Al Majalla has chosen Iran for its cover this week because the funeral of Ali Khamenei, who was killed in a US-Israeli airstrike on 28 February 2026, was not merely a farewell ceremony for the Supreme Leader; it marked the start of a new phase that raises major questions about the future of the regime.
The funeral came at a highly sensitive moment, with the region caught between the opposing pull of escalation and settlement, between continued strikes against Iran and the Gulf states, and talks to reach a framework agreement that could redraw the relationship between Tehran and Washington, leaving its mark on the Middle East.
Perhaps the most telling point about the funeral was the absence of the new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, Ali’s son and heir. The ceremony was at least in part intended to affirm the transfer of power and the regime’s continuity. This explains Al Majalla’s choice of topic.
The question is no longer only ‘who succeeds Khamenei’ but ‘what kind of Iran will emerge after him’. Will the security state that he built endure, or will the struggle between the Revolutionary Guards and new centres of power—foremost among them Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf—impose a different course within the Islamic Republic? And how will this be reflected in the conduct of Iran and its proxies in the region?
Read more here:
1. After Khamenei: the security state he built, and the son who inherits it by Alex Vatanka
2. The Guards are dissolving from within, and they know it by Maneli Mirkhan
3. Inferring messages from the Supreme Leader's funeral by Badia Fahs
4. The week that Beirut and Baghdad broke the Iranian crescent by Maneli Mirkhan
