The appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei as Iran’s new Supreme Leader represents one of the most consequential political shifts in the Islamic Republic in more than three decades. For the first time since the 1979 Revolution, supreme authority has passed directly from father to son. The Assembly of Experts confirmed Mojtaba around a week after the killing of his father, Ali Khamenei, in a US-Israeli strike that wiped out a substantial portion of Iran’s senior leadership. With that decision, days of speculation over a possible vacuum at the summit of power were brought to a close, at a moment when Iran had already entered a major war.
Who is Iran's new Supreme Leader? How was he shaped, and what ideas define him? What is his relationship with Iran’s institutions? What scenarios lie ahead for the country? And what form will the day after the war take?
![The Turkish drilling vessel Fatih waits on the shores of Istanbul's Marmara sea in Istanbul, Turkey, 9 April 2020. [Erdem Sahin/EPA/EFE]](https://static.majalla.com/styles/760x533/public/2023-01/1_6.jpg.webp?VersionId=O211ppLeMnTDsfmaDjbXSSZq7CG7z6_v)
