For 36 years, the query of who finally dominated Iran had one reply: Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Whereas Iran has an elected president and legislature, that energy is subordinate to the non secular supreme chief, who has the final say over all overseas and home insurance policies and is the commander in chief of Iran’s typical army and the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Corps. Each time the US confronted Iran, American policymakers knew it was Khamenei who would make the ultimate choice.
- Three months after succeeding his father as supreme chief of Iran, Mojtaba Khamenei has nonetheless not been seen in public. He missed his father’s funeral on July 4.
- With the supreme chief taking a much less energetic position, different energy gamers within the Iranian regime have develop into extra unbiased and outspoken, jockeying for place within the new system.
- It’s nonetheless unclear precisely what the brand new system will seem like. One chance is a much less overly non secular however nonetheless authoritarian and nationalistic regime.
They’re not so certain, nonetheless. Joint US-Israeli airstrikes on the primary day of the struggle 4 months ended Khamenei’s rule. On July 4, tens of hundreds of mourners flooded the streets of Tehran for the previous supreme chief’s funeral, many waving flags and chanting slogans vowing vengeance in opposition to the USA and Israel. The occasion started per week of mourning all through the nation earlier than Khamenei’s burial on Thursday.
Three of Khamenei’s sons have been in attendance on Sunday, however notably absent was Mojtaba Khamenei, who was named his father’s successor on March 4. Mojtaba Khamenei has not been seen in public since then and was additionally absent from his spouse’s funeral earlier within the week. No movies, audio recordings, or present images have been issued since then — solely written statements learn by the anchors on state tv or posted on his Telegram channel. Iranian TV networks have even resorted to airing AI-generated movies of him giving speeches.
There are some cheap explanations for why he’s laying low. Mojtaba is reportedly nonetheless recovering from extreme and disfiguring accidents to his legs and face suffered in the identical airstrike that killed his father and his spouse on February 28. And given the destiny of his relations and dozens of different senior officers, he may moderately assume that he was a goal. US officers consider that Khamenei is truly alive and taking part in decision-making. Nonetheless, his failure to look on the funeral disenchanted lots of the mourners who had gathered, and the longer he stays out of view, the extra questions like the next shall be raised:
Can anybody really fill the Ayatollah’s sneakers? May the troubled transition from father to son result in an Iran that’s concurrently much less overtly non secular however extra nationalistic and authoritarian than earlier than? And most significantly: Who truly guidelines Iran at the moment?
The distinctive setup of the Iranian regime — civilian leaders, however a mullah who holds final energy — has been a complicating think about earlier rounds of diplomatic negotiations with the USA. Even when “moderates” who favored higher relations with the West have been in energy, any choice needed to be signed off by the supreme chief, whose actual views weren’t all the time instantly obvious.
Nothing has modified within the transition from father to son in regards to the formal powers Iran’s supreme chief holds. However whereas Khamenei has been taking some half within the present US-Iran ceasefire talks together with authorizing negotiators to hold out direct talks with the Individuals final month in a printed assertion and periodically weighing in on specific negotiating factors, he doesn’t but seem like taking as energetic a job as his father did in related conditions. “There’s proof that the ability that the supreme chief workout routines has diminished considerably,” mentioned Hussein Banai, an professional on Iranian politics and professor at Indiana College Bloomington.
Particularly, he famous that the supreme chief usually performs a “central headquarters” position, getting the entire regime’s factions on the identical web page, voicing a unified message. Iran’s politics has by no means been wholly unified: There are a number of facilities of energy, together with the non secular institution, the elected authorities, and the army, in addition to competing factions inside these facilities. However when the supreme chief weighed in, everybody aligned their message along with his.
No matter Mojtaba Khamenei’s present situation, that appears to be conspicuously absent now. “The president says what he desires; the speaker says what he desires,” Banai mentioned. “There isn’t any coordination.”
Mixed with the sheer variety of senior figures who have been killed by airstrikes, there’s one thing of an influence vacuum in Tehran proper now.
“Everyone seems to be combating for his or her relevance on this subsequent iteration of the Islamic Republic,” mentioned Sanam Vakil, director of the Center East program at Chatham Home.
On the civilian aspect of the regime, there’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, a relative reasonable who took energy in 2024 after his predecessor was killed in a airplane crash. Whereas formally the second strongest chief in Iran, Pezeshkian noticed his energy and affect curtailed in the course of the struggle. As an advocate for diplomacy, his place may enhance if the talks truly ship financial aid for Iranians.
Extra outstanding in public in latest weeks has been Mohammed Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, who led the delegations conducting negotiations with the USA and seems ceaselessly within the media to elucidate the federal government’s positions. As a publicity-hungry conservative populist often called a perennial presidential candidate and implicated in some shady actual property offers, Ghalibaf might have discovered his calling because the Iranian authorities’s level of contact with the Trump administration. Greater than another determine within the regime, he’s seen his public and worldwide profile rise on account of the struggle.
