Mojtaba Khamenei

Aged 56, Mojtaba Khamenei was appointed Supreme Leader by the Assembly of Experts on 7 March 2026 in an emergency online session after its Qom headquarters was destroyed by Israeli strikes, the first dynastic succession in the Islamic Republic's 47-year history. At least eight members boycotted, citing IRGC pressure and his lack of the marja theological credentials required under Article 109. His father, Ali Khamenei, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on 28 February; his wife and son died in the same strike he narrowly survived. He had not appeared publicly since 8 March 2026 and communicated via handwritten messages in sealed envelopes with a three-to-five-day lag. On 18 June 2026, he issued his first written public message since taking office, endorsing the Islamabad MOU tactically while stripping it of ideological weight: talks with the doshman (enemy) "do not mean accepting its views", Iran will not yield to zeyadeh-khahi (excess demands), and he delegated full accountability for the deal to President Pezeshkian. In the same message he branded full IAEA access and any transfer of the 440.9 kg HEU stockpile "excessive demands".

On 2 June 2026, US Secretary of State Rubio testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Mojtaba is 'probably still alive' and 'increasingly engaging at some level', the first on-record US official assessment of his decision-making capacity. Pakistan's Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi had carried dual civilian-military messages from PM Sharif and Field Marshal Munir directly to Khamenei on 6-7 June with no public response. Thomas Juneau of the Stimson Center and analysts at the Soufan Center assess that IRGC commanders hold day-to-day war authority, exceeding the Supreme Leader's. The IRGC's unilateral Hormuz closure on 11 June, ordered against the diplomatic track his civilian negotiators were still pursuing, is cited as evidence of IRGC command acting independently.

The central governance question is whether Mojtaba is directing the IRGC or the IRGC is acting through him. President Pezeshkian sent him a resignation letter on 1 June accusing the IRGC of cutting the presidency out of war decisions; Mojtaba issued a public warning framing the leak as an enemy operation. The 18 June endorsement-with-red-lines resolves the question of whether he signed off on the MOU while raising a new one: if full IAEA access is an "excessive demand", any verification architecture the deal requires will need his sign-off through intermediaries whose courier lag the deal timeline cannot accommodate.

Mojtaba did not attend his father's state funeral, which opened at Tehran's Grand Mosalla on 4 July 2026 after his casket's arrival was confirmed on 3 July with his attendance left unresolved. Iran's representative in India said security services told him they could not guarantee his safety; Western reporting also ties the absence to Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz's 1 July threat calling him 'a dead man' and to unhealed injuries from the strike that killed his father. The absence extends an unbroken pattern since his 8 March installation: no public appearance, video, or audio, only written statements read by intermediaries.