Will the Late Iranian Supreme Leader’s Son Succeed Him?

The king is dead, long live the king’s son? The Islamic Republic is reportedly crowning Mojtaba Khamenei, the 56-year-old son of the regime’s late supreme leader, as its next dictator. Mr. Khamenei is widely seen as a hawkish politician in his father’s mold. Ali Khamanei, who was killed on the first day of the war, had reportedly long favored his son as successor. The London-based anti-regime website, Iran International, is reporting, based on unnamed “informed sources,” that Mojtaba Khamanei has been crowned as leader. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is expected to run the country with even more aggressive methods than before the war if it survives, reportedly lobbied the Assembly of Experts to crown him as leader.The so-called Panel of Experts consists of 88 men with a religious background tasked, among other roles, with picking a supreme leader once the one in power is either incapable of fulfilling his duties, or dead.Earlier reports, echoed in Israel and America, claimed that many members of the Assembly of Experts were killed Tuesday in an Israeli air attack that destroyed the hall where they conduct official meetings. Fox News reported that the Israeli hit took place while the experts were taking a vote on picking the next leader. The state-owned news agency, Fars, denied the report, claiming that the place was empty when attacked, and that the vote was taken on line, rather than in the building. As neither report can be verified, it is unclear how many of the Assembly members actually ended up voting. An “election” to pick a new leader has taken place only once since the 1979 founding of the Islamic Republic. In 1989, the Assembly picked Ali Khamenei as leader after the death of the theocracy’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Unlike his predecessor, Ali Khamenei was not considered a religious authority. On paper, the Assembly of Experts’s role is three-fold. Its members are tasked with oversight over the Supreme Leader, removing him from power if necessary, and voting on a new leader. In reality, the group has lost much of its power a long time ago. No oversight ever took place, the leader has overshadowed the religious authorities, and even selection of the leader is prearranged behind the scenes. The IRGC, which controls large parts of the country’s economy, is the de-facto decision maker on most policy matters. Its power over a small group of three or four Assembly members who hold the deciding votes is enough to ensure that the new leader would be accepted.

Will the Late Iranian Supreme Leader’s Son Succeed Him?

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