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Iran’s top clerics have chosen Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the slain supreme leader, as his father’s successor in a move that signals the Islamic republic is likely to maintain its hardline policies towards the US, Israel and the west.
The 56-year-old, who has close ties to Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, was appointed just over a week after American and Israeli air strikes killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the veteran supreme leader’s compound in Tehran, as they launched their war against the Islamic republic.
Some Iranian analysts had thought the regime would hold off announcing a new supreme leader until after the war ended, as Khamenei is now likely to be a prime candidate for US and Israeli strikes. But his appointment is likely to be viewed as an act of defiance against US President Donald Trump, who this week described Khamenei as a “lightweight”.
Shortly before Khamenei’s appointment, Trump warned that if the new leader “doesn’t get approval from us, he’s not going to last long”.
“We want to make sure that we don’t have to go back every 10 years, when you don’t have a president like me that’s not going to do it,” Trump told ABC News.
The president, who has claimed that US and Israeli strikes have killed at least 49 Iranian leaders, last week said he would choose “a GREAT AND ACCEPTABLE leader” after Iran’s “unconditional surrender”.
Analysts said the announcement of Khamenei as the republic’s third supreme leader is a sign that Iran, which has wreaked havoc across the oil-rich Gulf by targeting Washington’s Arab allies in retaliation for American and Israeli bombardment, will continue to resist.
As supreme leader, Khamenei will have the final say on whether Tehran fights on or seeks an off-ramp.
“This is a signal that the regime in its current form has no inclination to compromise and they intend to resist at all costs,” said Sanam Vakil, Middle East director at UK think-tank Chatham House.
The Revolutionary Guards, the most powerful and influential military force in Iran, said Khamenei’s appointment was “another rise and the beginning of a new phase” in the history of the Islamic republic. It vowed to be his “soldier and powerful arm”.
Khamenei had been considered a candidate for the top post for almost two decades. But Iranian analysts believed that the fact that he was the supreme leader’s son would work against him, as many in the ruling establishment would be loath to be seen as reverting to the dynastical rule of Iran’s shahs.
But Vakil said that changed with the outbreak of the US-Israeli war against the republic as “the system is looking to showcase continued resistance”. She added that because the supreme leader was killed and the regime is facing an existential threat, “Mojtaba represents collective interests”.
Ali Larijani, Iran’s top security official, said: “Today, the presence of the new leadership must be a symbol of national unity.”
Khamenei’s fate and whereabouts have not been known since his 86-year-old father, who had ruled Iran since 1989, as well as his mother, wife, sister, brother-in-law and niece, were killed in the US and Israeli strikes at the start of the war.
Khamenei kept a low profile before the conflict and his exact political role has never been formally explained. But he is believed to have worked closely with his father.
Under the republic’s unique theocratic system, in place since the 1979 Islamic revolution, the supreme leader wields enormous power and is the ultimate decision maker on all key foreign and domestic policies.
It is based on the doctrine of the Velayat-e Faqih rooted in Shia Islamism that is used to justify clerical rule under a supreme leader.
Some Iranian analysts have previously speculated that if Khamenei did succeed his father, he could implement extensive reforms in close co-operation with the Revolutionary Guards.
Others, however, have said that as the son of the late supreme leader he would be less likely to usher in the change that many Iranians want to end the country’s perennial crises.
Khamenei was elected by the Assembly of Experts, a body made up of 88 clerics that held secret meetings to avoid being targeted. Last week, Israel bombed the assembly’s office in the holy city of Qom.
After Khamenei emerged as the frontrunner last week, Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said on X that every new leader “will be an unequivocal target for elimination” and that it “does not matter what his name is or the place where he hides”.
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