He is Ali Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba, the new leader, the third, of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
A succession, decided by the 88 religious people who make up the Assembly of Experts, which transforms the regime into a “religious dynasty”. The choice was immediately criticized by Donald Trump who defined him as a “feather man” and by Israel who has already declared that his days are numbered.
The second son of the late leader, born in 1969, born in the holy city of Mashhadhas been one of the most powerful and mysterious figures in the Iranian apparatus for decades. Unlike his father, he never held formal government roles, but acted as a sort of “factotum” of the leader’s office, earning him the nickname “man in the shadow” or “gatekeeper”.
With his coronation the country takes a historic and controversial step. For the first time since the 1979 revolution, which overthrew the Shah’s monarchy, power passes from father to son, a choice that Ayatollah Khomeini himself and his successors had always officially repudiated.
Mojtaba’s powerwho does not hold the rank of Ayatollah which would be required by law for the title of supreme leader, but the lower one of Hojjatoleslam, enjoys absolute loyalty from the Pasdaran (Guardians of the Revolution). He served during the Iran-Iraq war (1987-1988) and cultivated relationships with military leaders for years, becoming their privileged interlocutor within the sanctum sanctorum of power. According to Reuters sources, he enjoys “strong support” especially among the young radical generations of the Corps.
He also enjoys the loyalty of the security forces. He has been fingered as the one who orchestrated the hawkish Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s rise to power in 2005 and played a key role in the repression of the 2009 Green Revolution.
According to a Bloomberg investigationMojtaba is reportedly at the center of a vast international property empire worth more than £100m in the UK alone. The network would include villas on “Billionaire’s Row” in London, luxury hotels in Frankfurt and Mallorca and properties in Dubai, all registered through a complex web of offshore companies and frontmen to evade controls. Since 2019, the US Treasury Department had included him on the list of people to be sanctioned on charges of managing his father’s “destabilizing assets” and collaborating with the commanders of the Pasdaran and the Basij militia.
Mojtaba survived the February 28 attacksduring which his wife, mother and other family members lost their lives. His appointment marks the victory of the toughest wing of the regime, that of the Pasdaran, who see in him a guarantor of ideological continuity and, above all, of their economic and strategic interests.
The former director of the CIA, David Petraeus, speaking on CNN, commented:
«We assume that he will be the continuation of his father, a religious man with a very hard ideological line. We were hoping for a more pragmatic leader, capable of meeting American requests. But that doesn’t seem to be the case.”
However, the transformation of the Islamic Republic, in fact, into a monarchy could further alienate the residual popular sympathies for the regime and accentuate internal fractures.
