March 8, 2026
Akhtar Makoii
Iran has chosen the son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as supreme leader, a member of the council responsible for the decision said.
Akhtar Makoii
Iran has chosen the son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as supreme leader, a member of the council responsible for the decision said.
Hosseinali Eshkevari said
Khamenei’s name would “continue”, after the council said it had made its
choice.
The final announcement was pending on Sunday night. But if clerics have chosen Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, a mid-ranking hardliner, it will signal a willingness to continue the war with the US, and will be likely to anger Donald Trump.
The US president, who previously called Mojtaba Khamenei a “lightweight”, said on Sunday that no leader would last long without his approval.
Khamenei is close to the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard), the elite military force entwined with the hardline establishment of the Islamic Republic.
The supreme leader was elected by informal consultations among 88 clerics of the Assembly of Experts over nine days.
Members said in official minutes that Israeli and US air strikes had prevented them from convening an in-person session to formalise the choice.
The Israeli military said on Sunday that it would pursue “every successor and every person who seeks to appoint a successor” for Khamenei, suggesting it intended to carry out strikes on civilian clerics.
The selection process was delayed, prompting speculation that the assembly was struggling to agree on a successor to the late ayatollah. Any disagreement would undermine the new supreme leader’s legitimacy.
Ayatollah Abdullah Kiyvani, representative of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province in the assembly, released a formal statement on Friday urging the leadership board to speed up the process.
An intervention by so senior a cleric showed that the delay in choosing a successor has posed a threat to the Islamic Republic’s religious authority, not just its political stability.
Power vacuum
The delay reveals a weak point: Iran’s military has been fighting without a commander-in-chief.
Ahmad Vahidi, the recently nominated IRGC commander, has faced the challenge of waging war, and preventing it becoming a civil conflict ,without any clear political authority to direct him.
The longer this vacuum persisted, the more it empowered military commanders to make independent decisions that could escalate the conflict beyond political control, or to pursue strategies that contradicted the eventual decisions of the civilian leadership.
The Islamic Republic is not a unitary state with a single chain of command.
It is a complex web of power centres – the IRGC, the ordinary military, the presidency, the judiciary, the clerical establishment, the intelligence services, the Basij militia – all with overlapping jurisdictions, rival interests, and independent capabilities.
The supreme leader’s essential function is not just symbolic religious authority but practical political arbitration: when these institutions disagree, he decides.
When they pursue conflicting agendas, he imposes coherence. When one overreaches, he restrains it.
Without that arbiter, Iran’s system defaults to “fire at will” – each power centre pursuing its own interpretation of national interest without co-ordination or restraint.
The IRGC navy can claim it struck the USS Abraham Lincoln while the ordinary navy issues different statements.
The foreign ministry can signal openness to Omani mediation while the IRGC threatens that enemies will have “no security anywhere in the world”.
Massoud Pezeshkian, the president, can apologise to neighbouring countries for strikes, while the IRGC spokesman declares any base used for attacks is a legitimate target regardless of which country hosts it.
The military dimension is the most dangerous. Different commanders can make different strike decisions without centralised approval.
Supreme leader prevents fragmentation
Iran’s system is designed to concentrate ultimate authority in the supreme leader precisely to prevent this fragmentation.
Until the clerics announce their choice, and he exercises actual authority, Iran will operate as a collection of institutions pursuing incompatible strategies while fighting a war against militarily superior enemies.
A supreme leader will provide what Iran needs right now: unity of command, clarity of strategy, and authority to make decisions without endless consultation.
Most critically, a supreme leader can negotiate with credibility.
The Association of Islamic Iranian Academics warned that delay carried “irreparable consequences” and played into the hands of “Western-influenced internal groups” seeking to remove velayat-e faqih (guardianship of the jurist) from Iran’s constitution.
On Sunday, Ayatollah Mohammad Mahdi Mirbaqeri, a member of the Assembly of Experts, said consensus on a supreme leader had been reached but added: “In these difficult conditions, there are obstacles.”
