When Vice President J.D. Vance arrives Saturday in Islamabad for talks with the remnants of Iran’s regime, he will be negotiating with what the U.S. government believes is a five-man senior council that is effectively running the Islamic Republic, according to current and former U.S. officials.
This is the “new regime” that President Donald Trump pledged on Truth Social “to work closely with” in the coming days to negotiate the removal of more than 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium. This group, Trump says, is who is running Iran and making the decisions, and it is they who have agreed to end threats to international shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, despite the ongoing drone and missile fire that followed the announcement of the ceasefire, and the countervailing statements from official Iranian sources about what the ceasefire framework entails.
The council includes:
