The resistible rise of Mojtaba Khamenei
The IRGC, charismatic authority and the politics of succession
A slightly shorter & modified version of this essay was originally published at UnHerd on 3 April (https://unherd.com/2026/04/mojtaba-khamenei-stooge-of-the-revolutionary-guards/). As usual I have taken the opportunity here to add citations.
A theory currently making the rounds is that the war has made the Islamic Republic ‘more hardline’, pointing to the consolidation of power by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and the succession of Mojtaba Khamenei. All this, it is argued, might have been avoided had the US and Israel not launched their war. Khamenei Sr may have died peacefully in his bed, and the Islamic Republic might have made a liberal turn with the appointment of a moderate leader. Seasoned observers of Iran would recognise that the word ‘might’ is doing some heavy lifting, while those Iranians at the sharp end of last January’s savagery would fairly wonder just how much more hardline the regime was planning to be.
The notion that the IRGC is just at this moment making a bid for power that had evaded it, is frankly risible. It is no doubt taking advantage of the state of emergency to reinforce its position, but then all militaries, even in non-authoritarian states, enjoy a position of pre-eminence in time of war. There may be an argument that they will seek to prolong the war because they are more fearful of the peace that will follow, but it is altogether different to suggest that their seizure of power has been predicated on this conflict. The rise of the Revolutionary Guards has been long in gestation and planning, and its rise to dominance as a political-military conglomerate is tied closely the rise of Mojtaba Khamenei1.
Mojtaba first emerged into the political limelight in 2005, when he was accused by one of the contenders in that year’s Presidential elections, Mehdi Karrubi, of having interfered to ensure the success of his protege Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ever since, his political activities have been a matter of intense controversy in the Islamic Republic, not least because of his character and the hereditary trajectory his emergence suggested. The 2005 Presidential election was intended to be the crowning moment of the rise of the hardline ‘Principle-ists’2 and the eclipse of the Reformists who had ostensibly dominated the political scene since the election of Mohammad Khatami in a shock land-slide election 1997. So horrified had hard-liners been at this Reformist turn that they determined to comprehensively eliminate it as a political force.
Under the ideologically mentorship of the uncompromising authoritarian, Ayatollah Misbah-Yazdi, (also a mentor to Mojtaba), the hardliners developed a framework for the seizure of power which revolved around the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, around which they built a cult of personality. For Misbah-Yazdi, the Supreme leader was far more than a constitutional position, it was a sacred calling, a pillar of belief against which one’s identification as a true Muslim could be defined3. Indeed as Misbah-Yazdi contentiously argued, to deny the principle of the Guardianship of the Jurist (velayat-e faqih), the constitutional role of the Supreme Leader, was to deny one of the principal pillars of Islam. Adherence to the constitution of the Islamic Republic became a sacred duty, and to challenge it was to be a heretic.
To reinforce this conviction, Khamenei was increasingly identified as the ‘Ali of the Age’ in emulation of the first Shia Imam, Ali, whose hereditary successors were considered to be the rightful leaders of the Islamic community, and whose followers became known as Shia - the party of Ali. This was an extraordinary claim to make and few outside the ‘elect’ either understood or appreciated its significance. It was first publicly promoted on Iranian television in the early 2000s when one Ali Larijani was in charge of state broadcasting. More suspicious types were wary of this development and the implications for hereditary succession it suggested, but when Karrubi raised the red flag in 2005, he was dismissed as a sore loser.
Misbah Yazdi’s project incorporated the IRGC who became the armed wing of the movement. Having moved away from the brotherhood in arms that had characterised it in the Iran-Iraq War, it had through the 1990s reshaped itself as an ideological army with growing business interests, though these were as yet modest. When in 1999 they challenged the then Reformist president to suppress student discontent, ‘or else’, they found themselves at the sharp end of a rebuke. Were they not aware, retorted Khatami, that the father the revolution himself, Ayatollah Khomeini, had told the armed forces to stay out of politics? Their response, albeit at this stage tempered by realities, was that as a ‘Revolutionary’ Guard, they existed to protect the revolution, from enemies without and, within. It was an ominous sign.
