INVESTIGATION: Mojtaba Khamenei, the silent heir now running Iran from the shadows

Introduction: a supreme leader almost nobody has seen

A succession forged in wartime, not in peace

Some political successions are prepared for years, with ceremonies, speeches, and faces exposed to camera flashes. Mojtaba Khamenei's succession has none of that. The son of former supreme leader Ali Khamenei, killed on February 28, 2026, in a joint American-Israeli strike on the first day of operation Epic Fury, was named the third supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran on March 9, 2026, by the Assembly of Experts, according to tallies reported by Reuters and the New York Times. Since that announcement, he has almost never been seen in public, a fact as revealing as it is troubling for a country living through the gravest crisis of its recent history.

This physical absence is not a minor detail. It shapes the entire way one must read Iranian power today: a supreme leader governing from the shadows while a war with the United States and Israel keeps rattling the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. This reality must be named without flinching: Iran in 2026 is run by a man whose own people cannot confidently identify from a recent photograph.

Why this investigation, and why now

Understanding Mojtaba Khamenei is not an exercise in biographical curiosity. It is an attempt to map out who, in 2026, decides to fire missiles at commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, to shut a waterway that carries nearly a fifth of the world's oil, and to strike bases in Gulf nations such as Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain. These decisions do not appear out of nowhere: in Iranian constitutional theory, they run through the top of the clerical apparatus that Mojtaba Khamenei now occupies.

This investigation starts from a simple, documented fact: according to CNN, as soon as his father died, analysts were already naming Mojtaba as the most likely successor, citing his behind-the-scenes influence and his close ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the country's most powerful military force. That same man, sanctioned by the United States since 2019, held no official position in the regime at the time.

A country that hands its nuclear, military, and diplomatic destiny to an invisible man does not inspire confidence, it inspires unease, first his own, then the world's. This staged silence is no accident, it is a strategy for political survival.

A lightning election in a country in shock

Fifty-nine votes out of eighty-eight, under emergency conditions

The process that carried Mojtaba Khamenei to the top of Iranian power moved at a speed unusual for a theocracy that, as a rule, cultivates deliberative slowness. According to Wikipedia, which compiles press tallies, the Assembly of Experts, made up of 88 clerics, voted from March 3 to 8, 2026, before announcing its choice on March 9. The New York Times reported that the younger Khamenei won 59 votes out of 88, clearing the two-thirds majority required by the Iranian Constitution, while Iran International instead cited "roughly 50 votes or more."

This discrepancy between the two counts is not a mere statistical footnote. It illustrates the persistent opacity of an institutional process that presents itself as rigorous and collegial. An election that produces two different vote counts, inside a political system that tolerates no genuinely independent domestic press, must be read with methodical caution, not naive trust.

A transition council that managed the power vacuum

Between Ali Khamenei's death and his son's election, Iran operated under an interim leadership council, made up, according to CNN, of the president, the head of the judiciary, and a senior cleric from the Guardian Council, in accordance with Article 111 of the Constitution. This mechanism, designed to manage a power vacancy, had been used only once since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979, during the hurried succession that brought Ali Khamenei himself to power after Ayatollah Khomeini's death.

This historical repetition, more than thirty years later, amid an active war against the United States and Israel, reveals the structural fragility of a system that has never built a genuinely stable succession mechanism. The Iranian regime, in 2026, had to improvise a transfer of power under bombardment, which says a great deal about its degree of preparedness for an existential crisis.

A theocracy that boasts of millennial stability took less than two weeks to find a successor under the pressure of strikes, and that institutional sprint should worry the regime's own supporters more than its enemies. Legitimacy is not built in a panic.

A man with no official role before the crisis

Influence in the shadows rather than a title on display

Before his father's death, Mojtaba Khamenei held, according to CNN, no official government post beyond responsibilities carried out within his father's own office. That absence of a title never meant an absence of power: analysts cited by the same source had for years described him as wielding considerable behind-the-scenes influence, precisely because of his close ties to the IRGC and its paramilitary force, the Basij.

This setup, informal power built on networks rather than visible institutions, matches exactly the pattern Western observers have feared for years. A man who controls military levers without ever having to answer publicly for them does not become more reassuring simply because he is handed, overnight, the supreme title of the Islamic Republic.

