--- title: "The Ayatollah Is Dead: Who Will Replace Iran's Supreme Leader?" description: "Sixty seconds. That was all the time it took for Israel to execute one of the most complex missions in recent history. When it was over, eight members of Iran's top leadership lay dead — among them the nation's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei, who had ruled the Islamic Republic for 36 years.\n\nThe strike itself lasted barely a minute, but it was the culmination of decades of painstaking intelligence work by Israel's secret services, accelerated over the previous six months with the aid of the CIA and other American agencies. According to reporting in The New York Times, the CIA had tracked Khamenei's movements for months, studying his patterns and locations. When analysts learned he would be at a leadership compound in the heart of Tehran for a meeting, they passed the information to Israel — prompting Jerusalem and Washington to move up the timing of strikes originally meant to launch under the cover of darkness.\n\nThe operation was a testament to the reach of American and Israeli intelligence. Yet some experts and intelligence veterans have called it a strategic error, one that could alienate potential supporters inside Iran or clear a path for someone more radical. As Israeli analyst Yossi Melman told The Guardian, \"The problem is that Israel is in love with assassinations … and we never learn that it is not the solution. We have killed all the leaders of Hamas. They are still there. It's the same with Hezbollah. The leaders are always replaced.\"\n\nThat observation raises the question now consuming Tehran and capitals far beyond it: with the Ayatollah dead, what comes next for Iran — and, more precisely, who will replace him?\n\n## Key Takeaways\n\n- Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who ruled Iran for 36 years, was killed in a US-Israeli strike on a Tehran leadership compound, alongside eight other senior figures.\n- Under Iran's constitution, power passed to an interim leadership council of the president, the head of the judiciary, and a senior Guardian Council cleric until a new Supreme Leader is chosen.\n- A new leader must be selected by the 88-member Assembly of Experts — a body that is risky to convene during a war, since it would gather Iran's clerical elite in one targetable place.\n- Contenders span the spectrum, from hardliners tied to the Revolutionary Guards to relative moderates with reformist ties; all face accusations of nepotism, insufficient clerical rank, or disqualification.\n- Ali Larijani, head of the Supreme National Security Council, has effectively run Iran since the January protests but cannot become Supreme Leader because he is not a cleric — making his cleric brother, Sadiq, a possible vehicle.\n- Public celebrations of Khamenei's death erupted across Iranian cities, but roughly 40% of the nation still supports the regime, and a 40-day mourning period may blunt protest momentum.\n- Whoever takes the role inherits an unenviable task: leading a wartime nation with a target on their back, while needing some accommodation with Washington for the regime to survive.\n\n## How Power Transfers When a Supreme Leader Dies\n\nIran's constitution anticipates the moment a Supreme Leader can no longer perform his functions. In that event, power transfers to an interim leadership council — exactly what happened in the hours after Khamenei's death on a Saturday. That council is currently composed of three figures: the president, Masoud Pezeshkian; the head of the judiciary, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i; and a senior cleric from the Guardian Council, Alireza Arafi. They will hold the post until a permanent successor is chosen.\n\nThat choice could take a while. Electing a new Supreme Leader is difficult under any circumstances; doing so in the middle of a war compounds every challenge. Even so, the names already in contention are worth examining closely, because at some point a new Supreme Leader will be chosen — and the choice will shape Iran's posture toward its own people, the region, and the West for years to come.\n\n## Why a Hardliner From the Revolutionary Guards Made Sense\n\nShortly before Khamenei's death, the CIA had reportedly concluded that if he were assassinated, he could be replaced by a hardline figure from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC — the elite armed force that operates alongside Iran's regular army but answers directly to the Supreme Leader. From Tehran's point of view, that logic holds.\n\nThe killing of a leader who had ruled for 36 years is an existential shock, and appointing a hardliner would be the clearest signal that the regime intends to survive. Hardliners exist across every branch of Iran's government, but the IRGC is distinct: its doctrine is built on protecting the Islamic revolution itself, and its members are willing to go to extreme lengths to defend it. As Kasra Aarabi, an expert on the IRGC, wrote in Engelsberg Ideas, the Guard sees the United States as the embodiment of evil, with the Islamic Republic's success depending on America's defeat.\n\nA hardliner from the IRGC, then, would seem the most logical choice. But even the most logical candidate must be confirmed by the Assembly of Experts — and that is where the war intrudes.\n\n## The Problem of Choosing During a War\n\nThe Assembly of Experts is an 88-member clerical body, elected by the public every eight years, with the authority to select the Supreme Leader. In normal times, convening it would be routine. With the nation at war, it is anything but. Gathering 88 of Iran's most senior clerics in a single location would, in blunt strategic terms, present an easy target for Washington and Jerusalem — precisely the kind of concentrated leadership the recent strike was designed to exploit.