Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forced through the choice of Mojtaba Khamenei as the new supreme leader, seeing him as a more pliant version of his father who would back their hardline policies, bludgeoning aside the concerns of pragmatists, senior Iranian sources said.

Already very powerful, the IRGC have gained yet greater sway since the war began and quickly overcame the misgivings of senior political and clerical figures whose opposition to the choice delayed the announcement by hours, the sources said.

Adding to the concerns of those who opposed Khamenei’s installation as supreme leader, he had still issued no statement by Tuesday evening, nearly 48 hours after his selection during a war that has killed more than a thousand Iranians.

Khamenei’s selection, engineered by the IRGC, may add up to a more aggressive stance abroad and sterner internal repression, said the three senior Iranian sources, a reformist former official and another insider.

Two of them said they feared the IRGC’s domination of the system would further transform the Islamic Republic into a military state with only a thin veneer of religious legitimacy, undermining an already shrinking support base and allowing less room to address complex threats.

New leader may have been wounded in strike

Though an influential backroom operator for decades spent running his father’s office, Mojtaba Khamenei remains an obscure figure to many Iranians and may have been wounded in the US-Israeli strikes that killed his father.

A state television anchor appeared to confirm widespread rumors Khamenei was hurt, describing him as a “janbaz,” or “wounded veteran” of the Ramadan War, as Iran calls the current conflict. Reuters has not been able to confirm his condition.

That — and security fears after his father’s assassination on February 28 — may explain his silence since the 88-member Assembly of Experts announced late on........

© The Times of Israel