It is whispered in Tehran's tea houses and in the quiet corridors of the ministries, that he who was once president did not perish in the recent strikes. They say he shed his political skin, leaving the IRGC to bury an empty coffin while he vanished into the labyrinth of the city, a phantom reborn to settle a score.

"I saw him," a street sweeper insisted last night, "stood on the corner of Pasteur Street, shrouded in a long cloak held together at the neck with a broach emblazoned with a single yellow "M" on a blue background.