Khamenei Jr. replaces slain father as Supreme Leader

Iran’s Assembly of Experts cast their votes and announced their election of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s successor. After much deliberation, they have chosen Mojtaba Khamenei, the second-eldest son of the former supreme leader killed in the first round of offensive US-Israeli strikes. This is no doubt a thorn in the side of the American Trump administration.

An inauguration ceremony held on 9 March during which members of the security apparatus, including the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Artesh (conventional armed forces), and the Basij, all pledged their allegiance to the new head of state.

Khamenei out of the shadows

This choice of leader is about more than ‘keeping it in the family.’ Moreover, it laughs in the face of Trump for believing he could ever pull the levers of such a decision.

However, Mojtaba, a 56-year-old cleric and veteran of the Iraq-Iran war, is not the heavy-hitter his father was. He has never held an official title. He is widely known as the “man behind the curtain.”

Nevertheless, Iran’s shadow has come into full view. For years, pundits and US officials alike, long argued that Khamenei Sr. had “delegated” leadership responsibilities to Khamenei Jr. Khamenei junior is said to have been working in lockstep with IRGC and Basij commanders. In that sense, Mojtaba was the surest choice. The fatal strike on his father’s compound also killed his mother, wife, and son.

Trump’s backslide

Much to the dismay of Iran’s foes, for now, the “snake” – as they call it –  has grown a new head. Billions of dollars expended by warhawks in Washington and Tel Aviv salivating at the prospect of a rubbled Iran, and for what? All to land back on square one.

Is this the war Trump claims is going “very well”? Notwithstanding what the Republican cultish leader thinks or wants the world to think, Iran will not bow for his or anyone else’s convenience. The crowning of Mojtaba reminds those waging this unprovoked war of this fact.

It’s ultimately a one-finger salute to the Trump’s twin demands of:

More apparent than the fulfilment of either demand is the collision course America has set itself against. On the one hand, Trump has disavowed earlier calls of “regime change,” yet continues to demand the lead role in writing the next chapter of the country’s history.

While Trump has remained tight-lipped on the choice of Mojtaba, Trump-friendly US senator Lindsey Graham has said the appointment of the late Ayatollah’s son “is not the change we’re looking for” before calling him a “religious Nazi” and confirming the target placed on his back:

I believe it’s just a matter of time before he meets the same fate as that of his father — one of the most evil men on the planet.

Regime change is not a menu item

If history has taught us anything, capitulation is what the Iranian regime has resisted for almost 50 years. Azadeh Sobout, a research fellow at Queen’s University Belfast, delivered a blistering critique of America’s cavalier attitude. She also criticised the mischaracterisation of freedom as a cannonball tearing through civilian infrastructure:

We are being sold this binary idea that we either have to choose between dictatorship or bombardment, between destruction of submission.

If regime change were a choice on the menu, the people of countries trapped in America’s forever wars would have long ago requested that for America. The point Sobout makes, by calling out the duplicitous global system, is that America does what it wants with little regard for the consequences. Also, America shows little regard for the post-WWII rules-based system. As we now see, that system exists in name only:

I believe it’s the right of self determination to the people of Iran and other people in the region that have constantly been undermined.

Freedom, as the academic added, isn’t about:

destroying the remaining infrastructure of our societal and cultural spaces.

In the famous words of Iran’s former foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif:

A man of the people, or the IRGC?

Back in Iran, opinions are divided over Mojtaba. In Shiraz, a major military production hub and Shi’ite seminary centre, and elsewhere, Khamenei Jr. was warmly received as Iran’s new supreme leader. Opposition has been quieter. In fact, dissent would be regarded as treason by law under war.

Mojtaba has been accused by some Iranians of suppressing anti-government protesters in January 2026, and engineering past presidential elections.

Others have cast him as the hereditary heir to Khamenei, arguing that his appointment runs counter to the tenets of the Islamic revolution of 1979.

More controversial is the IRGC-controlled business empire Mojtaba has inherited, including the state-owned Setad conglomerate – giving him control over assets valued at USD 95 billion. These include properties previously owned by dissidents stripped of their ownership rights.

His position within the IRGC network is important for the survival of Iran’s political system. At this tentative stage it is unclear whether he’ll emerge as a reformist character or toe the hardliner route. Either way, the message this broadcasts to America and the wider world is that Iran will not accept terms and conditions written in imperial blood. Only time will tell if Mojtaba can hold down the fort while the moat is on fire. More importantly, only time will tell if he can survive leadership decapitation.

What Mojtaba is unlikely to do – in the famous worlds of Khomeini, the founding father of the Islamic Republic – is to drink from the poisoned chalice. America is looking increasingly trapped in a long engagement, given surrender is not on the cards for Iran.

Featured image via the Canary