Who’s running Iran now that the supreme leader is dead?
(CNN) — The killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by the United States and Israel has created a power vacuum in the core of the Iranian regime and sparked the complex process of finding his successor.
The Islamic Republic has only replaced its supreme leader once since it swept to power nearly half a century ago. Khamenei, who succeeded Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989, was killed without an officially declared heir.
A three-person council was formed Sunday to hold power until Khamenei’s successor is chosen. But with the US-Israeli strikes ongoing, there is no indication of how long that might take.
Here’s what to know.
Who’s in charge right now?
Under Iran’s constitution, a three-person leadership council holds power until the new supreme leader is named. It includes the moderate president, Masoud Pezeshkian, the hard-line head of the judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, and a senior cleric, Alireza Arafi.
The powerful speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said the regime had “prepared ourselves for these moments” and “planned for all scenarios.”
“With the formation of a leadership council, an unimaginable power and cohesion will take shape,” he said.
What it may not have planned for, however, is to have lost several of its most senior officials at once. Israel has claimed that a “majority” of Iran’s senior military leaders were killed in Saturday’s strikes, including the armed forces chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi; the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Pakpour; and the secretary of Iran’s Defense Council, Ali Shamkhani.
When Khomeini died in 1989 — after the Iran-Iraq War, which lasted most of that decade — it took less than a day for Khamenei to be named as his successor, meaning there was no need to form a transition council. With US-Israeli strikes ongoing, naming Khamenei’s successor will take longer.
Until then, the temporary council must decide whether to continue delegating defense decision-making to Ali Larijani, Iran’s top national security official, and Ghalibaf. Both men were tasked with leading Iran’s defense during the 12-day war with Israel in June, along with Shamkhani, a former navy rear admiral who was killed in Saturday’s strikes.
Who chooses the new leader?
A body of 88 senior clerics, known as the Assembly of Experts, will select Khamenei’s successor.
The members of the Assembly of Experts, which is elected by the Iranian public every eight years, are vetted by the Guardian Council, a separate body of 12 jurists that oversees the activities of Iran’s parliament.
In normal times, the Guardian Council determines if legislation passed by the parliament is compatible with sharia law, and it often demands revisions. It also approves candidates for parliament, the presidency and the Assembly of Experts.
It is known for disqualifying candidates for the presidency. Ahead of the 2021 election, for instance, the Guardian Council barred over 600 applicants, including all the women as well as senior figures such as Larijani, the top national security official.
Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the Chatham House think tank, said the Assembly of Experts may not convene until the US and Israel wind down their operation. “They cannot risk further death and damage to the institution,” she told CNN.
Who are the contenders?
Khamenei’s second son, Mojtaba, is a significant figure with strong links to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the elite wing of Iran’s military, as well as the Basij, a volunteer paramilitary force. But given that the regime swept to power to replace the Iranian monarchy, the Shiite clerical establishment may want to avoid father-to-son succession.
Alireza Arafi, a Shiite cleric who was named to the transition council on Sunday, was appointed to several senior positions by Khamenei and is seen as a strong contender. He is deputy chairman of the Assembly of Experts and is a member of the Guardian Council, meaning he could vet his own name. He is also head of Iran’s seminary system.
Mohammad Mehdi Mirbagheri, who also represents the most conservative wing of the clerical establishment and sits in the Assembly of Experts, is another contender. So is Hassan Khomeini, a grandson of Khomeini who is known to be less hard-line than his peers.
There is, however, a chance for surprises. The regime may opt for a younger, less well-known figure — or perhaps for a council of leaders, rather than a single person.
Vakil, of Chatham House, said the tension between hard-liners and reformists will not disappear with Khamenei’s death.
“Moments of succession tend to strengthen conservative and security-driven factions, at least initially,” she said. “Any internal debate about the country’s direction is likely happening quietly and within narrow elite circles rather than in public view. If reform politicians have ambitions, this is their now-or-never moment.”
What about regime change?
US President Donald Trump urged Iranians to overthrow their government. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be, probably, your only chance for generations,” Trump said in a video on Truth Social. He also called on the IRGC to lay down its weapons or “face certain death.”
So far, despite some scenes of celebration, there is little sign that Iranians are taking to the streets to try to topple what remains of the regime. Nor are there signs of defections by elites within the security establishment. Trump told CBS News on Saturday that there are “some good candidates” to take power, but he did not name them.
Reza Pahlavi, the eldest son of the deposed shah of Iran, has emerged as a potential next leader. Pahlavi was only 16 when Iran’s 1979 revolution toppled his father, and he has since lived in the United States. Some commentators have suggested he would have Israel’s backing.
One problem, however, is that there is not an alternative force waiting to take power in Iran, said David Petraeus, a retired US Army general and former CIA director.
“The challenge here is there is no Ahmed al-Sharaa figure, as in Syria, who had a military force, who was able to take down the hollow regime forces of the murderous Bashar al-Assad in Syria” in 2024, Petraeus told CNN.
Robin Wright, a contributing writer at the New Yorker, who has interviewed Khamenei, made a similar point, telling CNN: “The Iranians have many young Nelson Mandelas, but they don’t have the kind of African National Congress you had in South Africa that had years to form an infrastructure, to define what the alternative to apartheid might look like, and who would be its leadership. … Iran doesn’t have any of that.”
How is power exercised in Iran at present?
With much of Iran’s leadership decapitated, power will likely be exercised behind the scenes by the IRGC, which has increasingly propped up the regime over decades. Answerable only to the supreme leader, the IRGC is tasked not only with combating enemies abroad but, increasingly, with keeping order at home.
The IRGC’s power extends beyond military force. Many of Iran’s economic elites, who have benefited from sanctions-era access to the regime’s centers of power, hold influential positions in the IRGC. It could hold significant sway over the appointment of the new supreme leader.
As its name suggests, the IRGC exists to “guard” the Islamic revolution and the regime it birthed. After 1979, various paramilitary groups that toppled the shah soon coalesced into the IRGC. It resisted initial attempts to be incorporated into the regular army and cemented its power during its deployment in the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s.
Today, it comprises between 150,000 and 190,000 troops. It has an army, navy, air force and intelligence wing, and it has also become enmeshed throughout Iran’s civilian economy.
Although many of its senior leaders are thought to have been killed during this weekend’s strikes, the IRGC still oversees the Basij, which operates like a police force: visible, street-level, domestic.
Meaning “mobilization” in Farsi, the Basij is a volunteer group that plucks members from across the country, often from poorer, more conservative backgrounds. It is tasked with propping up the regime at home and enforcing Islamic morality among the public.
Facing its greatest moment of peril, the Iranian regime is “moving quickly behind the scenes to prevent fragmentation and signal continuity,” said Vakil of Chatham House. It remains to be seen whether those efforts are successful.
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CNN’s Leila Gharagozlou contributed to this report.
