Iran’s new supreme leader announced – Son of late supreme leader named his successor

Iranian state TV on Sunday announced that Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the late supreme leader, had been named his successor. According to Associated Press he had long been considered a contender, even before an Israeli strike killed his father at the start of the war, and despite never being elected or appointed to a government position. Born in 1969 in the city of Mashhad, some 10 years before the 1979 Islamic Revolution that would sweep Iran, Khamenei grew up as his father agitated against Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran. His own power rose alongside his father’s, working within his offices in downtown Tehran. U.S. diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks in the late 2000s began referring to the younger Khamenei as “the power behind the robes.” One recounted an allegation that Khamenei actually tapped his own father’s phone, served as his “principal gatekeeper” and had been forming his own power base within the country. Iran’s powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guard answers to the supreme leader, and now the younger Khamenei will have the central say in war strategy. The 88-seat Assembly of Experts, a group of clerics, selects Iran’s supreme leader.

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