SRINAGAR: Iranian clerics have elected Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the country’s next leader, Iranian state media reported on Sunday, as Iran continues to face military strikes from the United States and Israel.
Mojtaba Khamenei was chosen by the Assembly of Experts, a body of 88 Iranian clerics, following the death of his 86-year-old father, who ruled the country for more than three decades. The United States confirmed that Ali Khamenei was killed in an airstrike on February 28.
Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, is the second son of the former supreme leader. The United States imposed sanctions on him in 2019, accusing him of exercising significant influence within the leadership despite “never being elected or appointed to a government position.”
CNN reported that a father-to-son succession is generally disapproved of within Iran’s Shiite clerical establishment because it resembles the hereditary monarchy that the 1979 Islamic Revolution overthrew.
Meanwhile, US officials said they do not plan to engage in diplomatic talks with Iran until the ongoing American military operation concludes. President Donald Trump has delivered mixed messages about the goals and timeline of the conflict, at times advocating regime change while also saying Washington’s aim is to remove Iran’s military threat.
Trump has also indicated he might allow the current system of governance to remain if a new leader agrees to US conditions. These reportedly include halting uranium enrichment capable of producing nuclear weapons, ending Iran’s ballistic missile programme and ceasing support for militant proxy groups.
Under Iran’s political structure, the supreme leader holds the highest authority in the country. The position carries constitutional power over the judiciary, the regular armed forces, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and state-controlled media.
However, the nature of Mojtaba Khamenei’s relationship with Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, remains unclear. The New York Times reported that Larijani had recently been granted broad authority to manage state affairs as the threat of US and Israeli military strikes intensified.
The US Treasury Department said Mojtaba Khamenei had worked closely with the IRGC and the Basij Resistance Force, a volunteer militia, to promote “his father’s destabilizing regional ambitions and oppressive domestic objectives.”
The IRGC is responsible for safeguarding the supreme leader and plays a key role in Iran’s military and security apparatus. Iran’s clerical leadership has also been accused of exporting the Islamic Revolution abroad by supporting proxy groups and conducting operations outside the country.
The IRGC and the Basij militia have additionally been linked to the suppression of protests in Iran, including a crackdown that reportedly led to the deaths of around 7,000 people during demonstrations between December and January.
“Mojtaba Khamenei has emerged as an enigmatic but powerful figure in the Iranian system,” United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), a nonprofit and nonpartisan policy organisation, wrote in an assessment.
Khamenei functions as “a combination of aide-de-camp, confidant, gatekeeper, and power broker,” UANI wrote. The organisation noted that his early life was shaped by his father’s revolutionary campaign against the then-ruling shah of Iran and the period when the elder Khamenei was forced into exile.
Khamenei also witnessed his father’s return to Iran after the 1979 revolution and his subsequent rise through the political hierarchy, during which the leadership expanded educational opportunities for families connected to the regime.
UANI said Mojtaba Khamenei served during the Iran-Iraq War in the Habib battalion, where he formed ties with individuals who later became senior figures in the IRGC.
Ali Khamenei became Iran’s supreme leader in 1989, and UANI wrote that his son gradually gained influence and standing during his father’s more than 30 years in power.
“Mojtaba, who is married to the daughter of former Speaker of Parliament Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel, is the most powerful of Iran’s supreme leader’s sons,” UANI wrote.