\n\nThat hazard reshapes the entire succession. It pushes Tehran toward solutions that avoid assembling its clerical elite all at once, and it raises the value of figures already embedded in the interim council or the security apparatus — people who can accumulate authority quietly rather than through a vulnerable public vote. The result is a succession contest defined as much by who can survive the process as by who deserves the title.\n\n## Mojtaba Khamenei and the Shadow of Nepotism\n\nThe first name to consider is Mojtaba Khamenei, widely regarded as the most influential of the late leader's sons. A mid-ranking cleric believed to control vast financial assets and wield significant power behind the scenes, he first rose to national prominence in 2009. According to the Atlantic Council, he orchestrated the electoral fraud that secured a second term for then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and managed the government's response to the post-election protests known as the Green Movement.\n\nDuring those protests, Mojtaba took control of street militias known as basij and unleashed a wave of repressive violence — not unlike the crackdown seen during the January 2026 protests. The Guardian reported that these actions rubbed many senior clerics, conservative politicians, and Revolutionary Guard generals the wrong way. A politician close to Iran's security apparatus said officials were nonetheless unwilling to challenge the Khameneis openly, fearing it would weaken the nation.\n\nYet Mojtaba's biggest obstacle is not an old feud. It is his last name. According to Professor Muhammad Sahimi, nepotism was a central grievance against the Pahlavi dynasty, and after the 1979 revolution Iranians hoped it would be eradicated or sharply curtailed. Elevating Mojtaba — a mid-level cleric who has not earned the title of Ayatollah — risks resurrecting those grievances among an already discontented population.\n\n## Hassan Khomeini: A Relative Moderate With a Famous Name\n\nThe second option, Hassan Khomeini, would face his own accusations of nepotism. Reuters has described him as the most visible of the 15 grandchildren of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini — the founder of the Islamic Republic and the first cleric to lead post-revolutionary Iran, for anyone who tends to confuse the Khomeinis with the Khameneis. Hassan is seen as a relative moderate within Iran's clerical establishment, with \"relative\" doing considerable work in that description. According to Reuters, he enjoys close ties to reformists, including former presidents Mohammed Khatami and Hassan Rouhani, both of whom pursued engagement with the West while in office.\n\nKhomeini has a record of urging reform and has occasionally voiced dissent, including demands for accountability over the death of Mahsa Amini, the young Iranian woman who died in 2022 after being taken into custody by morality police. Such positions have led some politicians in Tehran to view him as a rival to the hardliners who gained influence under Khamenei — notably the late leader's son, Mojtaba.\n\nDespite his lineage, Hassan Khomeini has never served in government, instead holding the symbolically important role of custodian of his grandfather's mausoleum in southern Tehran. That lack of executive experience could weigh heavily at a moment when Iran needs stable, seasoned leadership. Like Mojtaba, he is a mid-ranking cleric who has not been granted the title of Ayatollah — a fact his detractors will surely use against him.\n\n## Hassan Rouhani and the Diplomatic Off-Ramp\n\nSomeone who does possess leadership experience is Khomeini's ally, former president Hassan Rouhani. A relative moderate, Rouhani served from 2013 to 2021 and reached the landmark nuclear agreement with the Obama administration that President Trump scrapped during his first term. Rouhani sat on the Assembly of Experts until 2024, when he said he had been disqualified from running for reelection — a move he criticized as an infringement on Iranians' political participation.\n\nThat disqualification raises real doubts about whether the regime would even entertain him as a candidate for Supreme Leader, especially since the Guardian Council, which vets candidates, has already barred him from the very Assembly that would elect the next leader. Yet Rouhani's strengths are precisely the ones a cornered regime might value: administrative experience, diplomatic credentials, and a track record of engaging with the West. For a leadership desperate for an off-ramp from confrontation with Washington, those qualities could make him unexpectedly attractive — if the system could be persuaded to look past his recent exile from its inner circles.\n\n## Mirbagheri and the Case for Ideological Purity\n\nOn the opposite end of the spectrum stands Ayatollah Mohammed Mehdi Mirbagheri, a senior cleric on the Assembly of Experts who is popular with hardliners. Among his admirers was the late Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, who wrote that Iran should not deprive itself of the right to produce \"special weapons\" — a thinly veiled reference to nuclear arms.\n\nMirbagheri's theology aligns with ultra-conservative interpretations of Islamic law. He heads the Islamic Cultural Center in Qom, the principal hub for Islamic teaching in Iran. His appointment would signal a regime that prizes ideological purity over pragmatism, and would likely cement Iran's confrontational stance toward the West for the foreseeable future. Where Rouhani represents the possibility of negotiation, Mirbagheri represents its closure — a doubling down on the revolutionary worldview at the precise moment the regime faces its gravest external threat.