Iran Ousts Top Security Official Tainted by Spy Scandal

Beyond that, the hard-line faction now in control of Parliament and the presidency saw him as too close to the previous governments, which were centrist and reformist, and so did not trust him.

“There was pressure building on Mr. Khamenei from the hard-line faction and public opinion to remove Mr. Shamkhani,” Gheis Ghoreishi, a political analyst close to the government, said in a telephone interview from Iran. “He resisted for a while but the lobbying became too loud.”

In announcing the dismissal, Mr. Khamenei said he was appointing Mr. Shamkhani as a member of the Expediency Council, which largely advises the supreme leader. The appointment is viewed as largely ceremonial; in past years other officials who had fallen out with Mr. Khamenei, including former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have also been named to the council to save face.

Mr. Shamkhani’s ability to weather the spy scandal storm for as long as he did may have been the result of an agreement between Mr. Khamenei and the Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, analysts said.

“There was a give-and-take deal between the government of President Raisi and the supreme leader to allow Mr. Shamkhani to redeem his public standing after the Akbari scandal with the Saudi deal,” one political analyst, Sasan Karimi, said in an interview from Tehran.

In a separate decree on Monday, Mr. Khamenei gave the Supreme National Council post to Gen. Ali Akbar Ahmadian, 62, a former deputy commander in chief of the Guards naval unit and a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war. He was described by Iranian media as a top military strategist who was also in charge of coordinating the armed forces of the Guards.

Although Mr. Khamenei always has the last word on important state policies, from negotiations with the United States to the domestic uprising against the ruling clerics, the role of the national security adviser is influential, analysts said. General Ahmadian does not have much experience in foreign policy or domestic national security issues.

“Shamkhani’s successor has no experience working with anyone outside the military,” said Ali Vaez, the Iran director for the Crisis Group. “It’s a steep learning curve. There may be a reset or delays on key issues such as the future of the nuclear deal, the detainee negotiations with the U.S. and regional diplomacy.”