The son of Iran’s slain leader has, reportedly, been chosen as the country’s new supreme leader under pressure from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards. Mojtaba Khamenei’s father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed by Israel on February 28th at the outset of the war. Pressure is being exerted for the early inauguration of the new supreme leader, who is bound to be a conservative hardliner and adhere to policies laid down by the regime’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and the late Khamenei.
Iran’s 88-member Assembly of Experts conferred remotely last week and chose the new leader. But critics have expressed concern about hereditary rule and clerical credentials; the position of supreme leader is both religious and political. US president Donald Trump branded Mojtaba Khamenei “unacceptable” and claimed the right to select a new leader, while Israel’s military posted on social media that it would “pursue every successor and every person who seeks to appoint a successor”.
Although Washington expected the US-Israel war on Iran to be short, the conflict has entered its second week, with Iran’s Islamic regime showing no sign of capitulating. Iran’s reformist moderate president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has dismissed as ”a dream” Trump’s demand for “unconditional surrender”. Tehran boasts 6,000 years of civilisation and is proud of its distinctive culture and resistance to historical external challenges.
Tehran has continued to retaliate with drone and missile attacks against Israel and neighbouring Gulf states hosting US bases, including Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. However, Pezeshkian’s unilateral decision that Iran would not strike Gulf states if they denied the US use of their bases and airspace to attack Iran elicited an angry response from hardliners and the Iranian military. They seek to overrule him and to press for the early inauguration of the new leader, who would sideline Pezeshkian. Judiciary chief and member of the three-man leadership council Gholam‑Hossein Mohseni‑Ejei said “intense attacks” would continue on Gulf-based US military facilities used for attacks on Iran. He said “this strategy is currently being implemented, and the government and other pillars of the system are united on this matter”.
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Iran’s local allies in Iraq have targeted the US embassy compound in Baghdad, an oil facility and a US military base in Irbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish regional area. In Bahrain, an Iranian drone damaged a water desalination plant. An Emirati-flagged tugboat was sunk in the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 per cent of the world’s crude oil flows to markets largely in the east. Lebanon’s Hizbullah has fired missiles into Israel, prompting Tel Aviv to dispatch troops across the border and bomb the south, the Beqaa valley and east Beirut. At least 300 Lebanese have been killed and 95,000 displaced from during the war. Yemen’s pro-Iran Houthis have condemned and mounted protests but taken no action.
The US has said the war’s objectives are to counter Iranian threats against US interests in the region and to liberate Iranians from their repressive regime. To achieve this, the US would need to destroy Iran’s offensive missiles, missile production, navy and security agencies and ensure Iran could never develop nuclear weapons.
Although Trump has also called for regime change in Iran, The Washington Post cited a classified report by the US National Intelligence Council that found that a large-scale assault on Iran would not oust the deeply embedded military and clerical establishment. Removing the top figure is unlikely to achieve regime change. The US effected policy change but not regime change in January when Washington abducted Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, whose replacement, Delcy Rodríguez, has been receptive to US demands.
This was not the case in 2003 when the US created chaos and anarchy by occupying Iraq, ousting president Saddam Hussein and outlawing the ruling Baath Party. The vacuum was filled by Islamic State (also known as Isis), which conquered large swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria, compelling the US to mount a years-long campaign against the movement. Several hundred US troops remain in Syria and Iraq to battle fugitive fighters who continue to roam desert areas and conduct raids against these countries’ troops and civilians.
