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09-03-2026
TEHRAN: The martyred Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s hardline son, Mojtaba Khamenei, is Iran’s new supreme leader. It’s a choice which could lead to an escalation with Washington. The Iran war drives oil prices above $100 a barrel. Gas prices soar too, after Qatar stops LNG exports. Republican voters say they stand by Trump’s war for now, but they’ve got a red line: American boots on the ground. And campaigners urge Australia to give the Iranian women’s soccer team refuge.
Iran’s clerical leadership chose confrontation over compromise in appointing Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his father, Ali Khamenei, a move regional officials say is a direct rebuke to U.S. President Donald Trump, who had declared the son “unacceptable”.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was martyred in a U.S.-Israeli strike at the start of the conflict, now in its second week.
The appointment of Mojtaba as his successor by the Assembly of Experts locks hardliners firmly in control in Tehran, a gamble that could reshape Iran’s war with the U.S. and Israel and reverberate far beyond the Middle East.
“Having Mojtaba takeover is the same playbook,” said Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.
“It’s a big humiliation for the United States to carry out an operation of this scale, risk so much, and end up killing an 86-year-old man, only to have him replaced by his hardline son.”
Under Iran’s complex, theocratic system, the supreme leader is the ultimate authority, including over foreign policy and Iran’s nuclear program, as well as guiding the elected president and parliament.
Choice puts Iran on path of future confrontation
Analysts say the choice of Mojtaba, a deeply hardline cleric whose wife, mother and other family members were also killed in U.S.–Israeli strikes – sends an unequivocal message: Iran’s leadership has rejected any prospect of compromise to preserve the system and sees no path forward except confrontation, revenge and endurance.
According to insiders, Mojtaba will face immense internal and external strain from a disaffected population and an escalating conflict, but is expected to move swiftly to consolidate power.
That will likely mean expanded authority for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, harsher domestic controls and sweeping repression to crush dissent.
“The world will miss the era of his father,” a regional official close to Tehran told media. “Mojtaba will have no choice but to show an iron fist… even if the war ends, there will be severe internal repression.”
That stance comes after months of deepening domestic unrest – the bloodiest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that had already weakened the Islamic Republic before the war began.
Iran was grappling with a battered economy, soaring inflation; currency collapse and widening poverty, alongside tightening repression that had fueled public anger and protests, pressures now likely to intensify under wartime rule.
Who is Mojtaba Khamenei?
Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in US-Israeli strikes, has been chosen as his successor.
Unlike his father, the 56-year-old has largely kept a low profile. He has never held government office, nor given public speeches or interviews, and only a limited number of photos and videos of him have ever been published but for years there have been rumors that he held considerable influence behind the scenes in Iran.
US diplomatic cables, which were published by WikiLeaks in the late 2000s, described him as “the power behind the robes” who was widely regarded as a “capable and forceful” figure within the regime, according to media. (Int’l News Desk)