\n\n## The Clerics on the Council: Arafi and Mohseni-Eje'i\n\nThe members of the interim leadership council deserve particular attention, because they may rule Iran for some time — a window in which they can shore up their credentials and persuade both the Assembly of Experts and the Iranian public that they deserve the top job. President Masoud Pezeshkian, though among the country's most powerful figures, is disqualified because he is not a cleric. That leaves two contenders on the council: Ayatollah Ali Reza Arafi and Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i.\n\nArafi is a bureaucrat whose entire career, according to the Middle East Institute, has been shaped by appointments entrusted to him by Khamenei. From 2008 to 2018 he served as president of Al-Mustafa International University, founded by Khamenei to export the regime's ideology abroad. A rapid succession of appointments followed: head of all seminaries nationwide in 2016, a handpicked Guardian Council seat in 2019, and membership of the Assembly of Experts in 2022. The Indian outlet The Week described him as a tech-savvy, second-generation hardliner with the right family connections. More than any other candidate, his elevation would signal pure continuity with Khamenei's regime.\n\nMohseni-Eje'i is more complicated. He studied at the Haqqani School in Qom, a seminary renowned for producing many of Iran's leading hardline clerics, and one of his teachers was Mesbah Yazdi — the same ultra-conservative theologian who mentored Mirbagheri. His career has long been defined by a willingness to use violence to protect the regime. Yet according to Iran International, since becoming chief justice in 2021 he has gradually distanced himself from the ultra-hardliners in Tehran and cultivated a relatively cooperative relationship with the moderate administration of President Pezeshkian — drawing sharp criticism from hardliners who see him as softening. His appointment would suggest that Iran is willing to be pragmatic to ensure the regime's survival.\n\n## The Larijani Brothers: A De Facto Ruler and His Cleric Sibling\n\nEven with all these contenders, the person who ends up wielding the most power in Iran could be a dark horse — and the strongest candidate for that role may be someone already running the country. According to the CIA assessment, the best person to replace Khamenei could be Ali Larijani, a former commander in the Revolutionary Guards Corps and the current head of the Supreme National Security Council.\n\nThe New York Times has reported that Larijani has effectively been running Iran since the January protests. He oversaw the crushing of demonstrators demanding the end of Islamic rule, the arrest of prominent reformist politicians, liaison with powerful allies like Russia and regional actors like Qatar and Oman, and the nuclear negotiations with Washington. He was even devising plans for managing Iran through a potential war — an expanding portfolio that effectively sidelined President Pezeshkian. He has remained highly visible in the wake of the strikes, appearing on Iranian state television within hours of Khamenei's death to declare, \"We will burn their hearts. We will make the shameless Americans regret their actions.\"\n\nThe powers Larijani wields make him almost a de facto Supreme Leader. But \"de facto\" is likely where it ends, because he is not a cleric — a requirement written into the constitution. While that document has been amended before to accommodate political reality, scrapping the clerical requirement would be a bridge too far for a regime whose entire legitimacy rests on clerical rule.\n\nThat is where his brother enters the picture. Sadiq Larijani is a cleric with extensive government experience, currently chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council and a former chief justice. A close aide to Khamenei, he has long been viewed as a potential successor, though corruption allegations after his judicial career and the broader marginalization of the Larijani dynasty have reduced his standing, according to United Against Nuclear Iran. Even so, his brother's rise proves the dynasty is far from finished — and a Sadiq appointment would pair clerical credentials with Ali's security connections, diplomatic pragmatism, and relationships with Russia and China that Tehran badly needs. In effect, it would formalize what has been happening since January, when Ali Larijani began running the country in all but name.\n\n## Regime Survival: The Unenviable Task Ahead\n\nAll of this remains prediction. The eventual Supreme Leader could be one of the men named here, or someone not yet on anyone's radar. Iran is in flux: thousands are dead from the January protests, the country is reeling from American and Israeli strikes, and it is an open question whether the regime survives the crisis at all.\n\nWhoever takes the mantle faces an unenviable assignment. They must lead a nation through a war with Israel and the United States while wearing a target on their back. Although US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said this is not a regime-change war — despite the killing of the man running the regime — President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have made their preference plain. During their announcement of the strikes, they urged the Iranian people to take control of their government. If regime change remains the goal, the next Supreme Leader could find himself in American crosshairs sooner rather than later.\n\nThere is also the possibility that Iranians act on that encouragement and try to topple the government themselves. Despite Tehran's efforts to suppress public celebration of Khamenei's death, reports emerged across multiple cities of people partying in the streets. Sources told Iran International that residents were shouting in celebration. \"It just erupted all at once,\" said Farzad, a Tehran resident, describing whistling and the honking of motorcycles and cars filling the air. And this was Tehran, where the state's capacity to monitor and surveil is strongest. If people will celebrate openly in the capital, the scenes in cities with weaker government control may be far more dramatic.