Iran's War: 'Mojtaba Khamenei Is Being Hunted By Foreign Powers And Internal Foes'

'Mojtaba Khamenei supervised the most recent repression in December 2025 and January 2026 which remains ongoing.'

"Raw power aside, as a cleric, however, Mojtaba has none of the charisma of Ayatollah Khomeini nor the political savvy of his father Ayatollah Khamenei," says Dr Jamsheed K. Choksy, Distinguished Professor, Department of Central Eurasian Studies and Director, Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Centre, Indiana University, USA.

In an interview with Rediff's Archana Masih, Dr Choksy discusses Iran's break with tradition in choosing a dynastic successor to the ayatollah, if the new leader can control rival commanders in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and whether the war will decapitate the regime, deplete its weapons, or weaken it enough to overthrow the theocracy.

Ayatollah Khomeini believed dynastic succession was heresy in Islam. And yet ignoring a tenet established by the father of the Islamic Revolution, the Iranian establishment chose to anoint Ayatollah Khamenei's son as the next supreme leader.
How would you interpret this decision?

Senior Shi'ite clergy have offices to manage their religious, social, and political activities. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, after his ascent to the position of the second supreme leader or rahbar placed one of his sons, Mojtaba, in charge of the Office of the Supreme Leader or bayt-e rahbari, just as the first Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini had done previously with his own male heirs.

Unlike the first supreme leader's offsprings, however, Mojtaba used this position to transform the office of the supreme leader into a nationwide institution which oversaw and controlled much of the Islamic Republic's security, financial, and civic administration.

Having served in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, he subsequently deployed his contacts and economic leverage to ensure the special military force's loyalty to his father and himself.

Then in 2009, with his father's blessing, he took control of the Basij or paramilitary and repeatedly used it to brutally quash opposition to his father.

Upon the recent elimination of his father, and the concomitant deaths of other family members, Mojtaba had the support of the IRGC and Basij plus ultra-hard clergymen within the Assembly of Experts to be elevated to the position of rahbar.

In Ithna-Ashari or 'Twelvers' (following 12 imams) Shi'ism, clerical linages are common, passed from father to son and are modelled on the imamate or line of imams itself.

So, even though the Islamic Republic's first supreme leader Khomeini eschewed passing the mantle of national leadership to his sons and grandsons due to the symbolism of hereditary rule (the Pahlavi monarchy) that he had successfully campaigned against and overthrown, tradition among the Shi'ite clergy coupled with political and economic clout ensured Mojtaba Khamenei's ascension.

Was this decision meant to be a defiant statement to the US that we stand behind the son of the man you assassinated?
Or is it a desperate act to ensure the regime doesn't fall apart under the American and Israeli onslaught?

The act of elevation of the recently-eliminated second supreme leader's son to the highest religio-political office in Iran certainly also was a gesture of defiance to Washington and Jerusalem during the current war by the xenophobic and ultraorthodox members of Iran's surviving leadership.

But it would likely have happened even if Ali Khamenei had died under non-combat conditions due to the vast power seized for over nearly four decades by father and son.

The brutality of Iran's supreme leaders has risen with each successive appointment and Mojtaba supervised the most recent repression in December 2025 and January 2026 which remains ongoing.

Can Mojtaba retain his father's aura? Will his own linkages with entities like the IRGC ensure that the surviving guardians of the Islamic Revolution stay united?

Raw power aside, as a cleric, however, Mojtaba has none of the charisma of Ayatollah Khomeini and nor the political savvy of his father Ayatollah Khamenei.

It remains unclear if tyranny alone will hold together the regime he now leads or even keep in line the many competing commanders within the IRGC and Basij -- all of whom have economic interests to reach accommodation with the United States of America and bring about an end to the current war so they can hold onto their wealth and positions.

Mojtaba is unacceptable to Trump. The Israelis say they will eliminate him. Could this decision therefore be a temporary one until Iran's rulers find a more acceptable and coherent group to run the country?

In addition to Mojtaba's own power and connections, the decision to elevate him to the position of supreme leader could be a strategic one by other leading clerics -- whereby they avoid becoming main targets for elimination by the US and Israel.

Additionally, more moderate clergymen realise that if Mojtaba Khamenei and his circle are removed by Israel and/or the United States, the rest of the regime will gain more flexibility to reach compromise with Trump and Netanyahu.

Trump wants regime change as I am sure do many millions of Iranians, weary of 47 years of servitude under the mullahs. But is regime change in Tehran possible?
Like he did in Venezuela, can Trump find a Delcy Rodriguez in Tehran?

One can be certain that Mojtaba is being hunted down by foreign powers and internal foes. After all, he and the government that he took over have not only harmed the United States and Israel for many decades, they also have arrested, imprisoned, tortured and killed thousands of their own citizens, destabilised the Middle East directly with the IRGC and through proxies and clients like the Iraqi Popular Mobilisation Forces, proxy Afghan bridges, the now-gone Assad regime of Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis, and over the past week have bombed most neighboring countries.

Certainly, a majority of Iran's population, who have lived their entire lives under the daily control of the Islamic Republic's mullahs and enforcers, would like to see the velayat-e faqih or governance of the Muslim jurist -- which is the Islamic Republic's political system -- swept aside and replaced by a non-religious or at least a more secular oriented one.

A swift transition to a leader who can work with the United States, as occurred in Venezuela, is not happening in Iran as the ongoing war demonstrates.

Is there anyone who would be acceptable to the guardians of the revolution as well as to the Americans? Perhaps someone like Ali Larijani, who is already a powerful figure in the current ruling establishment and is someone the Americans -- but not the Israelis -- could do business with?

In the event of Mojtaba's demise or ouster, Ali Larijani, who hails for a powerful family of clergymen and bureaucrats, has spent years within the regime, and is presently head of Iran's National Security Council is one politician who may be able to cast aside his animosity and work with the western power.

Likewise President Masoud Pezeshkian, a physician turned politician may be able to abjure the anti-western rhetoric he has felt obliged to spout in recent months and regain some of the domestic following he had when elected to office in July 2024.

But both Larijani and Pezeshkian now are tied to the draconian recent crackdown against unarmed civilian protestors and may very well no longer be acceptable to ordinary Iranians irrespective of whether either could reach a negotiated peace with the United States, Israel and the Arab countries of the region who have been attacked by Iranian missiles and drones.

Whether the current war will both decapitate the Iranian regime sufficiently and diminish its weapons supplies adequately so that it is compelled to surrender or becomes weak to the point that the people can overthrow the theocracy remains unclear.

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Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff