Command Palette

Search for a command to run...

Discover

Iran’s Assembly of Experts Nears Decision on Hardline Successor to Khamenei

Iran’s Assembly of Experts Nears Decision on Hardline Successor to Khamenei
View gallery

Iran’s powerful Assembly of Experts said it had “more or less” reached a majority decision on a new supreme leader by Sunday, March 8, just nine days after U.S.-Israeli airstrikes killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and plunged the country into war and constitutional crisis euronews +1. The hurried, largely opaque process unfolded as Iran intensified missile and drone attacks across the Gulf and braced for further strikes on its own territory carnegieendowment +1.

Wartime Succession: Speed, Secrecy and a Hardline Tilt

Under Iran’s constitution, the 88-member Assembly of Experts appoints the supreme leader by simple majority, with a three-man interim council – President Masoud Pezeshkian, Judiciary Chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei and senior cleric Alireza Arafi – temporarily assuming the role’s powers after Khamenei’s death on February 28 aljazeera +1. With Israeli bombs having reportedly hit facilities linked to the Assembly in Qom and air raids still ongoing, some clerics said the body might finalize its choice remotely rather than in a full public plenary, compressing a process that in 1989 took weeks into days euronews +1.

Several members signaled that the decisive criterion was selecting a figure “hated by the enemy,” a phrase widely interpreted as code for a hardliner closely aligned with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and committed to intensifying resistance against the U.S. and Israel euronews +1. Analysts said such framing effectively sidelined reformist-leaning options, including Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of the republic’s founder, and reinforced expectations that the new leader will consolidate – not moderate – Iran’s security state pbs +1.

Mojtaba Khamenei and External Pressure on the Choice

Among the names most prominently discussed was Mojtaba Khamenei, the late leader’s 56‑year‑old son, a mid-ranking cleric long tied to IRGC networks and suspected of wielding influence behind the scenes news +1. His potential elevation stirred controversy at home and abroad: reformist voices warned a father‑to‑son succession would undermine the republic’s anti‑monarchical legitimacy, while U.S. President Donald Trump publicly called Mojtaba “unacceptable” and claimed Washington deserved a say in the outcome euronews +1.

Israel’s government went further, warning it would target any figure chosen to replace Khamenei, an unprecedented threat that turned an already fraught clerical deliberation into a matter of physical survival for potential candidates carnegieendowment. As Tehran simultaneously expanded missile and drone strikes on Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and other Gulf states – hitting oil and desalination infrastructure and deepening a global energy shock – European leaders, ASEAN and others appealed for restraint and a return to diplomacy, even as Russia and China condemned the original U.S.-Israeli campaign as aggression news +2.

The Bigger Picture

The impending announcement of Iran’s next supreme leader, made under bombardment and explicit foreign pressure, is set to define the trajectory of a widening regional war and the Islamic Republic’s internal power balance for decades. A hardline successor closely bound to the IRGC would likely double down on confrontation abroad and repression at home, while any hint of compromise could invite further external targeting and domestic elite backlash. With oil markets roiled, Gulf states under fire and major powers openly contesting Iran’s leadership choice, the succession has become not just a national turning point but a test of how much a country at war can still control its own future news +2.