s national security establishment.
But there is an unusual feature in the Constitution: the secretary is not listed among the council’s members.
The secretary runs the secretariat, helps prepare meetings, coordinates between institutions, follows up on decisions and can be entrusted with major diplomatic or security files. The president appoints the secretary.
But that appointment alone does not give the secretary a seat or a vote.
For most of the SNSC’s history, this apparent gap has been resolved by giving the secretary another position at the same time: one of the Supreme Leader’s two representative seats.
That second appointment, not the secretaryship itself, is what gives the secretary voting rights.
The result has been a long-running arrangement in which one person usually wears two hats. He is the president’s appointee as head of the secretariat and, separately, the Supreme Leader’s representative as a voting member of the council.
That dual role also gives the secretary political weight that goes well beyond administration. He does not merely organize the meeting; he sits inside the decision-making body and speaks and votes as one of the Leader’s representatives.
Which appointment usually comes first?
There has never been a constitutional requirement that one appointment precede the other.
In recent decades, however, the most common pattern has been for the president to appoint a secretary and for the Supreme Leader to then appoint the same person as his representative.
That happened with Ali Shamkhani in 2013. President Hassan Rouhani chose him as secretary, and Ali Khamenei appointed him as one of his representatives shortly afterward.
The same happened with Ali-Akbar Ahmadian in 2023, when President Ebrahim Raisi appointed him secretary and Khamenei named him as his representative at around the same time.
When Ali Larijani returned to the SNSC in August 2025, Pezeshkian appointed him secretary first, and Khamenei subsequently gave him one of his two representative seats.
But this order has not been universal.
When Larijani first became SNSC secretary under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005, he was already one of Khamenei’s representatives on the council before the president appointed him secretary.
The same legal separation is visible in the case of Saeed Jalili. Ahmadinejad appointed him secretary in 2007, but he was not made one of Khamenei’s representatives until months later. After leaving the secretaryship in 2013, Jalili kept his seat as the Leader’s representative, showing clearly that the two offices are independent of one another.
The broader historical pattern is therefore not that the president always chooses first and the Leader follows. It is that the two positions have usually been combined, regardless of which appointment came first.
Zolghadr was the bigger institutional exception
If Rezaei’s appointment was unusual because of the order in which the two posts were assigned, Mohammad-Baqer Zolghadr’s short tenure earlier in 2026 was unusual for a more fundamental reason.
After Ali Larijani’s death in March, Pezeshkian appointed Zolghadr as secretary of the SNSC. But Zolghadr was not publicly appointed as one of the Supreme Leader’s two representatives.
That meant the two roles were separated in a way rarely seen in the council’s history. Zolghadr ran the secretariat but, on the publicly available record, did not hold a constitutional voting seat merely by virtue of being secretary.
The distinction became especially visible during deliberations over the Iran-US agreement in June, when a public account of the vote listed the participating members but did not include Zolghadr among those casting ballots.
Who has served as secretary?
Hassan Rouhani became the SNSC’s first secretary after the council was established in its current form in 1989. He served for about 16 years, spanning the presidencies of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, and became closely associated with Iran’s national security and early nuclear diplomacy.
Ali Larijani replaced him in 2005 under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Larijani was already one of Khamenei’s representatives on the council before becoming secretary. He served until 2007 and resigned amid disagreements with Ahmadinejad over Iran’s nuclear strategy.
Saeed Jalili succeeded him and served from 2007 to 2013. He became one of Khamenei’s representatives months after taking over as secretary and remained in that representative seat even after leaving the secretariat.
Ali Shamkhani was appointed by President Hassan Rouhani in 2013 and served for nearly a decade. Khamenei also appointed him as his representative, preserving the dual-role arrangement. Shamkhani became one of the most prominent figures in Iran’s regional diplomacy and remained secretary until 2023.
Ali-Akbar Ahmadian, a senior former IRGC commander, replaced Shamkhani under President Raisi in 2023. He too served simultaneously as secretary and as one of Khamenei’s representatives.
Ali Larijani returned for a second tenure in August 2025 after Pezeshkian appointed him secretary. Khamenei then appointed him as one of his representatives. Larijani remained in the role until his death in March 2026.
Mohammad-Baqer Zolghadr succeeded him and served for several months. Unlike his immediate predecessors, he was not publicly given one of the Leader’s two seats, leaving him without a vote in his capacity as secretary.
Mohsen Rezaei replaced Zolghadr in August 2026. This time the order was reversed: Mojtaba Khamenei first appointed Rezaei as his representative, and Pezeshkian then made him secretary.
How decisions are made
The SNSC is often described as Iran’s highest national security body, but it is better understood as a place where the Islamic Republic’s major power centers are brought together to negotiate and formalize policy.
The president chairs the meetings. The heads of parliament and the judiciary participate. Key ministers are present. The Armed Forces General Staff has a permanent seat. The Army and IRGC can join as voting members when required. The Supreme Leader has two direct representatives inside the room.
The precise voting procedures are less transparent than the membership rules. Article 176 establishes who belongs to the council but does not publicly lay out a single detailed voting formula for every type of decision.
In practice, deliberations can involve bargaining before a matter ever reaches a formal vote. Sensitive decisions may already have been discussed with the Leader’s office, the armed forces or other senior bodies before they come before the SNSC.
And even after a majority or other required threshold is reached, the process is not finished.
The Constitution says SNSC resolutions become effective only after the Supreme Leader approves them.
That gives the Leader influence at several points in the process. He sets the broad national security policies within which the council operates, appoints two voting members directly and retains the final authority to approve its decisions.
The president, meanwhile, controls another important part of the institution: he chairs the council and chooses the secretary who runs its day-to-day machinery.
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