\n\nStill, public jubilation is not a death sentence for the regime. As Rockford Weitz, a professor at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, observed, roughly 40% of the nation still supports the government. Mourners gathered in their thousands not only in Tehran but in Shiraz, Yasuj, and Lorestan. Capitalizing on those numbers, the government declared 40 days of mourning — described by analysts at Open Magazine as a \"funeral trap\" designed to make it logistically and morally difficult for anti-government protests to gain momentum in the near term.\n\nInternal danger does not end with the crowds. Whoever is chosen will likely face assassination attempts if he is seen offering too many concessions to the West; hardliners within the Revolutionary Guards and the clerical establishment would treat that as a betrayal of a regime whose identity is built on resistance to America and Israel. And yet the next Supreme Leader will have to strike some kind of deal with Washington if the regime is to endure. Iran can exact a serious toll on American bases and allies across the Middle East, but it cannot withstand the combined might of the United States and Israel — at least, not indefinitely.\n\n## Frequently Asked Questions\n\n**What happens to Iran's government after the Supreme Leader's death?**\nUnder Iran's constitution, when the Supreme Leader can no longer perform his functions, power passes to an interim leadership council. After Khamenei's death, that council comprised President Masoud Pezeshkian, judiciary head Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i, and senior Guardian Council cleric Alireza Arafi, who govern until a permanent successor is named.\n\n**Who actually chooses the next Supreme Leader?**\nThe Assembly of Experts — an 88-member clerical body elected by the public every eight years — has the authority to select the Supreme Leader. Convening it during wartime is risky, however, because gathering so many senior clerics in one place would create a concentrated target for Washington and Israel.\n\n**Why can't Ali Larijani simply become Supreme Leader?**\nAlthough Larijani has effectively run Iran since the January protests and heads the Supreme National Security Council, the constitution requires the Supreme Leader to be a cleric, and he is not one. Removing that requirement would undermine the regime's foundational claim to clerical rule, making it far more likely he continues to wield power informally.\n\n**Why does the title of Ayatollah matter for the contenders?**\nSeveral leading candidates — including Mojtaba Khamenei and Hassan Khomeini — are mid-ranking clerics who have not been granted the title of Ayatollah. That gap in religious rank gives their opponents an obvious line of attack, since the role of Supreme Leader carries immense theological authority.\n\n**Why is nepotism such a sensitive issue in the succession?**\nNepotism was a central grievance against the Pahlavi dynasty that the 1979 revolution promised to eradicate. Promoting Khamenei's son Mojtaba or Khomeini's grandson Hassan risks reviving that resentment among an already discontented public, undercutting the regime's legitimacy at a vulnerable moment.\n\n**Did the public reaction suggest the regime is about to fall?**\nNot necessarily. Celebrations erupted across multiple cities, but a professor at Tufts University's Fletcher School estimated that about 40% of the nation still supports the regime, with thousands mourning in cities such as Shiraz, Yasuj, and Lorestan. The government's 40-day mourning period was also designed to suppress protest momentum.\n\n**What dilemma will the next Supreme Leader face with the West?**\nThe next leader must navigate an impossible balance. Offering concessions to Washington could trigger assassination attempts by hardliners who view compromise as betrayal, yet refusing any deal leaves Iran exposed, since it cannot indefinitely withstand the combined military power of the United States and Israel.\n\n## Sources\n\n- [The Conversation — Trump and Netanyahu want regime change, but Iran's regime was built for survival](https://theconversation.com/trump-and-netanyahu-want-regime-change-but-irans-regime-was-built-for-survival-a-long-war-is-now-likely-277193)\n- [CNN — Pete Hegseth on the Pentagon and Iran strikes](https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/02/world/video/pete-hegseth-pentagon-iran-strikes-digvid)\n- [Archive — JMSQP](https://archive.is/JMSQP)\n- [Open Magazine — The funeral trap: how Iran is weaponising 40 days of mourning](https://openthemagazine.com/world/the-funeral-trap-how-iran-is-weaponising-40-days-of-mourning)\n- [Iran International — coverage of Khamenei's death and aftermath](https://www.iranintl.com/en/202602288551)\n- [Al Jazeera — Iran begins 40-day mourning after Khamenei killed in US-Israeli attack](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/1/iran-begins-40-day-mourning-after-khamenei-killed-in-us-israeli-attack)\n- [Archive — pIefY](https://archive.is/pIefY)\n- [The Washington Post — Iran-Israel-US war and the Khamenei succession](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2026/03/02/iran-israel-us-war-khamenei-successor-supreme-leader/d4c9e20e-1644-11f1-aef0-0aac8e8e94db_story.html)\n- [The Hill — Larijani, Trump and the Iran conflict](https://thehill.com/policy/international/5763740-larijani-trump-iran-conflict/)\n- [The Conversation — Despite massive US attack and death of Ayatollah, regime change in Iran is unlikely](https://theconversation.com/despite-massive-us-attack-and-death-of-ayatollah-regime-change-in-iran-is-unlikely-277180)\n\n" url: https://homefronts.pub/article/who-will-replace-ayatollah-khamenei.md canonical: https://homefronts.pub/article/who-will-replace-ayatollah-khamenei datePublished: 2026-06-03 dateModified: 