Iran on Monday named Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his father, Ali Khamenei, as supreme chief, signalling that hardliners stay firmly in cost in Tehran greater than every week into its battle with america and Israel.
Mojtaba’s father, Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in one of many first strikes launched towards Iran greater than every week in the past. His ascension won’t seemingly go down properly with U.S. President Donald Trump, who has beforehand referred to as him “unacceptable” for the position.
Here is what we find out about Mojtaba Khamenei.
No formal authorities position
Khamenei was born in 1969 within the metropolis of Mashhad, Iran, and grew up as his father was serving to lead the opposition to the Shah. As a younger man, he served in the Iran-Iraq warfare.
Khamenei studied underneath spiritual conservatives within the seminaries of Qom, Iran’s centre of Shia theological studying, and has the clerical rank of hojjatoleslam.
He has by no means held a proper place within the Islamic republic’s authorities, regardless of being broadly seen because the gatekeeper to his father. He has appeared at loyalist rallies, however has hardly ever spoken in public.
His position has lengthy been a supply of controversy in Iran, with critics rejecting any trace of dynastic politics in a rustic that overthrew a U.S.-backed monarch in 1979.
Critics additionally say Khamenei lacks the clerical credentials to be supreme chief — hojjatoleslam is a notch under the rank of ayatollah, the place held by his father and Ruhollah Khomeini, who based the Islamic republic.
Khamenei was nonetheless chosen Sunday in a vote by the Meeting of Consultants, a physique of 88 clerics tasked with selecting the supreme chief.
Beneath Iran’s complicated, theocratic system, the supreme chief is the last word authority, together with over overseas coverage and Iran’s nuclear program, as properly as guiding the elected president and parliament.
Ties to IRGC, supreme chief’s workplace
Mojtaba Khamenei’s shut ties to senior clerics and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which dominates Iran’s safety forces and its financial system, give him leverage throughout the state’s political and coercive safety establishments.
Kasra Aarabi, head of researching the IRGC at United In opposition to Nuclear Iran, a U.S.-based coverage group, mentioned Khamenei has a “sturdy constituency and help” throughout the IRGC and youthful radical supporters of the regime.
Aarabi mentioned Khamenei has amassed a lot affect appearing as a gatekeeper to his father, describing him as a “mini supreme chief.”
Hardliner
Khamenei has opposed reformers searching for to interact with the West, which has lengthy sought to curb Iran’s nuclear program.
Alan Eyre, former U.S. diplomat and Iran specialist, mentioned Khamenei is “extra hardline than his father,” whereas Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow on the Center East Institute, mentioned he’ll comply with the “similar playbook as his father.”
“It is a huge humiliation for america to hold out an operation of this scale, threat a lot, and find yourself killing an 86-year-old man, solely to have him changed by his hardline son,” Vatanka mentioned.
Khamenei was broadly believed to have been behind the sudden rise of hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was elected president in 2005.
Khamenei’s spouse, who was killed in Saturday’s airstrikes, was the daughter of a distinguished hardliner, the previous parliament Speaker Gholamali Haddad Adel.
“He will have a whole lot of revenge to precise,” Eyre mentioned.
Sanctioned by Washington
The U.S. Treasury Division imposed sanctions on Khamenei in 2019, saying he represented the supreme chief in “an official capability regardless of by no means being elected or appointed to a authorities place” apart from working in his father’s workplace.
Its web site mentioned Ali Khamenei had delegated a few of his tasks to Mojtaba, whom it mentioned had labored intently with the commander of the IRGC’s Quds Power and the Basij, a non secular militia affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard, “to advance his father’s destabilizing regional ambitions and oppressive home aims.”
“Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me,” Trump has mentioned, referring to Mojtaba Khamenei previous to him being named chief. “We wish somebody that can convey concord and peace to Iran.”
Trump has additionally beforehand mentioned that the U.S. wished a say in Iran’s management after Ali Khamenei’s dying.
Disliked by protesters
Khamenei was a specific goal for criticism by protesters throughout unrest over the dying of Mahsa Amini in police custody in 2022, after the younger girl was arrested for allegedly breaching the Islamic republic’s strict costume codes.
He is seen as having leverage over Iran’s safety equipment, which has repressed a number of waves of protests in recent times.
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