Iran’s Assembly of Experts names Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the country’s new supreme leader, state media reported on Sunday, following the opening strike in the nine-day U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, was appointed by a committee of senior Shiite clerics after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the highest authority in the country for more than three decades, was killed in an airstrike, the United States. confirmed on Feb. 28.
His ascension, announced early Monday morning, signals the government’s desire for continuity as Iran faces expanding attacks from the United States and Israel nine days into the war.
Iran’s powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guard answers to the supreme leader, and now Khamenei will have the central say in war strategy. There has been only one other transfer of power in the office of the supreme leader since the Islamic Revolution almost half a century ago.
President Donald Trump has said that he would view Mojtaba Khamenei’s elevation to supreme leader as an “unacceptable” outcome.
Before the announcement, Trump warned in an ABC News interview that the next supreme leader “is not going to last long” without the approval of the United States.
“I’m saying there has to be a leader that’s going to be fair and just. Do a great job. Treat the United States and Israel well, and treat the other countries in the Middle East – they’re all our partners,” Trump said.
U.S. officials said they don’t intend to hold diplomatic talks with Iran until the American military operation runs its course.
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The younger Khamenei, 56, had long been considered a contender for the post, even prior to an Israeli strike that killed his father, and despite never being elected or appointed to a government position. Even so, he wielded behind-the-scenes influence in the country’s governing apparatus when his father was alive.
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued sanctions against Khamenei in 2019 “for representing the Supreme Leader in an official capacity despite never being elected or appointed to a government position.”
Israel, meanwhile, vowed Sunday to target whoever succeeded the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, saying “the long arm of the State of Israel will continue to pursue the successor and anyone who tries to appoint him.”