2026-06-03 author: - name: Simon Whistler url: https://homefronts.pub/author/simon-whistler publisher: HomeFronts image: "https://media.homefronts.pub/cdn-cgi/image/width=1600,height=900,fit=cover,quality=80,format=auto/articles/uCykECWSiUo/hero.jpg" type: Article contentHash: 7ab8f923a6cc6e30e239f1e0fd5a3fba14cdbc5935e062dcd381c178f32c51ca tokens: 5762 summaryUrl: https://homefronts.pub/article/who-will-replace-ayatollah-khamenei.md.summary.md --- Sixty seconds. That was all the time it took for Israel to execute one of the most complex missions in recent history. When it was over, eight members of Iran's top leadership lay dead — among them the nation's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei, who had ruled the Islamic Republic for 36 years. The strike itself lasted barely a minute, but it was the culmination of decades of painstaking intelligence work by Israel's secret services, accelerated over the previous six months with the aid of the CIA and other American agencies. According to reporting in The New York Times, the CIA had tracked Khamenei's movements for months, studying his patterns and locations. When analysts learned he would be at a leadership compound in the heart of Tehran for a meeting, they passed the information to Israel — prompting Jerusalem and Washington to move up the timing of strikes originally meant to launch under the cover of darkness. The operation was a testament to the reach of American and Israeli intelligence. Yet some experts and intelligence veterans have called it a strategic error, one that could alienate potential supporters inside Iran or clear a path for someone more radical. As Israeli analyst Yossi Melman told The Guardian, "The problem is that Israel is in love with assassinations … and we never learn that it is not the solution. We have killed all the leaders of Hamas. They are still there. It's the same with Hezbollah. The leaders are always replaced." That observation raises the question now consuming Tehran and capitals far beyond it: with the Ayatollah dead, what comes next for Iran — and, more precisely, who will replace him? ## Key Takeaways - Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who ruled Iran for 36 years, was killed in a US-Israeli strike on a Tehran leadership compound, alongside eight other senior figures. - Under Iran's constitution, power passed to an interim leadership council of the president, the head of the judiciary, and a senior Guardian Council cleric until a new Supreme Leader is chosen. - A new leader must be selected by the 88-member Assembly of Experts — a body that is risky to convene during a war, since it would gather Iran's clerical elite in one targetable place. - Contenders span the spectrum, from hardliners tied to the Revolutionary Guards to relative moderates with reformist ties; all face accusations of nepotism, insufficient clerical rank, or disqualification. - Ali Larijani, head of the Supreme National Security Council, has effectively run Iran since the January protests but cannot become Supreme Leader because he is not a cleric — making his cleric brother, Sadiq, a possible vehicle. - Public celebrations of Khamenei's death erupted across Iranian cities, but roughly 40% of the nation still supports the regime, and a 40-day mourning period may blunt protest momentum. - Whoever takes the role inherits an unenviable task: leading a wartime nation with a target on their back, while needing some accommodation with Washington for the regime to survive. ## How Power Transfers When a Supreme Leader Dies Iran's constitution anticipates the moment a Supreme Leader can no longer perform his functions. In that event, power transfers to an interim leadership council — exactly what happened in the hours after Khamenei's death on a Saturday. That council is currently composed of three figures: the president, Masoud Pezeshkian; the head of the judiciary, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i; and a senior cleric from the Guardian Council, Alireza Arafi. They will hold the post until a permanent successor is chosen. That choice could take a while. Electing a new Supreme Leader is difficult under any circumstances; doing so in the middle of a war compounds every challenge. Even so, the names already in contention are worth examining closely, because at some point a new Supreme Leader will be chosen — and the choice will shape Iran's posture toward its own people, the region, and the West for years to come. ## Why a Hardliner From the Revolutionary Guards Made Sense Shortly before Khamenei's death, the CIA had reportedly concluded that if he were assassinated, he could be replaced by a hardline figure from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC — the elite armed force that operates alongside Iran's regular army but answers directly to the Supreme Leader. From Tehran's point of view, that logic holds. The killing of a leader who had ruled for 36 years is an existential shock, and appointing a hardliner would be the clearest signal that the regime intends to survive. Hardliners exist across every branch of Iran's government, but the IRGC is distinct: its doctrine is built on protecting the Islamic revolution itself, and its members are willing to go to extreme lengths to defend it. As Kasra Aarabi, an expert on the IRGC, wrote in Engelsberg Ideas, the Guard sees the United States as the embodiment of evil, with the Islamic Republic's success depending on America's defeat. A hardliner from the IRGC, then, would seem the most logical choice. But even the most logical candidate must be confirmed by the Assembly of Experts — and that is where the war intrudes. ## The Problem of Choosing During a War The Assembly of Experts is an 88-member clerical body, elected by the public every eight years, with the authority to select the Supreme Leader. In normal times, convening it would be routine. With the