Mojtaba Khamenei, the new Supreme Leader of Iran, was “elected” Supreme Leader of Iran on March 8. In fact, the Assembly of Experts, the body charged with electing the Supreme Leader, met virtually only once and then only to confirm Mojtaba’s choice as leader.
Reports from sources like Iran International indicate that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) applied significant “psychological and political pressure” on the clerics to ensure a quick victory for Mojtaba, aiming for regime continuity during the war. Khamenei the Younger is a cutout, a stand-in for the IRGC.
On March 9, the regime held “Allegiance rallies” to “celebrate” Khamenei the Younger’s elevation (installation?) to the Islamic version of the Peacock Throne. At the rally in Tehran’s Revolutionary Square, a life-sized cardboard cutout of Mojtaba was hauled on stage to be properly venerated. “State media broadcast regime loyalists hailing and swearing allegiance to a cardboard Khamenei,” writes Amit Segal of The Free Press.
If that’s not bizarre enough, consider this: the only word we’ve heard from Mojtaba Khamenei was third-hand. The first Official Statement was written only and read by an anchor.
Is Mojtaba Khamenei still alive?
The February 28 airstrike that took out Ali Khamenei also killed his wife, his daughter, Mojtada’s wife, Ali Khamenei’s son-in-law, and at least three grandchildren. Mojtaba was injured, according to the official reports, on his legs, hands, and arms.
“At the most critical juncture in the history of the Islamic Republic, its new Supreme Leader is a ghost,” reports WOIN.
The fact that Khamenei did not use his own voice in the statement poses a significant problem for intelligence agencies.
Even if Tehran eventually releases an audio tape claiming to be Mojtaba, there is almost zero baseline to verify it. He has spent his entire adult life operating in the shadows of the security establishment. In fact, the only publicly known recording of his voice in existence is a brief, years-old, one-minute clip of him telling seminary students that his theology classes were canceled.
In today’s AI world, anyone can use an AI software like Elevenlabs and create an entire speech in Khamenei’s voice just for $11 a month. Audio is the easiest medium to manipulate in the world of AI and a country obsessed with camera and public appearances using audio tapes, is raising suspicions among the experts.
And down the rabbit hole we go.
“Iranian opposition groups in the diaspora are openly claiming that Mojtaba is actually in a deep coma, being treated in absolute secrecy,” according to the WOIN report. “The theory suggests the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) forced the Assembly of Experts to name Mojtaba as leader to maintain a facade of dynastic stability.”
If Khamenei is dead or in a coma, who is in charge? The same people who have been in effective control of Iran for the last 30 years: the Revolutionary Guard Corps senior commanders.
Amit Segal writing in The Free Press:
The truth is that even if the conspiracy is false and Khamenei is only suffering from minor leg injuries, that may still be the case. It is far from unheard of for the successor to a powerful dictator to serve primarily as a military figurehead. The regime needs Khamenei to have a pulse, but not much more. In a Freudian slip early in the war, Iran’s foreign minister claimed that the attacks on neighboring states were “not our choice,” indicating that IRGC elements may have acted independently of the government.
The regime’s official narrative is that Khamenei is being kept away from the public for security reasons. Israel has already announced its intention to reunite the son with the deceased father. But if this is truly about security, it is still a dangerous game. There are times when absence increases a leader’s mystique—a regime in crisis is not one of them.
Since Khamenei’s election in 1989, the Revolutionary Guard Corps has been aggrandizing power unto itself. They’ve appropriated most of the largest and most profitable businesses, giving pieces of the corporations to favored clerics and military commanders.
Following the death of the Supreme Leader, the Guards really turned the screws on the Assembly of Experts.
“The pressure from the Revolutionary Guard to announce Mojtaba Khamenei as his father’s successor as quickly as possible was so intense that the IRGC Intelligence Organization forced several dissenting members of the Assembly of Experts into this choice by threatening them and their family members. Their silence following the selection is likely a result of those same threats,” according to Iran Wire.
Reports from Iran International indicate that IRGC commanders contacted clerics via phone calls and in-person meetings minutes before the virtual vote on March 8, creating what sources described as an “unnatural atmosphere” of psychological and political pressure. Clerics who originally opposed Mojtada’s elevation because of his lack of religious credentials immediately stopped their objections following the Revolutionary Guards’ “security interventions.”
This may be the end of the clerical-fascist regime and the rise of a much more familiar (and manageable) military dictatorship. Mojtaba Khamenei, if he’s alive, may not even be aware of his new status as a figurehead for a military junta.
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