Mojtaba Khameneis swift elevation to Irans supreme leadership has already been overshadowed by reports that he was wounded under mysterious circumstances at an undisclosed time and place.
According to Breitbart, Irans state television on Monday confirmed that the son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had assumed the role of Supreme Leader, even as anchors described him with the honorific janbaz, or wounded by the enemy, in the Ramadan war, the regimes preferred term for the current conflict. AP reports that state media offered no details on the nature or timing of the injury, even though Khameneis father and his wife were killed in the February 28 Israeli airstrike in Tehran that helped ignite renewed resistance to the regimes theocratic rule.
The younger Khamenei has not appeared in public since the fighting began, and in truth, he has scarcely been visible throughout his life. Mojtaba Khamenei 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.
Despite this near-total absence from public life, he was proclaimed Irans new supreme leader overnight after a week of speculation, as Breitbart News reported, a development that starkly contradicts the Islamic Republics long-standing denunciations of hereditary rule. The regime has long portrayed itself as a more just alternative to monarchies, yet power has now passed from father to son in a fashion that would be familiar to any dynasty.
Iranian state media insisted that the Assembly of Experts, the regimes top clerical body, did not hesitate in selecting a successor despite the brutal aggression of the criminal America and the evil Zionist regime, language that underscores Tehrans entrenched anti-Western, anti-Israel posture. Broadcast images then showed a missile poised for launch emblazoned with the slogan, At your command, Sayyid Mojtaba, signaling the militarys public fealty to the new leader.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) quickly echoed that loyalty. It issued a statement affirming they were ready to fully obey and devote the divine orders of the Supreme Leader of the time, Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei, and to preserve the values of the Islamic Revolution, according to Irans Tasnim News Agency.
The Daily Mail notes the vengeful hard line cleric is already marked for assassination by Israel after it vowed to eliminate whoever succeeded the late Ayatollah. That threat, combined with his lack of legitimacy in the eyes of many Iranians, raises serious questions about the durability of his rule and the stability of a regime increasingly reliant on repression and inherited power.
From a U.S. perspective, the stakes are high, especially given Irans sponsorship of terrorism and its nuclear ambitions. Hes going to have to get approval from us, President Trump explained. If he doesnt get approval from us hes not going to last long. We want to make sure that we dont have to go back every 10 years, when you dont have a president like me thats not going to do it.
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