Son of Khamenei Is Top Contender for Supreme Leader
Mojtaba Khamenei would likely lead country in even more hard-line direction
Mojtaba Khamenei would likely opt for an even more hard-line direction as supreme leader, Iranian officials and analysts say.
A body called the Assembly of Experts, dominated by conservative clerics, is currently voting to replace Ali Khamenei—who was killed in a strike on Saturday—state media said Wednesday. Official news agencies for the first time said the younger Khamenei was alive, immediately triggering speculation he could step in.
Other contenders include Hassan Khomeini—the grandson of founder of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini—who would be expected to seek a more moderate, less repressive path.
Another top contender is Alireza Arafi, a hard-line cleric who was appointed as part of an interim government after Khamenei was killed. He is an ultraconservative who saw the slain leader as too lenient on social issues such as the compulsory wearing of the veil for Iranian women.
The younger Khamenei, 56, lost his wife and mother along with two other relatives in the strikes, according to state media. He is close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij paramilitary, essential elements of Iran’s repression apparatus.
“He will take his father’s revenge against both Iranian society as well as Israel and the United States,” said Saeid Golkar, an expert on Iran’s security services who teaches at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. “This is the worst-case scenario.”
President Trump on Tuesday said Khamenei’s successor could hold even more fervent anti-U.S. views than his predecessor.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned Wednesday that any leader appointed to replace Khamenei will be an “unequivocal target for elimination.”
The Islamic Republic, long known for its authoritarianism and anti-Western policies, has already taken a hard-line turn in recent years. Iran has in recent days responded to U.S. and Israeli strikes by attacking American bases but also hotels in the United Arab Emirates, oil facilities in Saudi Arabia and water infrastructure in Kuwait.
That’s the all-out-war the new supreme leader would have to oversee—alongside a national crisis that was under way before the conflict started. In January, security forces operating under the elder Khamenei killed thousands of protesters calling for regime change. The nation of around 90 million has contended with a deep economic crisis after years of crippling U.S. sanctions over its nuclear program.
The younger Khamenei’s ascendance would mark a shift away from the traditional religious leadership that was crucial to the founding of the Islamic Republic, said analysts and people close to the Iranian government. He instead represents the paramilitaries and more radical clerics that have emerged in recent years as the most powerful actors in the country, these people said.
One Iranian official described him as much tougher than his father.
Though Mojtaba Khamenei has long been considered a front-runner, his choice as successor would be controversial in Iran, where the 1979 revolution installed clerical rule and rejected hereditary monarchy as corrupt.
Ali Khamenei and his predecessor, Khomeini, both dismissed the idea of passing on power to one’s child as monarchic and un-Islamic.
But with the U.S. and Israel pounding the country, Iranian, Arab and Western officials wonder how long the younger Khamenei would survive the onslaught.
Copyright ©2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the March 5, 2026, print edition as 'Khamenei’s Son Top Choice'.