A historic Shia clerical wariness of dynasty

Naming Mojtaba Khamenei collides, in theory, with a long-standing norm of the Shia clerical establishment: dynastic succession is generally viewed with suspicion, especially in an Islamic Republic born from the overthrow of a monarchy widely despised by its own population. Passing power from father to son, in a system that claims to found its legitimacy on religious merit rather than bloodline, is a contradiction the regime has never fully resolved in public.

That contradiction weighs on the new supreme leader's own legitimacy, both inside and outside Iran. Power that passes down like a family estate, in a country where millions of citizens grew up hearing that very kind of political inheritance condemned, cannot expect spontaneous public trust.

There is a bitter irony in watching a regime born to topple a dynasty build another, quieter but just as locked down. This is not a revolution carrying on, it is a monarchy rebranding itself.

What Donald Trump said about Tehran's choice

A successor Washington calls "unacceptable"

According to Axios, cited by news wires, Donald Trump reacted even before the official announcement, calling Mojtaba Khamenei, whom he described as a mid-ranking hardline cleric, the most likely successor, while warning he would reject that choice and insisting he wanted to be directly involved in selecting Iran's future leader. This direct intervention by an American president in the succession process of a hostile sovereign state is, in itself, an extraordinary diplomatic fact.

This American positioning confirms that Washington does not view Mojtaba Khamenei as a good-faith interlocutor, but as continuity, if not a hardening, of the hardline course that led to the 2026 war. That the Trump administration, whichever reading one takes, chose geopolitical firmness toward Tehran fits a strategic logic hard to contest on this specific file: containing a regime that keeps multiplying provocations in the Gulf remains, for now, a necessary evil for Western stability in the region.

A clerical retort that left nothing to chance

The Iranian clerical establishment's reaction to American interference did not lack bite. A senior cleric from the Assembly of Experts claimed, according to news wires, that "even the Great Satan" (a classic reference to the United States in official Iranian rhetoric) had recognized the chosen successor's name, a way of turning American criticism into proof of legitimacy. This rhetorical maneuver reveals how badly the Iranian theocracy needs to demonstrate its independence from outside pressure, even when that pressure, in effect, confirms its own intentions.

This dynamic of mutual defiance between Tehran and Washington over a simple question of internal succession shows just how far the 2026 war has turned every Iranian political gesture into a global geopolitical stake. Nothing in this file remains a strictly internal affair.

That Trump is right to worry about Mojtaba Khamenei's profile does not mean Washington should dictate who runs Tehran, but it does say something essential: no one in the West should harbor illusions about this new supreme leader's intentions.

Silence as a strategy for political survival

A first message read aloud, not delivered in person

According to NPR, the first message attributed to the new supreme leader since his father's funeral was "carried" on state television, promising that vengeance for Ali Khamenei's death in the initial February 28 strikes would be "the will of our nation" and "certainly carried out." The choice to have this message read rather than delivered in person before the cameras confirms a communication pattern that has become the signature of this new power: never a face, always a relayed voice.

This choice is not trivial in a political culture that, historically, built its leaders' charisma on physical presence and direct speech, from Khomeini to Ali Khamenei. A supreme leader who refuses to show himself, in the middle of a war, sends an ambiguous signal: either extreme security caution against the threat of targeted strikes, or a real political fragility the regime is trying to mask behind invisibility.

A theocracy insisting on its unity despite the absence

According to the same source, Iran has publicly insisted that its theocracy remains "unified" under this new supreme leader, despite his prolonged absence from screens. American officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have even raised the possibility of a "rogue faction" of Iranian hardliners trying to sabotage the ceasefire independently of the official chain of command, a scenario that, if confirmed, would call into question the very solidity of Mojtaba Khamenei's authority over his own camp.

This hypothesis, documented by several American outlets without being definitively confirmed, must be handled with methodological caution. But it raises a central question for understanding Iran in 2026: who really controls the triggers, the officially designated supreme leader, or IRGC factions acting with growing autonomy under a veneer of declared loyalty?

A power that must constantly repeat that it is "unified" never inspires confidence, that is exactly the kind of claim one repeats when reality is starting to tell a different story.

The documented ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps

An alliance older than the supreme leader title itself

The bond between Mojtaba Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps does not date from his rise to power in March 2026. Analyses relayed by CNN describe this relationship as built over years, even decades, with mutual trust that goes well beyond a simple institutional framework. This closeness explains why so many observers had anticipated his ascent long before the succession question became officially urgent.

This continuity between clerical power and the IRGC's military power is precisely one of the most troubling elements of this succession for Western analysts. A supreme leader who owes his position, in part, to his proximity to the country's most radical armed force has structurally no incentive to rein in that same force's military ambitions, including risky ventures such as the unilateral closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

The IRGC, engine of the Gulf attacks in 2026

This link takes on a particular resonance in light of the events of July 2026: according to Reuters and Al Jazeera, it was precisely the IRGC's navy that claimed the closure of the Strait of Hormuz on July 12, after attacking commercial vessels transiting this waterway, which before the war carried nearly a fifth of the world's oil supply. The IRGC also claimed strikes on facilities linked to American forces in Kuwait and Bahrain, according to Reuters.

It is difficult, in this context, to separate the new supreme leader's personality from the aggressive military line the IRGC has adopted since his father's death. Whether Mojtaba Khamenei personally directs these decisions or simply rubber-stamps the choices of an increasingly autonomous revolutionary guard, the concrete result for the Gulf and for global oil markets remains the same: continued escalation.

It hardly matters, at bottom, whether Mojtaba Khamenei commands or merely covers for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps: in either case, he bears the political responsibility for missiles falling on Gulf countries that never asked for this war.

American sanctions against the supreme leader's financial network

A name already sanctioned long before the succession

Mojtaba Khamenei did not become a target of American sanctions upon reaching supreme power: according to CNN, he had already been sanctioned by the United States as far back as 2019, several years before holding any official post. This precedent confirms that Washington, even under the previous administration, already considered him influential enough to justify targeted economic measures, despite his lack of a government title at the time.

This continuity between the 2019 sanctions and those tightened since his rise to supreme power illustrates the consistency of American analysis of this figure: a man of real influence, concealed behind an absence of official function, now become the top decision-maker of the Islamic Republic.

A financial network tied to the IRGC in the Treasury's sights

Since the start of the 2026 war, the American government has expanded its sanctions to a financial network associated with the IRGC and Mojtaba Khamenei's inner circle, a measure consistent with Washington's broader strategy of choking off the economic resources feeding Iranian military capacity in the Gulf. This financial-strangulation approach complements direct military strikes against IRGC infrastructure.

This dual pressure, financial sanctions and targeted military strikes, reflects a coherent American strategy that refuses to separate the supreme leader's political power from the military apparatus that executes his orders, real or presumed. It is a reading that makes sense as long as Mojtaba Khamenei continues to silently cover for his own IRGC's repeated provocations.

Sanctioning a man seven years before he officially becomes head of state is not gratuitous foresight, it is proof that Western intelligence services had already mapped the real architecture of Iranian power long before Tehran made it public.

Mashhad's funeral, a stage for fragile legitimacy

Five days of mourning under tight political watch

Ali Khamenei's state funeral took place in Mashhad, according to news wires citing Iranian sources, with an announced five-day period of official mourning. Thousands of Iranians took to the streets on the Monday following the supreme leader's death to mourn his passing, while chants hostile to the United States already echoed through the streets of Tehran, a sign the regime managed, at least temporarily, to mobilize part of its population around national grief.

But this street mobilization should not be confused with spontaneous, lasting support for the new, invisible supreme leader himself. Mourning a leader killed by a foreign strike and unreservedly backing his invisible successor are two distinct political phenomena, which the Iranian regime has every interest in presenting as one and the same wave of popular support.

A visit by Commander Ghaani that speaks volumes about priorities

According to the Institute for the Study of War, the commander of the IRGC's Quds Force, General Esmail Ghaani, traveled to Najaf, Iraq, on July 8, 2026, officially to attend the former supreme leader's funeral rites, but also, according to ISW's analysis, to meet with leaders of the Shia establishment and pro-Iranian Iraqi militias. This dual purpose, displayed mourning and quiet military diplomacy, shows how much the Iranian regime continues to use every symbolic event to consolidate its regional networks, even in the middle of a succession crisis.

That the IRGC would use a supreme leader's funeral to tighten ties with Iraqi militias, even as Iran simultaneously confronts the United States and several Gulf monarchies, confirms that Tehran continues to think of its survival in terms of regional proxy networks rather than sincere diplomatic de-escalation.

A regime that sends its most feared general to negotiate with militias during its own supreme leader's funeral tells us exactly where its real priorities lie, and it is certainly not peace.

A theocracy fractured between moderates and hardliners

A lawmakers' warning against crossing red lines

According to the Institute for the Study of War, sixty members of the Iranian Parliament published, on June 28, 2026, a ten-point statement warning negotiators not to violate supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei's "red lines," including maintaining Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz, lifting sanctions, American withdrawal from the region, and refusing to discuss Iran's nuclear program in talks with Washington. The Assembly of Experts' secretariat later clarified that this statement did not represent its official position.

This rush to distance itself reveals a real internal fracture within the Iranian establishment: on one side, hardline parliamentary voices invoking the new supreme leader's authority directly to block any concession; on the other, a central religious institution that prefers to publicly keep its distance. A united regime does not need to disown its own parliamentary allies on subjects as sensitive as negotiations with the United States.

What this fracture reveals about the leader's real authority

This controversy, documented by ISW at the end of June 2026, suggests that Mojtaba Khamenei's authority may not be as uncontested as the regime would like the world to believe. If his name can be invoked by hardline lawmakers to justify a hard line, while being partly disowned by the very institution that elected him, it means the new supreme leader still has to consolidate an authority that constitutional theory grants him but that political practice has not yet fully validated.

This internal instability, in the middle of a war with the United States and Israel, considerably complicates any Western attempt to negotiate with a single, reliable Iranian interlocutor. Negotiating with Tehran in 2026 means negotiating with several centers of power that each, in their own way, invoke the same still poorly stabilized supreme authority.

A supreme leader whom his own lawmakers cite to impose red lines, while the institution that elected him rushes to deny it, is not the stability Iranian propaganda wants to sell the world, it is a theocracy improvising its chain of command in the middle of a war.

The risk raised by Israeli intelligence

A plot against Trump, to be treated with caution

News wires have cited a warning from Israeli intelligence about a possible Iranian plot targeting Donald Trump, information that, if confirmed by additional independent sources, would mark a considerable escalation in the confrontation between Tehran and Washington. This information should nonetheless be treated with the methodological caution it requires, in a context where the information war rages just as fiercely as the military war itself.

This caution does not erase the potential gravity of the allegation. A regime that has already shown, through its strikes on commercial vessels and bases in the Gulf, its willingness to strike beyond its own borders cannot be presumed incapable of contemplating even bolder actions against major Western targets.

What this allegation says about the current security climate

That this kind of warning is circulating, whether or not fully verified in every detail, testifies to the climate of extreme tension now surrounding every actor in this crisis. Mojtaba Khamenei's succession is not unfolding in a peaceful security vacuum, but at the heart of a confrontation where each side suspects the other of the most radical intentions, with a degree of verifiability that varies considerably by source.

This atmosphere of mutual suspicion makes cross-verification of circulating information all the more urgent, rather than the immediate acceptance of every allegation, whatever its origin, Western or Iranian.

I refuse to state as certain information I cannot corroborate through multiple solid independent sources, but I equally refuse to simply ignore it in a climate where this regime has already proven its readiness for escalation on every front.

A supreme leader facing an economically weakened Iran

Cumulative sanctions weigh on an already exhausted population

The Iran that Mojtaba Khamenei now leads is not only at war, it is also economically drained. Cumulative sanctions, tightened since the start of the 2026 conflict, add to decades of economic restrictions that have already eroded purchasing power and public trust in the government. This economic fragility is a particularly unstable foundation for a new leader who still has to build his own legitimacy.

Governing an economically exhausted country while waging open war against the United States and several of its regional allies is a challenge few newly installed leaders could meet without a solid base of popular support, precisely what Mojtaba Khamenei lacks most at this stage of his tenure.

The risky gamble of perpetual military firmness

Facing this fragility, the new supreme leader, or the forces acting in his name, chose the path of continued military firmness rather than diplomatic appeasement. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the strikes on bases in Kuwait and Bahrain, and the sustained rhetoric of vengeance toward the United States reflect a high-stakes strategic bet: convincing the Iranian population, through confrontation, that the new clerical power deserves loyalty despite its face's absence from the screens.

This gamble could backfire if the war continues to degrade the Iranian economy without producing a tangible victory. A people suffering economically while its supreme leader remains invisible and the country's military infrastructure keeps getting struck will not indefinitely maintain patience with a power that cannot even justify its legitimacy through a reassuring physical presence.

A man who never shows his face while asking his people to sacrifice their economy and their sons for an endless war is not building lasting authority, he is building resentment that will one day turn against him.

What this succession changes for Western strategy

An interlocutor even more unpredictable than his father

For nearly forty years, Western strategists had learned to decode, however hostile, the logic of Ali Khamenei. With Mojtaba Khamenei, a man who has remained invisible, with no documented prior governing experience, and whose real authority over the IRGC remains difficult to measure precisely, Western analysts must start from a largely blank page. This structural uncertainty complicates any reliable strategic planning toward Tehran.

This unpredictability is, in itself, an additional risk factor for regional stability. A leader whose true intentions, and true degree of autonomy from his own military apparatus, remain unknown is structurally harder to deter than a leader whose strategic habits have been known for decades.

Why the West cannot afford indifference

Iran under Mojtaba Khamenei does not represent merely a limited regional threat confined to the Gulf: it is an actor that, alongside Russia, China, and North Korea, forms the axis of regimes actively seeking to weaken the international order led by Western democracies. Every Iranian provocation in the Gulf, every closure of the Strait of Hormuz, every strike on an American ally in the region, fits into this larger dynamic that no serious Western power can afford to ignore.

It is precisely because this authoritarian axis advances through small, cumulative escalations that Western vigilance must remain constant, without naivety about this new supreme leader's intentions, but also without giving in to disproportionate military escalation that would only reinforce, within the Iranian population itself, the sense of aggression justifying the current clerical firmness.

The West must guard against two symmetrical traps in dealing with this new supreme leader, the blindness that minimizes the threat, and the overreach that unwittingly feeds it. What is needed is lucid firmness, not a panic reaction.

The questions that remain without verifiable answers

Where is Mojtaba Khamenei really today

Despite months of journalistic and Western intelligence investigation, no one can state with certainty where Mojtaba Khamenei physically is at this stage, nor under exactly what conditions he exercises his daily authority. This opacity, deliberately maintained by the Iranian regime for reasons of both security and narrative control, is one of the most significant blind spots of this investigation.

Acknowledging this uncertainty is not an admission of journalistic weakness, it is, on the contrary, the condition of honest analysis. Any categorical claim about the new supreme leader's daily habits or precise location, absent verifiable and cross-checked sources, would amount to speculation, not rigorous journalism.

Who really decides the strikes in the Gulf

The most urgent question, for understanding this war's trajectory, remains determining precisely who, within the Iranian apparatus, decides on strikes against commercial vessels and Gulf bases: Mojtaba Khamenei personally, a classic clerical chain of command, or IRGC factions acting with growing autonomy under a veneer of declared loyalty to the new supreme leader. ISW's assessments and remarks from anonymous American officials citing a possible "rogue faction" suggest this last hypothesis cannot be dismissed.

This uncertainty about Iran's real decision-making chain considerably complicates any Western strategy of targeted deterrence. Striking the IRGC to deter Mojtaba Khamenei personally only makes sense if he genuinely controls the decisions attributed to him, an assumption the facts documented so far do not allow anyone to confirm with absolute certainty.

I would rather honestly admit what I do not know about the Iranian chain of command than invent a comfortable certainty. This war may partly be fought blind, and saying so plainly is better than pretending to see what cannot be seen.

The silence of Iran's regional allies over this change

Russia and China, cautious spectators of the succession

Neither Moscow nor Beijing has publicly taken a strong position on Mojtaba Khamenei's personality since his rise to power, a reticence that contrasts with the usual diplomatic support these two capitals grant Tehran in international forums. This relative silence, documented by the absence of substantial official statements beyond expected protocol formulas, could reflect strategic caution toward an Iranian leader whose authority remains poorly established.

This reticence does not stop Russia and China from continuing to objectively benefit from the confrontation between Iran and Western powers in the Gulf, which diverts a share of American strategic attention away from Ukraine and the South China Sea. This alignment of interests, even without an explicit statement of support, confirms that the authoritarian axis continues to draw geopolitical benefit from Iranian instability, regardless of the precise identity of its new supreme leader.

Beijing and Moscow do not need to loudly applaud Mojtaba Khamenei to profit from the storm he is fueling in the Gulf, and it is precisely this calculated silence that should alert Western strategists to the convergence of interests between these regimes.

A North Korea watching and learning

North Korea, the most isolated regime in this authoritarian axis, is also closely watching how Mojtaba Khamenei's Iran manages, or fails, to turn the closure of the Strait of Hormuz into a bargaining lever against Washington. Every lesson drawn from this confrontation, about the West's capacity to tolerate or punish regional energy blackmail, directly feeds Pyongyang's strategic calculations for its own future provocations.

This dimension of mutual learning between regimes hostile to the Western order extends well beyond the strictly Iranian scope of this succession. It confirms that how the West manages the current crisis with Mojtaba Khamenei will reverberate well beyond the Gulf, all the way into Pyongyang's strategic calculations and, more broadly, the entire axis now bringing together Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.

This tacit convergence between four regimes hostile to the West is no accident, and refusing to name it clearly would be the worst strategic mistake democracies could make in the face of Mojtaba Khamenei's succession.

Conclusion: an invisible power at the helm of a very real war

What the available evidence allows us to state

At the end of this investigation, one documented finding stands out: Mojtaba Khamenei was elected the third supreme leader of the Islamic Republic on March 9, 2026, through a fast and partly opaque institutional process, following his father's death in the February 28 strikes. He leads, or at minimum shields, a military apparatus that has closed the Strait of Hormuz, struck commercial vessels, and targeted bases in several Gulf countries, all while remaining himself practically invisible since taking power.

This combination, supreme power exercised in the shadows as a regional war intensifies, is the central element that all Western strategic calculations on Iran must now incorporate. Ignoring this reality for intellectual comfort would be an analytical error with potentially heavy consequences for Gulf security and global oil market stability.

A succession that has solved nothing, and weakened much

Far from stabilizing Iran, Mojtaba Khamenei's succession appears instead to have opened a period of deep institutional uncertainty, marked by internal fractures documented by ISW, growing economic sanctions, and an open war whose outcome remains, to this day, entirely undetermined. This new supreme leader inherits an exhausted country, a military engaged on several fronts simultaneously, and a personal legitimacy still largely to be built.

It is precisely this fragility, documented through cross-checked sources rather than reflexive hostility, that should guide Western analysis in the months ahead. Mojtaba Khamenei is neither a powerless ghost nor an all-powerful leader on a clear trajectory: he is the still poorly understood embodiment of a regime that has chosen opacity as its mode of governance in the middle of a storm.

Signed Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

What I know and what I do not know

I know that Mojtaba Khamenei was elected third supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran on March 9, 2026, by the Assembly of Experts, after his father Ali Khamenei was killed on February 28, 2026, in a joint American-Israeli strike, according to cross-checked tallies from Reuters, the New York Times, and CNN. I know he was sanctioned by the United States as early as 2019, long before holding any official post, and that he maintains long-documented ties with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

I do not know with certainty where Mojtaba Khamenei physically is today, nor to what extent he personally controls every military decision attributed to his regime, notably the strikes in the Strait of Hormuz and on Gulf bases. I would rather say this clearly than fill these blind spots with unverified assumptions. The warning raised by Israeli intelligence about a possible plot targeting Donald Trump is reported here with the methodological caution required by information not yet corroborated by multiple solid independent sources.

Method

This investigation draws on the electoral tallies reported by Reuters, the New York Times, and Iran International as compiled by Wikipedia, on the biographical analysis published by CNN at the time of Ali Khamenei's death, on successive assessments by the Institute for the Study of War regarding internal fractures within the Iranian establishment and General Esmail Ghaani's movements, as well as on dispatches from NPR and Al Jazeera concerning the new supreme leader's communications and Iranian strikes in the Gulf in July 2026. No scene was invented, no direct testimony is claimed.

My editorial angle is deliberate: I consider that this regime, hostile to the West and an objective ally of Russia, China, and North Korea, deserves skeptical and rigorous scrutiny of its every decision, without giving in to unverifiable claims about Mojtaba Khamenei himself, whose opacity is itself an essential factual data point in this file.

Sources

Primary sources

Reuters, majority consensus reached on Iran's next supreme leader — March 8, 2026

Reuters, Iran targets sites in Bahrain and Kuwait after wave of US strikes — July 8, 2026

Institute for the Study of War, Iran special report — July 8, 2026

Institute for the Study of War, Iran special report — July 2, 2026

Secondary sources

CNN, who could replace Iran's supreme leader — February 28, 2026

NPR, US launches new strikes on Iran — July 11, 2026

Wikipedia, 2026 Iranian supreme leader election — accessed July 2026

Al Jazeera, IRGC declares Strait of Hormuz closed — July 12, 2026