nation at war, it is anything but. Gathering 88 of Iran's most senior clerics in a single location would, in blunt strategic terms, present an easy target for Washington and Jerusalem — precisely the kind of concentrated leadership the recent strike was designed to exploit. That hazard reshapes the entire succession. It pushes Tehran toward solutions that avoid assembling its clerical elite all at once, and it raises the value of figures already embedded in the interim council or the security apparatus — people who can accumulate authority quietly rather than through a vulnerable public vote. The result is a succession contest defined as much by who can survive the process as by who deserves the title. ## Mojtaba Khamenei and the Shadow of Nepotism The first name to consider is Mojtaba Khamenei, widely regarded as the most influential of the late leader's sons. A mid-ranking cleric believed to control vast financial assets and wield significant power behind the scenes, he first rose to national prominence in 2009. According to the Atlantic Council, he orchestrated the electoral fraud that secured a second term for then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and managed the government's response to the post-election protests known as the Green Movement. During those protests, Mojtaba took control of street militias known as basij and unleashed a wave of repressive violence — not unlike the crackdown seen during the January 2026 protests. The Guardian reported that these actions rubbed many senior clerics, conservative politicians, and Revolutionary Guard generals the wrong way. A politician close to Iran's security apparatus said officials were nonetheless unwilling to challenge the Khameneis openly, fearing it would weaken the nation. Yet Mojtaba's biggest obstacle is not an old feud. It is his last name. According to Professor Muhammad Sahimi, nepotism was a central grievance against the Pahlavi dynasty, and after the 1979 revolution Iranians hoped it would be eradicated or sharply curtailed. Elevating Mojtaba — a mid-level cleric who has not earned the title of Ayatollah — risks resurrecting those grievances among an already discontented population. ## Hassan Khomeini: A Relative Moderate With a Famous Name The second option, Hassan Khomeini, would face his own accusations of nepotism. Reuters has described him as the most visible of the 15 grandchildren of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini — the founder of the Islamic Republic and the first cleric to lead post-revolutionary Iran, for anyone who tends to confuse the Khomeinis with the Khameneis. Hassan is seen as a relative moderate within Iran's clerical establishment, with "relative" doing considerable work in that description. According to Reuters, he enjoys close ties to reformists, including former presidents Mohammed Khatami and Hassan Rouhani, both of whom pursued engagement with the West while in office. Khomeini has a record of urging reform and has occasionally voiced dissent, including demands for accountability over the death of Mahsa Amini, the young Iranian woman who died in 2022 after being taken into custody by morality police. Such positions have led some politicians in Tehran to view him as a rival to the hardliners who gained influence under Khamenei — notably the late leader's son, Mojtaba. Despite his lineage, Hassan Khomeini has never served in government, instead holding the symbolically important role of custodian of his grandfather's mausoleum in southern Tehran. That lack of executive experience could weigh heavily at a moment when Iran needs stable, seasoned leadership. Like Mojtaba, he is a mid-ranking cleric who has not been granted the title of Ayatollah — a fact his detractors will surely use against him. ## Hassan Rouhani and the Diplomatic Off-Ramp Someone who does possess leadership experience is Khomeini's ally, former president Hassan Rouhani. A relative moderate, Rouhani served from 2013 to 2021 and reached the landmark nuclear agreement with the Obama administration that President Trump scrapped during his first term. Rouhani sat on the Assembly of Experts until 2024, when he said he had been disqualified from running for reelection — a move he criticized as an infringement on Iranians' political participation. That disqualification raises real doubts about whether the regime would even entertain him as a candidate for Supreme Leader, especially since the Guardian Council, which vets candidates, has already barred him from the very Assembly that would elect the next leader. Yet Rouhani's strengths are precisely the ones a cornered regime might value: administrative experience, diplomatic credentials, and a track record of engaging with the West. For a leadership desperate for an off-ramp from confrontation with Washington, those qualities could make him unexpectedly attractive — if the system could be persuaded to look past his recent exile from its inner circles. ## Mirbagheri and the Case for Ideological Purity On the opposite end of the spectrum stands Ayatollah Mohammed Mehdi Mirbagheri, a senior cleric on the Assembly of Experts who is popular with hardliners. Among his admirers was the late Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, who wrote that Iran should not deprive itself of the right to produce "special weapons" — a thinly veiled reference to nuclear arms. Mirbagheri's theology aligns with ultra-conservative interpretations of Islamic law. He heads the Islamic Cultural Center in Qom, the principal hub for Islamic teaching in Iran. His appointment would signal a regime that prizes ideological purity over pragmatism, and would likely cement Iran's confrontational stance toward the West for the foreseeable future. Where Rouhani represents the possibility of negotiation, Mirbagheri represents its closure — a doubling down on the revolutionary worldview at the precise moment