Imagine all of this sturm und drang over someone who may not even be vertical and respiratory.
Ever since the death of Ali Khamenei in the opening seconds of the joint US-Israeli military action, Iran has technically been without a head of state. The Supreme Leader in Iran controls all policy and action, as well as commanding all of the armed forces of the Islamic Republic. Ali Larijani and Masoud Pezeshkian can issue orders while hiding in hospital offices, but they do not have the perceived divine and theological authority that the top mullah has in these systems, and that authority is everything. Like most dictatorships, any vacuum at the top becomes exponentially more problematic the longer it lasts.
Under these circumstances, one would have expected the mullahs in the Assembly of Experts to immediately declare a new Supreme Leader to take control. The IRGC certainly demanded that, and insisted that the council appoint Khamenei’s son Mojtaba – and when that didn’t happen immediately, the news agencies they controlled announced that Mojtaba got the job. Yesterday, however, the Assembly of Experts refuted that, and other state-controlled news services claimed that no decision had been made. It had the makings of a power struggle within the regime over control of the state. Did that belong to the mullahs or to the IRGC?
This morning, Reuters reports that the conflict has boiled over into public view, and that Nepo Babytollah may not be on the mullahs’ bingo cards:
Iran’s Assembly of Experts has been plagued with infighting over plans to announce Motjava Khamenei, the second son of the assassinated Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the new Supreme Leader of Iran, Iran International reported on Thursday, citing two sources from within the offices of the experts.
The assembly is reportedly planning to meet online on Thursday, though eight members of the 88 experts have allegedly refused to attend in protest of “heavy pressure” by the Revolutionary Guards to appoint Motjava Khamenei. From early Tuesday, IRGC commanders across the country reportedly pressured members to vote for Mojtaba Khamenei through a campaign of meetings and phone calls until minutes before the assembly began.
Motjava Khamenei has formed close political alliances with Ahmad Vahidi, the newly appointed IRGC commander; Hossein Taeb, a former head of the IRGC’s intelligence organization; and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, according to The Guardian. …
“Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was not pleased with the idea of his son’s leadership and never allowed this issue to be raised during his lifetime,” one Assembly member told the chairman and members of the body’s leadership in calls, the sources told the Iranian diaspora site. Other critics have rejected the appointment, arguing that Motjava Khamenei lacks the necessary public clerical and jurisprudential standing, leaving him without religious legitimacy.
Let me point out at this time that no one has seen Mojtaba in public since the start of the war. It’s not clear that he survived the strike on Khamenei’s palace, which killed his father as well as Mojtaba’s wife. Supposedly, Mojtaba is too busy mourning and “consulting” to appear in public, right at the very moment when his public appearance would (a) provide a jolt of confidence in the continuity of the regime, and (b) make the case for his claim to leadership. Instead, he’s either hiding like the Mahdi or has already reached the “go through his pockets and look for loose change” end of the spectrum.
Mojtaba might be of more use to the IRGC dead rather than alive anyway. Their rush to force his appointment reflects their desire to control the throne. They groomed Mojtaba for that role and hoped to push him into it in a normal succession. In this crisis, they can use a dead man as a theocratic skin to legitimize a flat-out military junta. Even if Mojtaba is still alive, it’s now clear that the mullahs see the same threat emerging from the IRGC.
That’s not the only way in which the IRGC is taking power, either:
🚨Report from Iran: Brigadier General Qalibaf, the speaker of the parliament and a former member of the Revolutionary Guard, is now fully in charge of the war.
🚀 There is significant chaos in the chain of command among Iran’s military forces. Many missile and drone launching… pic.twitter.com/k31ZHIQ7kp
— Mehdi Yahyanejad (@mehdiy_fa) March 5, 2026
If the IRGC seizes full power, that’s a bad but temporary development. The IRGC is more vulnerable as an institution to outside destruction than a theocracy that claims a divine grant of authority. The abrupt shift from a “mission from God” to “we have the guns” regime will accelerate popular outrage and likely peel off competing armed forces, leading to a chaotic collapse. Thd IRGC wants Mojtaba as cover to claim both … but even that won’t last long, under the circumstances, and the mullahs clearly don’t want to get cut out of power.
With all of this going on, it may not be much longer before the collapse comes. Let’s hope that the Iranian people can seize that moment and take back their country and their destiny.