With the ideological and material framework established, the plan now was to overturn the popularity of the reformists with a populist of their own. They found their man in Ahmadinejad, a hitherto unknown lecturer who taught and was close to the Basij militia. Ahmadinejad was generally dismissed as an obsessive who was preoccupied in his relationship with the ‘Hidden Imam’, the twelfth of the hereditary Shia Imams who had disappeared, or gone into occultation, sometime in the 9th C. Even revolutionary diehards found him tiresome. But he did have the populist touch and was certainly popular with the Basij who could provide the infrastructure for his forthcoming campaigns.
In the 2003 ‘local elections’, an extremely low turnout ensured Ahmadinejad’s emergence as the mayor of Tehran, providing him with a platform for his populism. Aspects of the Western media were suitably impressed by the dynamic ‘Dr’ Ahmadinejad, even as Iranians mocked his risible PhD thesis on traffic management. Ahmadinejad’s religious susceptibilities and his folksy superstition, made him the ideal candidate for the project that was to follow, though his pretensions were eventually to sour his relationship with Ayatollah Khamenei. Initially however Khamenei had nothing but praise and his son was dispatched to arrange the ensuing electoral victories4. In 2004 the parliamentary elections were rigged to ensure a principle-ist victory and in 2005, with Mojtaba’s management of the Basij, Ahmadinejad stormed through from being a nobody to the prime contender in a matter of weeks5.
Karrubi, who everyone expected to be in the run-off, was not impressed by the turn of events and made his feelings felt. At this stage some Reformists warned about the development of an Islamic Monarchy pointing to the new sense of deference that was accorded to Khamenei, notably including hand kissing, but few ventured further or else considered hereditary succession a remote possibility. Such things it was argued, in all sincerity, went against the ‘principles’ of the revolution. It did not however go against tradition, be it Persian or Shia, nor did it account for the practicalities of retaining power in an Islamic Republic that was inexorably shedding its republican skin.
If there were any doubts as to the direction of travel these were laid to rest in the ‘Green Movement’ protests of 2009, the suppression of which Mojtaba was widely reported to have had a direct hand. It was in this period of heightened crisis that Misbah-Yazdi made the extraordinary claim that since Ayatollah Khamenei was the replacement for the Hidden Imam, in his continued occultation, obedience to him, and by extension the President he approved, equated to obedience to God6. This claim was so shocking, not least to many of the traditional clerics, that it was suppressed in the press. But the cult was clearly now well established, opponents were decried as heretics and therefore beyond the law and concerns over a planned dynastic succession had people voicing concerns about an ‘Umayyad’ succession, a reference to the first Caliphal dynasty which Shia’s in particular condemned as the establishment of an Arab kingdom.
With the Green Movement crushed, it should have been apparent to all who cared to look, that the theoretical and practical justifications for dynastic succession were being put firmly into place. (When I made this point from time to time from 2009, it was dismissed as incompatible with the ‘republican’ principles of the revolution, with one analyst memorably telling me they would ‘eat their hat’ if it ever happened. I hope it’s tasty).
The development of a personality cult around Ali Khamenei as the ‘Ali of the Age’ with all that implied within the Shia tradition of charismatic succession.
The cultivation of superstition, investment in the ‘well’ at Jamkaran south of Tehran from whence the Hidden Imam is meant to re-emerge and the belief in the Seyyed Khorasani, an esoteric figure intended to presage the return of the Hidden Imam and associated in some circles with Ali Khamenei and his wider family7.
The establishment of the Guardianship of the Jurist - velayat-e faqih - as a sacral rather than simply constitutional innovation - a matter of religious conviction rather than law.
The cultivation of the hereditary principle which had been central to both Persian traditions of kingship and the Shia Imamate.
