DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Mojtaba Khamenei has become Iran’s new supreme leader after the Assembly of Experts selected him to succeed his late father during a widening war with the United States and Israel, and senior Iranian sources say the Revolutionary Guards forced the choice through over clerical objections. His appointment formalized a succession that had been building for months, but his continued public silence has made the transition look less like a confident handover than a sign that the Guards are tightening control in the middle of crisis, March 10.
According to a Reuters report on the behind-the-scenes selection, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps pushed wavering clerics to back Mojtaba Khamenei and overrode objections from pragmatists and senior religious figures. Reuters had already reported in its initial account of the succession decision that the appointment locked hardliners firmly in control after Ali Khamenei was killed in the opening phase of the war.
Mojtaba Khamenei takes power under wartime pressure
Reuters reported Wednesday that Tehran was clamping down on dissent as the conflict stretched on, underscoring how closely the leadership change is tied to internal security and wartime discipline. AP reported when the appointment became public that Mojtaba had long been viewed as a contender even though he had never held elected office or a formal government post.
That combination — formal elevation through the clerical system and practical dependence on the security apparatus — helps explain why the succession is being read as a test of who really governs Iran under fire. The Assembly of Experts provided the constitutional mechanism, but the institution that appears to have gained the most from the moment is the security force best placed to manage war, elite discipline and any renewed unrest at home.
What Mojtaba Khamenei’s silence says about Iran’s power shift
Silence from a newly appointed supreme leader would be unusual at any time, but it carries extra weight in wartime because AP’s explainer on the succession system noted that the office has final say over the armed forces, foreign policy and the nuclear file. If Mojtaba Khamenei remains more visible as a choice made by the Guards than as a leader defining events himself, his opening days in office may already be revealing a narrower system in which clerical legitimacy matters less than military-backed control.
Mojtaba Khamenei in earlier succession reporting
The possibility of this outcome had been hanging over Iran’s politics long before the war. Reuters reported after President Ebrahim Raisi’s death in May 2024 that his loss would reopen rivalries over who might eventually follow Ali Khamenei and put Mojtaba back into the front rank of possible successors.
By summer 2025, Reuters said succession planning had accelerated and described Mojtaba as a continuity candidate if the system needed a rapid handover to project stability. On the same day, a separate Reuters profile described him as a hardline cleric with backroom influence, close ties to the Guards and no formal government role.
That longer trail of reporting makes this week’s appointment look less like an improvised wartime surprise than the activation of a succession scenario Tehran’s insiders had been discussing for months. What remains uncertain is whether Mojtaba Khamenei can turn that insider advantage into public authority, or whether Iran is moving toward a model in which the supreme leader’s office still matters symbolically while the Revolutionary Guards increasingly define the state beneath it.
