The Iranian regime wants the world to believe that the succession question has been settled. Ali Khamenei is dead, Mojtaba Khamenei has reportedly been appointed, the Assembly of Experts has done its work, and the system is intact. But the story being presented does not withstand much scrutiny.
Mojtaba’s first so-called official statement as supreme leader was not delivered in person: It was read out on state television. That alone would be strange enough in ordinary circumstances. In the current ones, it has only intensified speculation about his condition, his whereabouts, and even his ability to rule.
Reports continue to suggest that he has not appeared publicly since his appointment, while rumors about severe injury – or worse – have not gone away. If the regime intended to project stability, it has instead created the impression of a leadership that is hidden, uncertain, and possibly fictive.
That leads to the more important question. Why would the regime stage a succession in this way? Why place so much emphasis on a man who may be physically compromised, politically weak, or simply unavailable to function as a genuine center of authority?
The answer is that Mojtaba may matter less as a ruler than as a cover.
His appointment creates the appearance of clerical continuity at precisely the moment when real power may be moving even more decisively into the hands of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Assembly of Experts moved quickly. The IRGC moved just as quickly to pledge loyalty. That speed is revealing. It does not suggest a confident, orderly transfer. It suggests urgency – an urgency to close the question of succession before the vacuum becomes too obvious, and before the reality of Guard dominance becomes too explicit.
Mojtaba has long been useful to the Guards for this very reason. He has been associated for years with his father’s inner office and with key regime networks, despite never building an independent political base in the ordinary sense. Outside reporting has repeatedly stressed his ties to the IRGC and his unusual role inside the system. He is therefore not a new source of authority so much as a convenient instrument of continuity – someone through whom the regime can claim that the clerical order still governs, while the coercive core of the system tightens its hold.
The irony is obvious. The Islamic Republic came to power denouncing monarchy, inheritance, and dynastic rule. Yet it now appears to be asking Iranians to accept something very close to hereditary succession, wrapped in revolutionary language and backed by the force of the Guards.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was skeptical about father-to-son succession
Even before this latest crisis, analysts had reported that Ali Khamenei himself was uneasy about a father-to-son transfer because of how nakedly dynastic it would appear. That concern now looks well founded. The regime is asking the public to accept a son elevated in wartime, endorsed by the military-security apparatus, and then almost immediately removed from sight.
So what does this mean in practice?
First, the real question may no longer be who holds the title of supreme leader, but who is actually making decisions. If Mojtaba is alive but badly injured, then he serves as a legitimizing figure for decisions taken elsewhere. If he is politically weak, the result is much the same. If he is unable to govern in any meaningful sense, then the office itself has become a mask. In all three cases, the institution that gains is the IRGC.
This arrangement would suit the Guards well. A visible and politically capable supreme leader might try to balance factions, reassert clerical authority, or restrain parts of the security state. A symbolic or incapacitated leader cannot do that. He can bless policy without controlling it. He can serve as a source of formal legitimacy while the Guards retain operational command, direct the crisis, and protect their own interests. For a system under pressure, that is not a flaw: It is an advantage.
Second, this should shape how the outside world reads any coming Iranian moves. We may well see efforts to negotiate a pause, a truce, or some form of controlled de-escalation. But those moves should not be mistaken for moderation. A system under Guard influence may seek a truce not because it has changed its aims, but because it needs time: time to consolidate the succession, time to reduce pressure, time to restore internal order, and time to shift from open confrontation to more favorable forms of pressure.
That pressure can take many forms. The statement attributed to Mojtaba reportedly threatened action tied to the Strait of Hormuz and retaliation against Gulf Arab states. At the same time, Iran retains its wider toolkit: proxies, covert action, intimidation abroad, and cyber operations that allow it to impose costs without taking responsibility in the clearest possible way. If the regime seeks a truce, it may do so only to continue the confrontation by other means.
This is where cyber becomes especially important. A regime operating through a hidden, weakened, or largely symbolic supreme leader is likely to rely more heavily on methods that do not require public visibility or clear accountability. Cyberattacks, hack-and-leak campaigns, financial disruption, maritime harassment, infrastructure probing, and operations conducted through proxies all fit that need. They allow Tehran – or more precisely, the Guard-dominated system beneath the clerical facade – to remain dangerous without exposing itself to the full risks of direct state-on-state escalation.
Third, Israel and the West need to stop confusing clerical continuity with political continuity. What is being presented as the succession of Mojtaba Khamenei may in reality be the completion of a longer shift: the transfer of effective authority from the clerical leadership to the military-security apparatus. The clerical structure remains useful, but increasingly as theater, symbolism, and legitimacy. The Guards, by contrast, control force, networks, logistics, and internal discipline. They are no longer merely protecting the Islamic Republic: They are becoming the Islamic Republic in its clearest form.
That matters for diplomacy. Negotiating with a regime fronted by clerics but driven in practice by the IRGC is very different from negotiating with a system in which clerical authority still meaningfully mediates between factions. The Guard Corps is harder, less flexible, and more deeply invested in long conflict as a governing method. If it accepts a truce, it is likely to be tactical. If it de-escalates, it is likely to be temporary. If it negotiates, it is likely to do so in order to preserve and regroup, not to transform.
That is why the Mojtaba story matters, even if many of its details remain murky. The real issue is not simply whether one man is alive, hidden, injured, or unable to function. The real issue is that the regime appears to be preserving the language of clerical rule while shifting the substance of power elsewhere.
That is not succession. It is concealment.
And concealment on this scale usually means that the real transition has already taken place.
The writer is executive director of We Believe In Israel.