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Nine days after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed on Feb. 28 by Israeli and American airstrikes, the Islamic Republic announced that his second son, Mojtaba Khamenei, had been chosen as the next supreme leader. The decision was made in a highly opaque manner. Yet whether it reflects a genuine institutional decision or a wartime power grab, the political meaning is the same: Mojtaba’s elevation is a turning point for the regime.

Mojtaba Khamenei has long been a shadowy but influential figure inside the Islamic Republic. He entered politics after his father was appointed as the second supreme leader in 1989, and he gradually built power behind the scenes. In his memoir published in 2000, Hashemi Rafsanjani mentioned Mojtaba’s interference in politics frequently. In 2005, Mehdi Karroubi publicly accused him of engineering the presidential election that brought hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power.

Nine days after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed on Feb. 28 by Israeli and American airstrikes, the Islamic Republic announced that his second son, Mojtaba Khamenei, had been chosen as the next supreme leader. The decision was made in a highly opaque manner. Yet whether it reflects a genuine institutional decision or a wartime power grab, the political meaning is the same: Mojtaba’s elevation is a turning point for the regime.

Mojtaba Khamenei has long been a shadowy but influential figure inside the Islamic Republic. He entered politics after his father was appointed as the second supreme leader in 1989, and he gradually built power behind the scenes. In his memoir published in 2000, Hashemi Rafsanjani mentioned Mojtaba’s interference in politics frequently. In 2005, Mehdi Karroubi publicly accused him of engineering the........

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