The will buried with Khamenei: how the Revolutionary Guard overturned the father’s wish
A “will against hereditary succession” in Iran did not last long in the face of the appetite for power among the hardline faction and the Revolutionary Guard.
As the war entered its tenth day and missile and drone attacks intensified across the Middle East, Mojtaba Khamenei, the second son of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, was chosen as his successor.
After members of the religious body responsible for selecting Iran’s highest authority announced the decision on Sunday, Iranian political institutions and officials, from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Parliament, issued statements expressing their loyalty. A statement from the Defense Council said: “We will obey the Supreme Leader to the last drop of blood.”
A will and a list
According to reports cited by Al-Ain News from Western media outlets including The New York Times, The Guardian and the Daily Mail, the late Iranian leader Ali Khamenei had told his close advisers that he did not want to “pass the position on to his son.”
The New York Times quoted three senior Iranian officials familiar with Khamenei’s affairs and the succession process. The late leader, who was killed at the beginning of the ongoing war, had reportedly expressed his “unwillingness for his son Mojtaba to succeed him,” fearing that the highest office in the state could become hereditary, similar to the system overthrown by the 1979 revolution led by Khomeini.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Mojtaba Khamenei’s name had been completely excluded from a list that included three senior clerics identified by his father last year as potential successors.
Why was Mojtaba Khamenei chosen?
Observers say the announcement was not coincidental but rather the result of intense pressure from the most powerful institution in the country: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
In this context, The New York Times recalled events from 2005, after the conservative candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president. Reformists accused Mojtaba Khamenei at the time of cooperating with clerics and the Revolutionary Guard to secure the victory of Ahmadinejad, a relatively unknown candidate.
The newspaper also noted that in 2024, Iran’s Assembly of Experts met to plan the succession of the Supreme Leader. At that time, Khamenei reportedly stated that his son should be excluded from consideration.
However, the appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei to the position previously held by his father could provoke anger among Iranians who recently took to the streets in protests initially driven by frustration over worsening economic conditions, which later evolved into calls for regime change.
It could also lead to further escalation of the war, particularly after U.S. President Donald Trump described Khamenei’s son as an “unacceptable” choice.
Earlier on Sunday, the U.S. president had stated that Iran’s next Supreme Leader “will not last long” unless Tehran first obtains his approval.
Mojtaba maintains close ties with the Revolutionary Guard and the Basij paramilitary forces, making him the preferred candidate of the hardline faction seeking to maintain its tight grip on power.
The Daily Mail described the scene on the morning of the announcement by saying: “United Iranian hardliners celebrated this morning after the son of Ali Khamenei was named the new Supreme Leader.”
First transfer of power from father to son
The appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei represents the first transfer of supreme leadership from father to son in Iran since the 1979 revolution. It is a significant development that The Guardian described as “likely to ignite debate inside Iran about the emergence of a dynastic system in a state explicitly founded to overthrow hereditary rule under the Shah.”
Many analysts view the appointment as a symbolic move intended to project an image of regime strength, while in reality it reveals internal fragility and the growing dominance of the Revolutionary Guard.
The new leader, Mojtaba, has never held a major government position during his life and has rarely appeared in public. Nevertheless, he has long been described as “the power behind the robe,” according to previously published U.S. diplomatic cables, managing networks of influence from within his father’s office, according to The Guardian.
It did not take long after his appointment for the consequences of this shift to appear on the regional and international levels. Almost simultaneously with the announcement of his leadership, Iran launched a series of missile and drone attacks on targets in the Gulf and Israel.