The practical imperative of vested commercial interest, as members of the IRGC accumulated wealth they sought a successor who could both protect their gains and be dependent on them.
The renewed tolerance of the idea of ‘monarchy’, (I have written about this here) gathered pace in this period, while Ahmadinejad systematically stripped the republican institutions of any real power they might have and transferred them to the revolutionary organs of power, the Leadership and the IRGC. The institutional emasculation that took place in this period was widely commented on, even by conservatives who noted that the parliament had been stripped of any effective power with a succession of rigged elections stuffing it full of hardline apparatchiks who all competed for the favour of the Supreme Leader. The Guardian Council, whose membership was already in part nominated by the Supreme Leader became another cypher while the Assembly of Experts, which ostensibly existed to hold the Supreme Leader to account became a talking shop of aging clerics who increasingly pointed out that their role was not to select the new Leader but merely to recognise who God had chosen.
This, in short, was government by personality not institutions, and it all revolved around the personality of Ali Khamenei, the Ali of the Age and the replacement - not representative - of the Hidden Imam, with claims to authority and power far in excess of anything an Iranian monarch might have aspired to, save perhaps Shah Ismail (1501-24) whose supporters believed to be a god8. It is testament to the boldness of this idea that many resisted it as antithetical to the spirit of the Islamic Republic. But the ‘Islamic Republic’ was itself an innovation, not only in its republican turn but in its application of Khomeini’s notion of the Guardianship of the Jurist. Indeed for many Principle-ists, the Islamic Republic was a transitory affair towards the much purer Islamic State shorn of any democratic heresies.
Meanwhile Mojtaba was quietly rising up the ranks of the clerical hierarchy, being promoted as an ‘ayatollah’ and ‘mujtahid’ in his 40s, a remarkably young age for such achievements. Later, in order ostensibly to broaden his appeal some suggested that he would be Iran’s MBS. Those who were familiar with him indicated that he was more ruthless than his father with none of the oratory. None of this was heavily publicised but those on the inside were aware and Khamenei always demurred when the question of the succession came up. During Rouhani’s presidency and the focus on the nuclear negotiations such issues took a back seat but following Ibrahim Raisi’s ‘election’ to the Presidency in 2021, the question emerged again, in large part because some wondered whether Raisi himself might be being groomed for the position.
Given his background and character, this was always unlikely, and the reality was that Raisi’s engineered rise to the Presidency was done to facilitate Mojtaba’s eventual succession as Supreme Leader. Such was the speculation that Khamenei was eventually forced to deny such a possibility albeit indirectly through an intermediary9. He never publicly spoke about it himself, thereby retaining a measure of mystique and plausible deniability. No one but the most naive could imagine that this, in the best traditions of Iranian political culture, was anything but an exercise in dissimulation, a non-denial denial.10
The succession of Mojtaba Khamenei and the restoration of the hereditary principle has been long in gestation and planning. His rise has been tied closely with that of the IRGC and has been part of a project to emasculate the republic and replace it with an Islamic autocracy defined by charismatic leadership that binds its followers in personal devotion to itself. The resilience of the system is not ‘institutional’ - this is not a constitutional system in any meaningful sense of the word, no one loses sleep over the semantics of the Constitution - but reflective of personal networks whose allegiance is not to the state but to the Leader as the manifestation of the revolution which he himself defines11.
While it was not illogical to target Ayatollah Khamenei in the first strike of the war, it was far from risk free. His death no doubt demoralised the faithful, but it probably angered and energised them too. They would have been acutely aware that they had nothing to lose and everything to lose. They will appreciate that, at the very least, following the massacre in January, the can expect as much mercy from the wider Iranian population as they themselves showed. It has proved a clarifying moment in a manner they will not have immediately understood and they are bound together as much by fear of the wider population, as devotion to the Leader.
