Ali Khamenei's remains were carried through red flowers and white butterflies floated in the heat of July finally to the vast prayer grounds of Tehran's Grand Mosalla 4 months after he was killed in the opening hours of the war Israel and the United States launched against Iran. Covered with the Iranian national tricolour flag, the coffin was placed under pictures of the man who ruled the Islamic Republic for thirty-seven years, surrounded by black banners of mourning and red banners to indicate martyrdom and the assurance of revenge. The workers spent days planting flowers and testing over six thousand overhead sprinklers which are installed throughout the square, to prevent a heat wave, which should reach temperatures of over 35 degrees Celsius when the gates open at six on Saturday morning.

What is happening over the next week isn't just a burial postponed by war. It's the most elaborate political theatrics the Islamic Republic has produced in years and as few observers think is without forethought. The body will lie in state over the weekend, pass through streets of Tehran on Monday, arrive in the seminary city of Qom on Tuesday, go to Iraq and be taken to the shrines of Najaf and Karbala on Tuesday and will be buried on July 9 at the Imam Reza shrine in the city of Khamenei's birth, Mashhad. Delegates from some 100 countries have been invited by Iranian authorities and organisers are estimating that between 15 and 20 million people will be descending on the capital alone, although officials have estimated numbers as high as 35 million across the country. Journalists are said to have been credentialed for it in a number of 14 thousand.

The dance has a message. Khamenei's body will be put on public display on July 4, the same day the United States celebrates 250 years of independence with a speech by President Donald Trump. In fact, Iran's parliament speaker and chief negotiator with Washington, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, announced the intention this week, saying he wanted the people to rally in numbers “that the nation's call for vengeance would echo in the ears of the world.” It is a remarkable coincidence for a government that at the start of the war lost its supreme leader, a large section of its top military command and, according to virtually all independent assessments, the backbone of its air defence system. A funeral designed to defy is likewise a funeral that is open to a challenge as to what is being defied and by whom.

That focus is now more on his 2nd son Mojtaba Khamenei, who was seriously injured in the Feb. 28 strike and was elected to replace his father soon after his assassination. Since then, he has not been seen in public. Four months have passed since he went silent, and Iranian officials insist he is recuperating and remains in charge of the negotiating team via written instructions, but persistent speculation in Washington, Jerusalem and among regional analysts has arisen over what the real situation is with his health and his command over the security establishment that runs the war effort. But, whether he is going to his father's funeral for the first time since the start of the war, he is not breaking the silence is being interpreted by Iran-watchers as close to a referendum on his hold on power. According to Iranian media quoting security officials, he could turn out to be one of the few major personalities not to attend; if the supreme leader, the most important figure in Iran, is not even going to his own funeral, it is a sign that something is wrong at the top, as several regional strategists argue this week's parade in Tehran is more of a sign of weakness than strength.

However, the list of foreign dignitaries shows that Iran continues to have a working, albeit smaller, diplomatic orbit. Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will head his country's delegation, which has been a major mediator between Washington and Tehran. China is expected to dispatch vice chairman of the National People's Congress's standing committee He Wei, while Russia will be headed by Dmitry Medvedev. The Indian delegation, led by Minister of State for External Affairs Pabitra Margherita and the Governor of Bihar, is measured, enough for India to maintain its involvement without over-committing to Tehran, and at a time when India's energy import and ties with Washington are in a precarious situation. Georgia, several Caucasian countries, and Afghanistan's Taliban government have also said they will be attending, as have what Iranian officials call about one hundred countries in various capacities. Rather surprisingly, the government delegations of the Gulf Arab states most directly affected by the opening weeks of war are not among the named guests. The oil and desalination facilities of those nations were hit hardest by the retaliatory attacks that followed Khamenei's assassination.

That economic wreckage is more of a window into what the war cost than is the funeral itself. Khamenei died on Feb. 28, in Israeli and U.S. strikes, when Brent crude was trading in the 72-dollar range. It climbed to more than 118 dollars within the span of two weeks, as Iran has shut down navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world's seaborne oil and a similar proportion of liquefied natural gas flows. By late April, Gulf production was cut by over a decade of combined production and QatarEnergy had to declare a state of force majeure on its exports, while the International Energy Agency (IEA) was describing the disruption as the worst in the modern history of the oil market, as Brent peaked at almost 121 dollars. Gas prices for Americans continued to rise to more than four dollars per gallon. Independent economists were predicting that the Federal Reserve's favorite inflation measure would reach four percent by year's end, double the Federal Reserve's target, and that the price of jet fuel had jumped more than two dollars a gallon as airlines rerouted around the closed Middle Eastern airspace that handles about 15 percent of the world's air traffic.

The impact on the people has been worse on the nations relying on the strait for fuel and food than on the combatants. The nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which rely on Hormuz for over eighty percent of their caloric intake, were hit by what researchers called a "grocery supply emergency," as consumer prices have risen by up to two hundred percent in some areas, before the retailers were able to airlift in their stock. Bangladesh, Pakistan and Vietnam were cited as some of the worst-affected economies due to the fuel crisis that ensued. Nepal's state-run oil company started to give rationed refills of cooking-gas. Even Brazil and Venezuela, the oil exporting countries that profited from the price hike, were good examples of the varied impact of the shock on the developing world.

That image has been pretty much turned upside down four months later and the flipside is part of this funeral story. Brent crude was trading around 72 dollars a barrel, nearly where it was before the war, and West Texas Intermediate at about 69 dollars a barrel on Friday. Traffic through the strait of Hormuz reached double pre-war levels with American naval assistance, the UAE have resumed exports to pre-war levels and Kuwaiti production has increased nearly three-fold since May, when there was an interim understanding between Washington and Tehran. Saudi Aramco has restarted sales to Asian customers and five supertankers loaded with nearly 10 million barrels of Saudi crude have already transited the strait in the last week alone. Markets, in effect, are pricing in that the worst of the confrontation is over, while American officials continue to warn that Tehran still wants to maintain control of the waterway and is a sticking point in the next round of talks in Doha, Qatar, which are mediated by Qatar and Pakistan. Those talks have since been stalled completely during the funeral and both sides have admitted that behind those formal negotiations, work continues quietly as they each wait for the end of the mourning period.

But what it's notable about, in light of that recovery, is how Tehran's funeral rhetoric is at odds with the actual arc of the war it is celebrating. Iran has seen the passing of its founding generation supreme leader, its key military chiefs out on strike and saw oil markets, currency traders and even its Gulf neighbors treating the impasse as if it were pretty much over and in favor of Washington. In that context, a funeral focused on millions of mourners and the language of vengeance is less about leverage than an effort to create the illusion of leverage at home, for an Iranian public that has experienced forty percent inflation, a collapsing rial and eight weeks of war, but mostly without guns. How much shorter or longer that chasm of hype and reality becomes will largely hinge on what happens when the tents are removed and the talks resume in Doha, and on whether Mojtaba Khamenei, never seen since February, will be able to convince both his own security forces and the mourners streaming the streets of Tehran this weekend that he is in control of what will follow.