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The late Supreme Leader’s son had been seen as a potential successor even prior to the Israeli strike that claimed his father’s life at the war’s outset. This is noteworthy given that he has never held any elected or appointed government role.
A reclusive figure in Iran’s political landscape, the younger Khamenei has not made a public appearance since the Israeli airstrike. This attack, which targeted the supreme leader’s offices, resulted in the death of his 86-year-old father. Tragically, his wife, Zahra Haddad Adel, also perished in the attack. She hailed from a family with deep ties to Iran’s religious leadership.
With the supreme leader’s passing, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, a formidable paramilitary force, now answers to Khamenei, giving him significant influence over the nation’s war strategy.
This development unfolded on the ninth day of the conflict, amid indications of internal disagreements among Iranian officials. The nation awaited the decision of the 88-member Assembly of Experts, the clerical body responsible for choosing the supreme leader.
Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump, speaking to ABC News, expressed his desire for influence over Iran’s leadership transition post-war. He stated that without his endorsement, any new leader “is not going to last long.”
“Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me,” Trum had seaid earlier. “We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran.”
Profile of Mojtaba Khamenei rises after airstrike
Khamenei will now gain control of an Iranian military now at war and a stockpile of highly enriched uranium that could be used to build a nuclear weapon, should he choose to decree it.
Khamenei had occupied a similar role to that of Ahmad Khomeini, a son of Iran’s first Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini, which was “a combination of aide-de-camp, confidant, gatekeeper and power broker,” according to United Against Nuclear Iran, a U.S.-based pressure group.
And US President Donald Trump may have indirectly boosted his candidacy by criticizing Khamenei in an interview with news website Axios on Thursday and insisting he be involved in selecting Iran’s next leader.
“They are wasting their time. Khamenei’s son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment,” Trump said, referring to his operation that saw the US military seize former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.
“Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me,” Trump added. “We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran.”
Born in 1969 in the city of Mashhad, some 10 years before the 1979 Islamic Revolution that would sweep Iran, Khamenei grew up as his father agitated against Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
An official biography on Ali Khamenei’s life recounts one moment when the shah’s secret police, the SAVAK, broke into their home and beat the cleric. Woken up after, Mojtaba and the rest of Khamenei’s children were told their father was going on vacation.
“But I told them, ‘There is no need to lie.’ I told them the truth,” the elder Khamenei was quoted as saying.
After the fall of the shah, Khamenei’s family moved to Tehran, Iran’s capital. Khamenei would go on to fight in the Iran-Iraq war with the Habib ibn Mazahir Battalion, a division of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard that would see several of its members ascend to powerful intelligence positions within the force, likely with the backing of the Khamenei family.
His father became supreme leader in 1989, and soon Mojtaba Khamenei and his family had access to the billions of dollars and business assets spread across Iran’s many bonyads, or foundations, funded from state industries and other wealth once held by the shah.
His own power rose alongside his father’s, working within his offices in downtown Tehran. US diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks in the late 2000s began referring to the younger Khamenei as “the power behind the robes.”
One recounted an allegation that Khamenei actually tapped his own father’s phone, served as his “principal gatekeeper” and had been forming his own power base within the country.
Khamenei “is widely viewed within the regime as a capable and forceful leader and manager who may someday succeed to at least a share of national leadership; his father may also see him in that light,” a 2008 cable read, also noting his lack of theological qualifications and age.
“Mojtaba is, however, due to his skills, wealth, and unmatched alliances, reportedly seen by a number of regime insiders as a plausible candidate for shared leadership of Iran upon his father’s demise, whether that demise is soon or years in the future,” it said.
Khamenei has worked closely with Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, both with commanders of its expeditionary Quds Force and its all-volunteer Basij that violently suppressed nationwide protests in January, the US Treasury has said.
The United States sanctioned him in 2019 during Trump’s first term over working to “advance his father’s destabilizing regional ambitions and oppressive domestic objectives.”
That includes allegations that Khamenei from behind the scenes supported the election of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005 and his disputed re-election in 2009 that sparked the Green Movement protests.
Mahdi Karroubi, who was a presidential candidate in 2005 and 2009, denounced Khamenei as “a master’s son” and alleged he interfered in both votes. His father reportedly at the time said Khamenei was “a master himself, not a master’s son.”
Powers of supreme leader at stake
There has been only one other transfer of power in the office of supreme leader of Iran, the paramount decision-maker since the Islamic Revolution. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini died at age 86 after being the figurehead of the revolution and leading Iran through its eight-year war with Iraq.
Now the new leader will come on board after the 12-day war with Israel and as a U.S.-Israeli war with Iran is seeking to eliminate Iran’s nuclear threat and military power, hoping also the Iranian people will rise up against the Iranian theocracy.
The Guard, which has led the self-described “Axis of Resistance,” a series of militant groups and allies across the Middle East meant to counter the U.S. and Israel, also has extensive wealth and holdings in Iran. It also controls the country’s ballistic missile arsenal.