In these circumstances, it is unsurprising that the IRGC moved swiftly to have Mojtaba declared his father’s heir. Khamenei they declared, had returned rejuvenated, the charismatic succession was secure, the allegiance off the faithful could be counted upon12. Mojtaba has nonetheless remained very much hidden, his mystique intact, his charisma sustained and managed. His IRGC handlers may want to keep it that way. But sooner or later he will have to reveal himself, and then his charismatic authority will truly be put to the test.
This is drawn from my detailed study of the Islamic Republic, ‘Iran, Islam and Democracy: the politics of managing change’, 3rd Edition, (London: 2019). Those interested in a deeper dive and the citations should go to that study.
This term was coined from the Persian translation for ‘fundamentalist’, a term of abuse reinterpreted and translated as one of principle and ‘moral’ purity.
The Constitution in 1989 had been amended to prefix the term ‘absolute’ to that of the Guardianship of the Jurist. This, it was argued at the time, was to bolster Khamenei’s rather weak theological position viz a viz other more senior clerics, but it was a dangerous move that over time would come to be applied in different ways.
At one stage Khamenei praised Ahmadinejad’s government as the finest since the Constitutional Revolution.
American intelligence analysts were commenting on Mojtaba’s power and growing influence as early as 2007: https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/07STATE63517_a.html
‘Misbah-Yazdi: eta‘at az rais jomhur, eta‘at az khodast! [Mesbah Yazdi: obedience to the President is obedience to God], Tabnak, 13 August 2009.
On messianism and the cult of the Mahdi see Abbas Amanat, Apocalyptic Islam and Iranian Shi’ism (London: 2009)
The behaviour of the hard core loyalists and their ruthless suppression of dissent is in many ways similar to the notorious Qizilbash under Shah Ismail.
The Green Movement leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, still under house arrest, issued a warning against hereditary succession in 2022, https://t.me/kaleme/29377, see also https://www.bbc.com/persian/articles/cn0y1p8peljo.amp. As Mousavi noted its been ‘13 years’ since we have heard these ‘conspiracies’.
It remains remarkable to me that many people accepted this denial at face value.
The idea that the Islamic Republic is some sort of legally bound institutional state in which officials pour over the legal niceties of the constitution is one of the more absurd takes to have emerged in recent weeks.
It should also come as little surprise that it was suggested that the war would presage the imminent return of the Hidden Imam.
Thank you for this piece, Dr. Ansari. Your historical perspective on the Iranian state is invaluable right now. It is tragic how many times this scenario repeats itself; when looking at past examples like Afghanistan or Vietnam, American bombing campaigns seem to yield a 'unifying effect,' radicalizing governments and forcing populations to rally behind the state despite domestic grievances. I recently attempted to map out this exact phenomenon in my own writing, but your expertise on the Iranian state here is unmatched.
Ali, rereading this after the Iran MOU, I am struck by the significance of your analysis of Mojtaba’s role and the long preparation of succession.
After writing about the puzzling overpayment in the MOU [ https://kian.substack.com/p/trump-did-not-need-to-give-iran-this?r=7fl8o ] and the extent to which the regime appears to have consolidated many of its gains after fighting the United States to an impasse, the question of Mojtaba no longer feels secondary. What matters in your piece is precisely how far back the story goes: the early warnings about Mojtaba’s influence, his role in Ahmadinejad’s rise, the 2009 crackdown, and the longer hollowing out of the institutions that were supposed to give the Islamic Republic its republican form.
For me this also has personal resonance. I was working on Tehran municipal politics during Ahmadinejad’s rise, was later imprisoned under his presidency, and after the Green Movement crackdown spent more than a year in Evin and then six years under house arrest as a dual-national hostage. But I never quite imagined that Mojtaba's rise was advancing apace, rather I imagined it was a possibility in the future.
Your central point seems exactly right: the current consolidation is not simply the result of the recent war. The war may have accelerated or exposed certain developments, but the direction of travel goes back much further. The IRGC was not waiting until now to make a bid for power. The republican skin had been shedding for a long time.