Iran's Supreme Leader Killed
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in a joint U.S.-Israeli strike on Saturday, a decapitation strike that followed months of CIA surveillance. In response, Iran has launched missile attacks on Israel and Gulf states, with explosions rocking Tehran for a second day.
With Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's death, the responsibility of choosing the next Supreme Leader falls to the Assembly of Experts, an 88-member body of senior Islamic jurists. Until a decision is made, a temporary three-person council, consisting of the president, the head of the judiciary, and a cleric from the Guardian Council, will jointly manage the duties of the office. This is only the second leadership transition since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The Assembly of Experts has only performed this duty once before, when it selected Khamenei to succeed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989. The assembly's members are elected to eight-year terms, but all candidates are first vetted by the hardline Guardian Council. Among the potential successors is Khamenei's second son, Mojtaba Khamenei, who holds significant influence within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Basij paramilitary force. However, he has never held a government office and his potential appointment has stirred controversy regarding the possibility of hereditary succession, which his father had reportedly opposed. Other names being discussed include Alireza Arafi, a member of the Guardian Council and deputy chairman of the Assembly of Experts, and Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i, the current head of the judiciary. Any successor will require the backing of the powerful IRGC to effectively govern. The Supreme Leader holds ultimate authority in Iran, acting as commander-in-chief of the armed forces and controlling all major foreign and domestic security matters. The leader appoints the heads of the judiciary, the state media networks, and six of the twelve members of the powerful Guardian Council.
