The Khamenei 2.0 era began, after the appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his father at the head of the country’s destinies. The risks are immense and, for the even harder-line regime to move forward, it will first need to survive the attacks that are yet to come
Given Ayatollah Khamenei’s advanced age, the issue of the succession of Iran’s supreme leader had been the subject of intense debate for several months, if not years – and, throughout them, the name of Mojtaba Khamenei, son of Ali Khamenei, was always highlighted as one of the most possible successors. The point is that – as the highest representative of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which deposed half a century of monarchy, Khamenei Sr. saw the dangers of a dynastic succession at the heart of the theocratic regime.
However, the priorities and urgencies are different. And after a week of leadership vacuum, following the death of Ali Khamenei at the age of 86 in a US and Israeli airstrike on Tehran, the 88 clerics responsible for electing his successor concluded the selection process at the start of this week. At 56 years old, he, Mojtaba Khamenei, is the new supreme leader of Iran.
Like his father, Mojtaba was born in the city of Meshed, ten years after the Islamic Revolution that deposed the Pahlavi dynasty and led the Khamenei family to move to Tehran. Upon reaching adulthood, Mojtaba participated in the war between Iran and Iraq, joining a unit of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC); Many of its members would end up occupying important positions in the regime’s security services over the following decades.
It was also throughout these decades that the influence of Mojtaba Khamenei – who, in recent years, was part of the ‘Beit’, the 4,000-man court responsible for supervising the Supreme Leader’s rule over the State –, a mix of advisor, political intermediary and guardian of the regime’s networks of influence, progressively increased. 16 years ago, the now top Iranian leader was already described as “the main gatekeeper” of the supreme leader and “the power behind the robes” of the regime, with Washington viewing Ali Khamenei’s second eldest son as the most powerful political decision-maker among the “informal” officials of the theocratic regime.
More recently, in 2019, it was the target of international sanctions imposed by the first Trump administration, on accusations of promoting the regime’s repressive policies and supporting Iran’s regional ambitions. More recent investigations, such as , refer to the “empire” of investments and real estate properties created by Mojtaba, which stretches from London to Frankfurt and Dubai.
With his coming to power, a new chapter opens in Iranian politics that critics of the regime reject – and that his supporters say is more necessary than ever, given the extraordinary times of war.
“The general feeling is that, whoever is elected, we will follow him now, not because it is this or that specific person but because, for now, we will trust the body responsible for the election”, Raza Mehdi, a 40-year-old Pakistani who has lived for more than 10 years in the Iranian city of Qom, where he studies Islam, told CNN Portugal a few days ago. “Later, when the war is over, when there is peace, people may begin to oppose [a Mojtaba]that is a possibility – but at the moment the feeling is that he will be followed.”
“We believe that father and son are no different from each other,” counters Z., an Iranian in her 30s who fled Tehran after the first US and Israeli attacks. “I don’t think anyone will recognize the legitimacy of the new leader except a small number of supporters.”
Few credentials do not deter supporters – for now
There is an obvious and immediate reading to be made of this choice: despite all the attacks and threats, the Iranian regime remains defiant – and, in the context of war, it seems to be the Revolutionary Guard who is dictating all the moves.
As he indicated this Monday, “unlike his father, who had the final say, Mojtaba will likely be seen as a figurehead – his succession demonstrates that control is in the hands of the IRGC, the defenders of the Islamic Republic.”
This only promises to “frustrate reformists, who perhaps hoped to have a regime of their own,” the magazine continues, and “many clerics will also be disappointed” because “dynastic succession in what purports to be a theocracy will be deeply unpopular among those who still believe in the ideals of a revolution that overthrew a hereditary monarchy.”