the regime faces its gravest external threat. ## The Clerics on the Council: Arafi and Mohseni-Eje'i The members of the interim leadership council deserve particular attention, because they may rule Iran for some time — a window in which they can shore up their credentials and persuade both the Assembly of Experts and the Iranian public that they deserve the top job. President Masoud Pezeshkian, though among the country's most powerful figures, is disqualified because he is not a cleric. That leaves two contenders on the council: Ayatollah Ali Reza Arafi and Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i. Arafi is a bureaucrat whose entire career, according to the Middle East Institute, has been shaped by appointments entrusted to him by Khamenei. From 2008 to 2018 he served as president of Al-Mustafa International University, founded by Khamenei to export the regime's ideology abroad. A rapid succession of appointments followed: head of all seminaries nationwide in 2016, a handpicked Guardian Council seat in 2019, and membership of the Assembly of Experts in 2022. The Indian outlet The Week described him as a tech-savvy, second-generation hardliner with the right family connections. More than any other candidate, his elevation would signal pure continuity with Khamenei's regime. Mohseni-Eje'i is more complicated. He studied at the Haqqani School in Qom, a seminary renowned for producing many of Iran's leading hardline clerics, and one of his teachers was Mesbah Yazdi — the same ultra-conservative theologian who mentored Mirbagheri. His career has long been defined by a willingness to use violence to protect the regime. Yet according to Iran International, since becoming chief justice in 2021 he has gradually distanced himself from the ultra-hardliners in Tehran and cultivated a relatively cooperative relationship with the moderate administration of President Pezeshkian — drawing sharp criticism from hardliners who see him as softening. His appointment would suggest that Iran is willing to be pragmatic to ensure the regime's survival. ## The Larijani Brothers: A De Facto Ruler and His Cleric Sibling Even with all these contenders, the person who ends up wielding the most power in Iran could be a dark horse — and the strongest candidate for that role may be someone already running the country. According to the CIA assessment, the best person to replace Khamenei could be Ali Larijani, a former commander in the Revolutionary Guards Corps and the current head of the Supreme National Security Council. The New York Times has reported that Larijani has effectively been running Iran since the January protests. He oversaw the crushing of demonstrators demanding the end of Islamic rule, the arrest of prominent reformist politicians, liaison with powerful allies like Russia and regional actors like Qatar and Oman, and the nuclear negotiations with Washington. He was even devising plans for managing Iran through a potential war — an expanding portfolio that effectively sidelined President Pezeshkian. He has remained highly visible in the wake of the strikes, appearing on Iranian state television within hours of Khamenei's death to declare, "We will burn their hearts. We will make the shameless Americans regret their actions." The powers Larijani wields make him almost a de facto Supreme Leader. But "de facto" is likely where it ends, because he is not a cleric — a requirement written into the constitution. While that document has been amended before to accommodate political reality, scrapping the clerical requirement would be a bridge too far for a regime whose entire legitimacy rests on clerical rule. That is where his brother enters the picture. Sadiq Larijani is a cleric with extensive government experience, currently chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council and a former chief justice. A close aide to Khamenei, he has long been viewed as a potential successor, though corruption allegations after his judicial career and the broader marginalization of the Larijani dynasty have reduced his standing, according to United Against Nuclear Iran. Even so, his brother's rise proves the dynasty is far from finished — and a Sadiq appointment would pair clerical credentials with Ali's security connections, diplomatic pragmatism, and relationships with Russia and China that Tehran badly needs. In effect, it would formalize what has been happening since January, when Ali Larijani began running the country in all but name. ## Regime Survival: The Unenviable Task Ahead All of this remains prediction. The eventual Supreme Leader could be one of the men named here, or someone not yet on anyone's radar. Iran is in flux: thousands are dead from the January protests, the country is reeling from American and Israeli strikes, and it is an open question whether the regime survives the crisis at all. Whoever takes the mantle faces an unenviable assignment. They must lead a nation through a war with Israel and the United States while wearing a target on their back. Although US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said this is not a regime-change war — despite the killing of the man running the regime — President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have made their preference plain. During their announcement of the strikes, they urged the Iranian people to take control of their government. If regime change remains the goal, the next Supreme Leader could find himself in American crosshairs sooner rather than later. There is also the possibility that Iranians act on that encouragement and try to topple the government themselves. Despite Tehran's efforts to suppress public celebration of Khamenei's death, reports emerged across multiple cities of people partying in the streets. Sources told Iran International that residents were shouting in celebration. "It just erupted all at once," said Farzad, a