However the diploma to which the civilians can truly converse for the Iranian regime as a complete in these talks is probably Iran’s single greatest query after Mojtaba Khamenei’s actual standing. On the army aspect, probably the most important ascending determine could also be Ahmad Vahidi, commander in chief of the Revolutionary Guard, who has ceaselessly overruled the moderates in search of a fast deal to finish the struggle. Based on reporting by the Wall Avenue Journal, it was Vahidi who pushed for Iran to launch new missile strikes in June, regardless of issues it will imperil the continuing ceasefire negotiations with the US. Vahidi is below US sanctions for the regime’s crackdowns on protests and is needed by Interpol for his alleged position within the 1994 bombing of a Jewish neighborhood heart in Argentina. However he’s not all the time averse to slicing offers with Individuals: He reportedly took half within the talks with the Reagan administration within the Eighties that turned recognized within the US as Iran-Contra.
With varied voices and factions jockeying for affect, the query is simply who is definitely in control of the Iranian system. “The system is accountable for the system,” Vakil mentioned. “I do know all of us wish to suppose that there’s one person that has energy or authority. There’s nobody commander in chief. It’s a system that’s commanding collectively in the intervening time.” All this might add as much as a much more unpredictable Iran going ahead.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that Iran’s new leaders are “far more cheap” than their predecessors, and prime US officers declare to be growing productive relationships with their Iranian counterparts. However the Iranian management has additionally repeatedly proven in latest weeks that it’s prepared to threat blowing up the talks by utilizing drive when it feels its purple strains are being crossed, whether or not that’s Israel’s incursions into Lebanon or threats to Tehran’s management of the Strait of Hormuz.
What’s going to the brand new Iranian regime seem like?
In some unspecified time in the future, the world will get extra readability on Mojtaba Khamenei’s actual position, and a brand new system will click on into place. When the ability struggles shake out, that regime will most likely be not any extra democratic than Iran below the Ayatollah and definitely no extra inclined to belief the USA. However it’s doable that an Iran will emerge that’s much less ideological, non secular, and revolutionary — and but doubtlessly extra aggressive — than what we’ve seen since 1979.
In a latest article in International Affairs, the Iranian-American students Narges Bajoghli and Vali Nasr argued that Iran’s extra “technocratic” new leaders, lots of whom got here of age in the course of the brutal Iran-Iraq struggle of the Eighties reasonably than the anti-Shah resistance of the Nineteen Seventies, could also be extra prepared to have interaction in direct talks with the US than the extra ideological cohort led by Ali Khamenei, however could also be much more to threat drive.
Greater modifications may come on the home aspect. Iran’s famously strict non secular legal guidelines have been already loosening a bit earlier than the struggle. Although sporting a hijab continues to be legally required for Iranian girls, the legislation is much less enforced and plenty of extra girls have been going with out the headband because the “lady, life, freedom” protests in 2022. Some consultants anticipate Iran’s authorities, notably if the supreme chief is finally enjoying a muted position, to advertise a extra secular type of authoritarian nationalism. Which will already be underway — the sight of partially and even unveiled girls at pro-regime rallies was one of many extra stunning developments of this struggle.
Vakil mentioned that the federal government is more likely to proceed to level to faith as a justification for its insurance policies, however in a second of disaster and instability, the regime should select its battles, which can imply “tolerating girls strolling round sporting no matter they need.” What it is not going to imply, given the hardline positions males like Ghalibaf and Vahidi have taken throughout earlier mass protests, is tolerating dissent or opposition to the political system itself. The hopes, expressed by US and Israeli leaders on the outset of this struggle, that it will spark a public rebellion or fracturing of the regime, have clearly not come to move.
The revolution is now practically 50 years previous, and alter was coming to Iran ultimately, whether or not the struggle occurred or not. It was already clear within the final years of Ali Khamenei’s life that the system he led was below stress from financial stagnation, worldwide isolation, and public discontent amongst a inhabitants, nearly all of whom don’t have any reminiscence of the 1979 revolution. The transition to his successor was anticipated to be a take a look at of whether or not the regime may reform itself to outlive one other technology. Because of US and Israeli airstrikes, that transition is occurring on an accelerated timeline.
The regime has proven it will probably survive ‚ and arguably win — a struggle with far more highly effective adversaries. However a inhabitants determined for a return to normalcy might not get it for a while, given the unsure state of the ceasefire. Home divisions and rivalries that have been suppressed throughout wartime might reemerge now that the combating has largely stopped.
Proper now, many Iranians are questioning whether or not Mojtaba Khamenei is definitely in any form to carry out the position his father performed for 36 years. However the greater query could also be whether or not, in Iran’s new political actuality, that position will even exist for much longer.
Replace, 10:30 am ET, July 6, 2026: This piece was initially printed on July 1 and has been up to date to mirror the information that Mojtaba Khamenei didn’t attend his father’s funeral on July 4.