Whether these “obstacles” are external security threats or internal disputes about the selection or process will determine whether Iran emerges from this crisis with its system intact or fundamentally transformed.
The final announcement was pending on Sunday night. But if clerics have chosen Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, a mid-ranking hardliner, it will signal a willingness to continue the war with the US, and will be likely to anger Donald Trump.
The US president, who previously called Mojtaba Khamenei a “lightweight”, said on Sunday that no leader would last long without his approval.
Khamenei is close to the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard), the elite military force entwined with the hardline establishment of the Islamic Republic.
The supreme leader was elected by informal consultations among 88 clerics of the Assembly of Experts over nine days.
Members said in official minutes that Israeli and US air strikes had prevented them from convening an in-person session to formalise the choice.
The Israeli military said on Sunday that it would pursue “every successor and every person who seeks to appoint a successor” for Khamenei, suggesting it intended to carry out strikes on civilian clerics.
The selection process was delayed, prompting speculation that the assembly was struggling to agree on a successor to the late ayatollah. Any disagreement would undermine the new supreme leader’s legitimacy.
Ayatollah Abdullah Kiyvani, representative of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province in the assembly, released a formal statement on Friday urging the leadership board to speed up the process.
An intervention by so senior a cleric showed that the delay in choosing a successor has posed a threat to the Islamic Republic’s religious authority, not just its political stability.
Power vacuum
The delay reveals a weak point: Iran’s military has been fighting without a commander-in-chief.
Ahmad Vahidi, the recently nominated IRGC commander, has faced the challenge of waging war, and preventing it becoming a civil conflict ,without any clear political authority to direct him.
The longer this vacuum persisted, the more it empowered military commanders to make independent decisions that could escalate the conflict beyond political control, or to pursue strategies that contradicted the eventual decisions of the civilian leadership.
The Islamic Republic is not a unitary state with a single chain of command.
It is a complex web of power centres – the IRGC, the ordinary military, the presidency, the judiciary, the clerical establishment, the intelligence services, the Basij militia – all with overlapping jurisdictions, rival interests, and independent capabilities.
The supreme leader’s essential function is not just symbolic religious authority but practical political arbitration: when these institutions disagree, he decides.
When they pursue conflicting agendas, he imposes coherence. When one overreaches, he restrains it.
Without that arbiter, Iran’s system defaults to “fire at will” – each power centre pursuing its own interpretation of national interest without co-ordination or restraint.
The IRGC navy can claim it struck the USS Abraham Lincoln while the ordinary navy issues different statements.
The foreign ministry can signal openness to Omani mediation while the IRGC threatens that enemies will have “no security anywhere in the world”.
Massoud Pezeshkian, the president, can apologise to neighbouring countries for strikes, while the IRGC spokesman declares any base used for attacks is a legitimate target regardless of which country hosts it.
The military dimension is the most dangerous. Different commanders can make different strike decisions without centralised approval.
Supreme leader prevents fragmentation
Iran’s system is designed to concentrate ultimate authority in the supreme leader precisely to prevent this fragmentation.
Until the clerics announce their choice, and he exercises actual authority, Iran will operate as a collection of institutions pursuing incompatible strategies while fighting a war against militarily superior enemies.
A supreme leader will provide what Iran needs right now: unity of command, clarity of strategy, and authority to make decisions without endless consultation.
Most critically, a supreme leader can negotiate with credibility.
The Association of Islamic Iranian Academics warned that delay carried “irreparable consequences” and played into the hands of “Western-influenced internal groups” seeking to remove velayat-e faqih (guardianship of the jurist) from Iran’s constitution.
On Sunday, Ayatollah Mohammad Mahdi Mirbaqeri, a member of the Assembly of Experts, said consensus on a supreme leader had been reached but added: “In these difficult conditions, there are obstacles.”
Whether these “obstacles” are external security threats or internal disputes about the selection or process will determine whether Iran emerges from this crisis with its system intact or fundamentally transformed.
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