Tehran resident, describing whistling and the honking of motorcycles and cars filling the air. And this was Tehran, where the state's capacity to monitor and surveil is strongest. If people will celebrate openly in the capital, the scenes in cities with weaker government control may be far more dramatic. Still, public jubilation is not a death sentence for the regime. As Rockford Weitz, a professor at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, observed, roughly 40% of the nation still supports the government. Mourners gathered in their thousands not only in Tehran but in Shiraz, Yasuj, and Lorestan. Capitalizing on those numbers, the government declared 40 days of mourning — described by analysts at Open Magazine as a "funeral trap" designed to make it logistically and morally difficult for anti-government protests to gain momentum in the near term. Internal danger does not end with the crowds. Whoever is chosen will likely face assassination attempts if he is seen offering too many concessions to the West; hardliners within the Revolutionary Guards and the clerical establishment would treat that as a betrayal of a regime whose identity is built on resistance to America and Israel. And yet the next Supreme Leader will have to strike some kind of deal with Washington if the regime is to endure. Iran can exact a serious toll on American bases and allies across the Middle East, but it cannot withstand the combined might of the United States and Israel — at least, not indefinitely. ## Frequently Asked Questions **What happens to Iran's government after the Supreme Leader's death?** Under Iran's constitution, when the Supreme Leader can no longer perform his functions, power passes to an interim leadership council. After Khamenei's death, that council comprised President Masoud Pezeshkian, judiciary head Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i, and senior Guardian Council cleric Alireza Arafi, who govern until a permanent successor is named. **Who actually chooses the next Supreme Leader?** The Assembly of Experts — an 88-member clerical body elected by the public every eight years — has the authority to select the Supreme Leader. Convening it during wartime is risky, however, because gathering so many senior clerics in one place would create a concentrated target for Washington and Israel. **Why can't Ali Larijani simply become Supreme Leader?** Although Larijani has effectively run Iran since the January protests and heads the Supreme National Security Council, the constitution requires the Supreme Leader to be a cleric, and he is not one. Removing that requirement would undermine the regime's foundational claim to clerical rule, making it far more likely he continues to wield power informally. **Why does the title of Ayatollah matter for the contenders?** Several leading candidates — including Mojtaba Khamenei and Hassan Khomeini — are mid-ranking clerics who have not been granted the title of Ayatollah. That gap in religious rank gives their opponents an obvious line of attack, since the role of Supreme Leader carries immense theological authority. **Why is nepotism such a sensitive issue in the succession?** Nepotism was a central grievance against the Pahlavi dynasty that the 1979 revolution promised to eradicate. Promoting Khamenei's son Mojtaba or Khomeini's grandson Hassan risks reviving that resentment among an already discontented public, undercutting the regime's legitimacy at a vulnerable moment. **Did the public reaction suggest the regime is about to fall?** Not necessarily. Celebrations erupted across multiple cities, but a professor at Tufts University's Fletcher School estimated that about 40% of the nation still supports the regime, with thousands mourning in cities such as Shiraz, Yasuj, and Lorestan. The government's 40-day mourning period was also designed to suppress protest momentum. **What dilemma will the next Supreme Leader face with the West?** The next leader must navigate an impossible balance. Offering concessions to Washington could trigger assassination attempts by hardliners who view compromise as betrayal, yet refusing any deal leaves Iran exposed, since it cannot indefinitely withstand the combined military power of the United States and Israel. ## Sources - [The Conversation — Trump and Netanyahu want regime change, but Iran's regime was built for survival](https://theconversation.com/trump-and-netanyahu-want-regime-change-but-irans-regime-was-built-for-survival-a-long-war-is-now-likely-277193) - [CNN — Pete Hegseth on the Pentagon and Iran strikes](https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/02/world/video/pete-hegseth-pentagon-iran-strikes-digvid) - [Archive — JMSQP](https://archive.is/JMSQP) - [Open Magazine — The funeral trap: how Iran is weaponising 40 days of mourning](https://openthemagazine.com/world/the-funeral-trap-how-iran-is-weaponising-40-days-of-mourning) - [Iran International — coverage of Khamenei's death and aftermath](https://www.iranintl.com/en/202602288551) - [Al Jazeera — Iran begins 40-day mourning after Khamenei killed in US-Israeli attack](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/1/iran-begins-40-day-mourning-after-khamenei-killed-in-us-israeli-attack) - [Archive — pIefY](https://archive.is/pIefY) - [The Washington Post — Iran-Israel-US war and the Khamenei succession](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2026/03/02/iran-israel-us-war-khamenei-successor-supreme-leader/d4c9e20e-1644-11f1-aef0-0aac8e8e94db_story.html) - [The Hill — Larijani, Trump and the Iran conflict](https://thehill.com/policy/international/5763740-larijani-trump-iran-conflict/) - [The Conversation — Despite massive US attack and death of Ayatollah, regime change in Iran is unlikely](https://theconversation.com/despite-massive-us-attack-and-death-of-ayatollah-regime-change-in-iran-is-unlikely-277180) <!-- youtube:uCykECWSiUo -->