The Guardians Seize Iran

By imposing Mojtaba Khamenei as "Guide" to succeed his father, the Revolutionary Guards have brought to an end a regime whose very cornerstone was the categorical rejection of dynastic succession. The first directive issued by Mojtaba in the immediate wake of his accession to the office of "Guide" — the supreme and absolute authority of the "Islamic Republic" — is proof enough.

The directive, which lays bare the Guards' appetite for escalation, reads as follows:

“First: we grant the armed forces full and unconditional authorization to choose the time, place, and means appropriate for responding to any aggression threatening our national security. 

“Second: the protection of vital and nuclear installations constitutes an inviolable red line. Any transgression thereof confers upon you the authority to strike strategic targets deep within the territory of the aggressors and their allies, without awaiting prior authorization. 

“Third: the response must be resolute and shattering, so that global arrogance understands that a change of leadership in Iran signifies no weakness — on the contrary, it inflames the spirit of vengeance and defiance.”

The Guards appear to have resolved upon escalation in every direction — including toward the neighboring Gulf states — driven by this "spirit of vengeance." Mojtaba Khamenei is, when all is said and done, nothing more than one instrument among many in the very game his father designed and set in motion.

The selection of Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his father can scarcely be called a surprise. Ever since Ali Khamenei rose to the office of "Guide," he had labored ceaselessly to entrench his grip over the apparatus of the state in close symbiosis with the Revolutionary Guards. The Guards are now the power itself — and they exercised that power in practice by deciding that Mojtaba would be the "Guide," with the single purpose of protecting the shared interests between the supreme authority of absolute prerogatives and the Guards themselves.

Under the reign of Ali Khamenei — which stretched across thirty-seven years, from 1989 to 2026 — the Revolutionary Guards were transformed into the backbone of the regime; more than that, into a creature beyond all taming. Recent events have illuminated with merciless clarity that it is the Revolutionary Guards Corps that governs Iran. The pronouncements of President Massoud Pezeshkian carry virtually no weight. In practice, the traditional balancing act between reformists and hardliners has ceased to exist. In the shadow of permanent war, the elaborate game that Khamenei père had mastered — and wielded so deftly in service of the regime and its maneuvers — has lost all purpose.

In the absence of Ali Khamenei, the survival of the Revolutionary Guards' state could not be secured through any means other than his son. Precisely as it was unthinkable that anyone other than his son should have succeeded Hafez al-Assad after thirty years of uncontested rule. Upon Hafez's death, keeping power and fortune within the family was an inexorable imperative, so indissolubly intertwined had those two elements become.

Ali Khamenei, in his capacity as wali al-faqih — the shadow of the Hidden Imam upon the earth — exercised power in an absolute manner. Through the Guards, he secured for himself a commanding share of the economy by means of various companies and institutions affiliated with the "Guide." The Guards' economic activities were by no means foreign to Mojtaba, who devoted the greater part of his time to forging his own power through the accumulation of wealth — much as Bashar al-Assad did in Syria over a quarter of a century, before being compelled to flee to Moscow.

The elevation of Mojtaba Khamenei to the rank of "Guide" — despite his manifest lack of the religious culture and qualifications the post demands — signals the Iranian regime's entry into a new phase: that of hereditary succession.

This designation, within an "Islamic Republic" founded on the explicit rejection of dynasticism, compels a precise question: to what extent will Mojtaba adhere to the intransigent policies embraced by his father? Is the new "Guide" a replica of his departed predecessor — or a pragmatist, aware that the regime's survival rests exclusively on the perpetuation of the Guards' hold on power? How ready does Mojtaba, now fifty-six, appear to be to reach some modus vivendi with the Trump administration and with Benjamin Netanyahu and his government? The new "Guide" knows, better than anyone — in light of what befell his father on the twenty-eighth of February last — that the choice before him is between living underground and being exposed to assassination.

No sooner had the announcement of Mojtaba's designation reverberated than the Revolutionary Guards hastened to unleash a fresh salvo of missiles toward Israel. There is little doubt that such a gesture is aimed at saving face. The matter is one of days, after which it will become plain whether the Guards' interests lie in the continuation of the war or in finding some path to capitulation — on the premise that the overriding priority is salvaging whatever can still be salvaged, including the financial coffers and investments managed by Mojtaba and members of his family.

The road to capitulation is clearly mapped. Known conditions exist from which neither the Americans nor the Israelis can retreat — from the nuclear program to the Iranian proxy networks, through ballistic missiles and launch platforms. On the surface, the Iranian regime cannot accept these conditions. Yet in reality it will be compelled to adapt to them through compromises dictated by the existential necessity of remaining in power at any price.

For, in the end, if Ali Khamenei, his son Mojtaba, and the Guards amassed all that wealth, it was not for the sake of self-sacrifice — it was to endure in power. Power begets fortune, and fortune serves the permanence of power. Circumstances did not spare Khamenei père. But nothing in what is known of Mojtaba's conduct suggests that he is among those disposed toward self-destruction. He may differ from his father — radically so — not least because he has mastered the art of accumulating considerable wealth and placing it in the service of power: the power of the Guards, who want of Mojtaba nothing more than a pliant instrument in their hands. Will this servitude to the Guards prevent the suicidal trajectory along which the "Islamic Republic" advances, step by deliberate step?