Who Takes Command in Iran Now?

O ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in Israeli and US attacks on Iran. Who was the Iranian Supreme Guide?

Born in 1939 in Mashhad, the second largest city in Iran, Khamenei soon embarked on religious life. Later, he was one of the disciples of ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Qom. And when he returned from exile to lead the Islamic Revolution that overthrew the regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, he became a key figure in the Iranian Revolution and a close confidant of the Supreme Guide. During the decade that Khomeini was in power, Khamenei served as defense minister and later supervised the Revolutionary Guards, before being elected president in 1981. Months before that election, he suffered an attack that left his right arm paralyzed. Upon Khomeini’s death in 1989, Khamenei succeeded him as Supreme Guide, and from then on held maximum authority over all branches of government, the armed forces and the judiciary, while also acting as the country’s spiritual leader. Although Iran has an elected president, the top of power is the Supreme Guide. In his 37 years of rule, Khamenei has had a difficult relationship with the West, faced sanctions and seen Iranians take to the streets on several occasions in protests against economic or human rights issues. For Khamenei, the US has always been Iran’s “number one enemy”, with Israel close behind.

With his death, what happens now?

For now, a temporary Leadership Council consisting of three people has been formed in accordance with the law of the Islamic Republic. This includes President Masoud Pezeshkian, a reformist, the leader of the judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, a hardliner of the regime, and also the jurist Alireza Arafi, member of the Council of Guardians of Iran and head of the Basij, the powerful paramilitary force of the Revolutionary Guards.

But who will choose the new Supreme Guide?

While this temporary Leadership Council governs the country on an interim basis, the 88 elements that make up the so-called Assembly of Experts will choose the new leader. According to Iranian law, this has to happen as quickly as possible. In 1989, Khamenei was announced as successor almost immediately after Khomeini’s death. This Assembly of Experts is made up entirely of Shiite clerics elected every eight years and whose candidacies are approved by the Guardian Council, Iran’s constitutional body. But this body has a long history of disqualifying candidates for Iranian elections, and the Assembly of Experts has also done so. The Guardian Council prevented, for example, former President Hassan Rouhani, a moderate whose government signed the 2015 nuclear deal, from running in elections for the Assembly of Experts in March 2024.

So who is best positioned to be the next Supreme Guide?

Until his death in 2024 in a helicopter crash, former conservative president Ibrahim Raisi was considered one of the favorites. Another name that was mentioned was that of Mojtada Khamenei, a 56-year-old cleric and son of the ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but the Supreme Guide himself had already rejected that the country’s leadership would become hereditary. Which could also irritate people. With part of the Iranian leadership killed in Israeli and American attacks, the future of the regime currently remains an enigma.

Is a regime change possible?

Donald Trump left this appeal to the Iranian people, to “take over their government” and overthrow a regime that since the beginning of the year has been responsible for the deaths of thousands of demonstrators in protests that began against the increase in the cost of living, but quickly turned against the Iranian leadership, and for many more arrests. In the streets, in recent months, there have been cries of “death to Khamenei”, but also “death to Khamenei”,Javid Shah“, or “long live the shah”, and “Pahlavi will return.” Reza Pahlavi, 65, is the eldest son of the last shah of Iran, who died in Egypt a year after the monarchy (unloved by Iranians, especially its secret policy, SAVAK, which for years brutally repressed dissent) was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution. Since exile in the US, Pahlavi, who says he does not want to restore the monarchy, has has been a critic of the Iranian regime, defending a democratic and secular Iran. Reacting in X to Khamenei’s death, Pahlavi writes that “the Islamic Republic has effectively come to an end and will soon be relegated to the dustbin of history.” Washington Postreiterated his readiness to lead the transition in Iran.