In Iran, where the supreme leader was killed just a few days ago, clerics gathered to elect his replacement. The supreme leader is a unique figure, in charge of Iran both spiritually and militarily.

The new leader is named Mojtaba Khamenei and is the son of the previous supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. He’s 56 and has some religious education but nowhere near the distinction that he’s supposed to have. But what he does have is a long record in the shadows of being close to the circles of power in the Islamic Republic.

“His power comes from the fact that he’s been sitting right there at the right hand of his father for decades,” says Graeme Wood, a staff writer at the Atlantic. “He’s been right there where decisions are made, and I think he was chosen in part because he represents a kind of status quo for this regime, unpopular as it is.”

On a recent episode of What Next, host Mary Harris spoke to Wood about Iran’s new leader and how he differs from his father. This transcript has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Mary Harris: Before we talk a little bit more about who the new supreme leader is, can you explain briefly what Iran’s governing structure looks like and what the role is for someone with the title of supreme leader?

Graeme Wood: Iran’s governing structure is unique in the world. It’s a fascinating system that started off in 1979. And in a nutshell, what Iran tried to do was overthrow a secular monarchy and replace it with an authoritarian religious order. At the top of that order would be the Shiite cleric, who had the most distinction as a religious scholar, and that person would be the head of state, and all power would flow through that. The guy who was originally chosen was the Ayatollah Khamenei.

He spent his entire life doing religious study, sitting around with books and students. And suddenly he’s in charge of a modern military, of modern diplomacy. All the things that a modern state has are in the hands of this old guy, who was, just months before, answering questions about whether a menstruating woman is considered clean under the following circumstances. So he was not dealing with ordinary, day-to-day stuff, let alone whether you should pursue an atom bomb.

But it’s a signal of where the power is, right? 

Yeah, the religious figure is nominally at the top of everything and, in fact, actually at the bottom of everything. But it is still a modern state, which means that there are generals. There are elected officials. There are all sorts of people who occupy the day-to-day important administrative and political roles. But everybody has known, since the beginning of the Islamic Republic, that the buck finally stops with the supreme leader, who was supposed to be this religious scholar.

It’s worth talking, too, about how the supreme leader is chosen. Because when I was reading about it, it reminded me of how a pope is chosen. There’s this assembly of experts, 88 senior Shiite clerics who have elected themselves, but they choose who the supreme leader is, right?

Yeah, it’s supposed to be very conclave-like, where you get the scholars together and they discuss which of them is the scholar of scholars. Then, that person, for the rest of his life, runs the country.

Now we have Mojtaba Khamenei, who’s the son of Ali Khamenei. From your description, it seems as if a similar selection process happened this time. He’s a less religious person, but he’s certainly someone who people think can consolidate power. Is that a fair assessment?

He is someone who’s connected with powerful people in the regime, and acceptable for a lot of people you do need to please. And what I’m talking about here are the people with the guns: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. They are the physical guardians of the revolution. They’re the ones who are fighting and being destroyed right now by American bombs. So they have been close to Mojtaba Khamenei for some time. And that’s, of course, why he’s the supreme leader, because he plays well with them rather than because he’s well known for having the best advice about Islamic law.

I can see why the selection makes a kind of sense, but doesn’t it undermine the whole idea of the revolution itself, which was about an Islamic state?

Very much so. There’s hypocrisy here. When the Islamic revolution happened in 1979, they said, This is an insane system, a monarchy, that the son of the current guy is the person who’s going to rule until he dies. Nonsense. What we’re looking for is the best of the best, and specifically the best Shiite religious scholars. And now what’s happened? You’ve turned over the leadership of the Islamic revolution; the supreme leader is the hereditary son of the previous supreme leader. And so Iranians, when they see Mojtaba Khamenei taking over for his father, see hypocrisy and also just something that doesn’t quite sit right, because sons don’t take over for fathers in religious roles.

But it does sound as if Mojtaba Khamenei has been laying the groundwork for this kind of move for some time—he got involved in the presidential elections back in 2005 and 2009. Do you want to explain that a little bit?

Yeah, Mojtaba has been involved in politics for about 20 years, but mostly in the shadows. The president who was elected in 2005—like all presidents in the Islamic Republic, they’re not really elected in a free election. The Guardian Council decides who’s allowed to run. And Mojtaba Khamenei was said to be involved in the selection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a hard-liner, very conservative. And that’s how he became president of Iran in 2005 and was later reelected.

You talked to one source who told you that Mojtaba Khamenei was the most dangerous man in the world. Why did he say that?

This was a guy who had actually studied with Mojtaba Khamenei when they were students together. And his memory of studying with Mojtaba was that the guy was laser-focused on the end of the world, apocalyptic questions. And he thought that Iran had kind of a mission from God to bring about the end of the world.

My source remembers vividly that Mojtaba was totally besotted with the apocalypse and was also just a very shrewd, intelligent guy. And my source thought that having someone who was both Machiavellian and who thought the end of the world was coming and could help that happen by creating a condition of extreme violence was highly dangerous.

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Now that he’s the new supreme leader, what is Mojtaba’s vision for Iran? Do we even know yet?

We don’t really know what his vision is. We can guess, and we can make some pretty educated guesses. Everybody’s scrambling to find any facts about the guy, finding out where he studied, what he said, and not finding out very much at all, really grasping at small shreds of detail. Now, there’s ample evidence that he’s not interested in some big modernization project. There is no sign that he is interested in transforming the Islamic Republic into something that’s maybe friendly toward secular states, the United States, Israel.

What do you think is going to happen in the next few days? Donald Trump is clearly not thrilled with this selection. Also, Israel is giving interesting messages. What are you anticipating?

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I have little doubt that the Israelis and probably the Americans will want to assassinate Mojtaba Khamenei. The Israelis have said that, unequivocally, whoever is in that office is a legitimate target. So they’re going to go after him, and they’ve obviously been pretty good at finding the people they want to kill and killing them. So I wouldn’t be surprised if there are efforts made in that regard. But so much of what’s happened in this war has been utterly baffling in the sense that it’s been planned for decades, and yet in some ways it seems as if it’s not been planned for at all. And so what happens on a day-to-day basis, there are enormous swerves in what one should expect for the United States in particular.

What the Americans and the Israelis are united on is the belief that whatever else needs to happen, the Iranian nuclear missile and naval capability needs to be degraded to the point where it can’t threaten Israel and the U.S. and their allies and interests anymore. So we’re going to see more and more bombing, more and more attacks to bring that capability as close to zero as possible. What actually turns out to be the political outcome, that’s where things are really up in the air. It’s unclear what the Trump administration would be happy with, what they’ll settle for, and what ultimately they want and expect.

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