JUNE 27, 2025
Iranian Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei gives first televised remarks since ceasefire. – Majid Asgaripour/Reuters
Over the 36 years of his rule, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has outmaneuvered his rivals, set a confrontational course for Iran’s foreign policy and ensured his firm grip over Iran’s military forces. Throughout it all, he has maintained ultimate power despite persistent opposition in some quarters to his rule and no shortage of domestic and foreign crises.
But as the dust settles on Israeli and American strikes on Iran that killed his closest military advisers and badly damaged much of the country’s missile and nuclear programs, Khamenei finds himself in his most tenuous position yet.
His location is undisclosed as he avoids being potentially targeted by Israeli strikes. He has addressed the country just three times since the Israeli bombardment began June 13, speaking via video messages lacking the polish of his usually sophisticated media apparatus. Though his words have been defiant, he has appeared exhausted and hesitant while speaking.
After remaining silent for days after the U.S. struck three Iranian nuclear facilities Sunday, Khamenei finally released a video message Thursday declaring victory over Israel and the United States. “They could not do anything, they could not achieve their goal, and they exaggerate to cover up the truth and keep it secret,” Khamenei said of the U.S. attack, adding, “The Islamic republic won.”
Khamenei is being blamed by many Iranians for pursuing a nuclear program that left Iran internationally isolated and its economy straining under sanctions, and for misreading the willingness of Israel and the U.S. to attack. Practically overnight, the missile and nuclear facilities developed over years at a cost of billions of dollars have sustained heavy losses, and the regional network of allied militant groups he has fostered, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, has been eviscerated.
These perceived failures have provided his detractors with new grounds to criticize him, while even some supporters are signaling concerns that he is weakened and failing to forcefully lead.
The years-long parlor game in political circles inside and outside Iran over who will eventually replace him atop Iran’s theocratic system has now reached a fevered pitch.
“It seems clear to me that Khamenei has never been weaker, that his supporters within the regime have never been weaker,” said Afshon Ostovar, a professor and Middle East expert at the Naval Postgraduate School in California. “There’s got to be some sense that everything they’ve put their energy into for the last two generations really has not panned out.”
Struggles between his critics and loyalists could shape the next few years of Iran’s politics and even determine whether it will ultimately try to obtain a nuclear weapon. A major fault line may emerge, Ostovar said, between pragmatists, who want to pursue Iran’s goals primarily through diplomacy, and the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps closely allied with Khamenei, which may want to double down on defiance. The battle between the two sides, Ostovar said, “will absolutely play out in terms of succession if succession happens in the next year or two or three.”
Khamenei is still by far the most powerful person in Iran’s political system, said Saeid Golkar, a scholar at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and an expert on Iran’s security apparatus. Khamenei created a “personalistic” system after taking power in 1989, Golkar said, which means that he is still the ultimate decision-maker, and no political or military actors dare criticize him openly.
“There are a lot of institutions, a lot of groups that are helping him to make the decisions and implement them, but this is a guy who is the center of gravity of the system,” Golkar said.
Indeed, open talk of who will eventually replace Khamenei, much less explicit criticism of his failures, is still taboo within Iran, where the government maintains firm control over the media. But in news reports and social media commentary, there have been signs of discontent.
A week into Israel’s bombardment, the Tasnim news agency, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard, published a report that seemed to acknowledge the emergence within the regime itself of opponents to Khamenei. The report said “suspicious elements with a bad track record” were organizing a group of clerics to demand “surrender and compromise” with Israel, and looking to advance an unnamed former government official as their leader. The report was eventually deleted from Tasnim’s website.
Some supporters of Khamenei are displeased with the ceasefire that Iran and Israel are now observing, suggesting that he had been cornered by Western-friendly forces in the government.
On a large Telegram channel of Khamenei supporters, one member said this week that the ceasefire had been imposed on Khamenei by “suit-wearing” men within the government — neither clerics nor miliary officers — and warned that the ceasefire would allow Israel to regroup and resume bombing Iran.
Ali Akbar Raefipour, a prolific hard-line political commentator with a youthful fan base, argued in an audio statement published on his institute’s YouTube channel on Tuesday that the ceasefire was likely to divide Iranian society, lead Iranian officials to let down their guard, and allow Israel to repair its air defenses.
“God forbid that some pro-Western individuals have gotten ahead of our commander and leader of our society,” he said.
Speculation inside and outside Iran of who might eventually replace Khamenei has for years focused on a handful of names. One of them is Khamenei’s son Mojtaba, also a cleric. He is known to wield immense influence from behind the scenes, including over military promotions within the ranks of the Revolutionary Guard, Golkar said.
But Mojtaba is an unknown quantity, having given no known public speeches, and if he were to be chosen, the Islamic republic could face criticism, even from its supporters, that it was replicating the monarchy that it overthrew in 1979.
A political banner in Tehran on Thursday, near a residential building that was damaged in an Israeli strike. – Majid Saeedi/Getty Images
Still, regime supporters have commented publicly that if Mojtaba were chosen by the clerical body that is charged with selecting the supreme leader, it would not be a hereditary succession, Golkar said.
“This is a very likely scenario,” he said of Mojtaba’s elevation.
The elevation of his son would address what are probably two of Khamenei’s core concerns, Golkar said: that the Islamic republic continue on the ideological path he has paved, and that the safety of his family be ensured. The 1995 death of Ahmad Khomeini, the powerful son of the founder of the Islamic republic, attributed to cardiac arrest, prompted widespread speculation that he was killed by political rivals.
Another option would be the selection of an elderly cleric without a power base of his own, who would probably die soon, clearing the way for Mojtaba’s ultimate selection as supreme leader, Golkar said.
Some ultraconservatives within Iran’s system support the elevation of Mohammad Mahdi Mirbagheri, a cleric in his 60s with hard-line views, and wanted him to run for president last year.
The body that chooses the supreme leader, called the Assembly of Experts, is dominated by clerics who are loyal to Khamenei. Mirbagheri, for one, sits in the assembly. Last year, former president Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate within Iran’s system who diverged at times from Khamenei’s preferences while in office, was barred from running to join the assembly.
But some commentators online have boosted Rouhani as a potential Khamenei successor. As a cleric, he would qualify under Iran’s constitution, though he would probably face harsh opposition from hard-line forces who opposed his diplomacy with the West. It was on his watch that Iran negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal with the U.S. and other world powers, abandoned by President Donald Trump three years later.
Amid Khamenei’s silence, Rouhani put out a widely read statement this week in reaction to the ceasefire, praising the Iranian people, Khamenei and the armed forces. But in careful language, Rouhani also signaled that Iran needed a new path.
“A resilient economy, wise diplomacy, and mutual trust between the people and the state are the complementary aspects of national security,” he said. “This crisis must create an agenda for correcting our course and rebuilding the foundations of governance.”
Courtesy/Source: This Washington Post