Perhaps this explains why the council of 88 clerics responsible for electing the supreme leader took more than a week to reach a decision. Fueling the possible internal disputes may also be doubts about the religious qualifications of Mojtaba Khamenei, who allegedly holds only the title of ‘hojatoleslam’, an intermediate level in the Shiite clergy, lower than the status of ‘ayatollah’ traditionally associated with the role of supreme leader; Between one level and another there is also that of ‘mujtahid’, a recognized source of religious authority – and to achieve this it is necessary to produce and defend a kind of religious thesis that Mojtaba never published.
There are still questions about whether the man who has just been proclaimed supreme leader of Iran is, in fact, alive. Mojtaba has not been seen since February 28, the day of the first air strikes on Iran – which hit the heart of the regime, killing his father and mother, as well as his wife and one of his children, grandchildren, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law – which has fueled some speculation about his death.
But it is possible that, instead, a man already shielded from the public eye, of whom very few images are known and who is described by those who know him as modest and shy, continues to hide in an underground shelter in order to protect himself from a possible assassination – quite possible, considering the threats already and also by the US from Trump, who continues to insist that .
If Mojtaba survives any assassination attempts, none of this may matter to most supporters of the theocratic regime – including the tens of thousands of troops, security forces and members of the IRGC responsible for protecting the legacy of the Islamic Revolution. Especially because, immediately, according to observers cited in the international press, what this war has already achieved is to increase the cohesion and unity of the regime, as had already happened after the so-called 12-Day War, in June of last year.
A bolder regime seeking revenge
“I don’t see any possibility of a regime change,” Pakistani Raza Mehdi told CNN Portugal, from Karachi, where he had traveled days before the first attacks on Tehran. “When there is peace, people criticize the government, but when an attack like this happens in Iran, as has happened in the past, the Iranian people come together – so no, I don’t see any possibility of regime change.”
Medhi adds that even members of the younger generation, who tend to be more critical of the regime, are aligned with their elders in supporting the theocracy. “An Iranian friend told me that Gen Z, who previously could not understand why parents and grandparents fought against the United States and chanted anti-America slogans, have now joined their elders because there is no justification for these attacks or the assassination of Khamenei [pai].”
At the end of 10 days of attacks there are few signs of defections, observers indicate, and there appears to be a renewed cohesion and determination of the regime, with IRGC generals conducting the war without civilian supervision and the military supplanting the clerics who, under the Islamic Constitution, must govern Iran.
“Khamenei’s death freed them,” an Iranian businessman in exile tells the Economist. “They [clérigos à frente do regime] they are more militant, more nationalist and more daring.” The statement is corroborated by an intelligence report on the Gulf region, published last Thursday, on the fifth day of attacks, in which it was noted that, “contrary to initial intelligence calculations, large segments of the Iranian military leadership remain operational”.
A report compiled by American intelligence agencies shortly before the war had already concluded that an attack on Iran would be unlikely to overthrow the regime – despite Trump having one of his supposed objectives, before changing his mind and saying that he would continue to have a religious leader, as long as he “treats the US and Israel well”.
With the attacks and bombings in various parts of Iran, there is another hypothesis that seems to have been buried in the rubble. Before this war, there was a suspicion among Western intelligence services that, if Mojtaba Khamenei came to power, he could become the Iranian version of Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, who, as soon as he came to power, freed himself from clerical control and softened the confrontation with Israel, moving closer to Washington.
But given the murder of almost all members of the Khamenei family, it is very likely that this hypothesis has been extinguished forever. Especially because there are already sources close to guaranteeing that Mojtaba will follow a “hard line”, as tough or tougher than that of his father, maintaining enmity towards the USA and Israel, resistance to any type of internal reforms and the consolidation of control of the IRGC.
“The world will miss his father’s era, Mojtaba will have no alternative but to show an iron hand – even if the war ends, there will be severe internal repression,” a regional official close to Tehran. “Mojtaba is even worse and more hardline than his father,” Alan Eyre, a former American diplomat specializing in Iran issues, told the same agency. “You will have a lot of revenge to execute.”
Before that, however, he will first have to survive the war.
