Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, was killed along with around 40 senior military commanders in US and Israeli strikes on Tehran on 28 February 2026. Within days, the regime had named his successor. This was not a regime gasping its last breath but one demonstrating the very resilience its architects had designed into it decades earlier.
Mojtaba Khamenei, son of Ali Khamenei, was announced as the new supreme leader on 9 March following an election by the Assembly of Experts held from 3 to 8 March 2026. Yet the succession tells a more complex story than the simple transfer of power. Mojtaba Khamenei has inherited the role of Supreme Leader and its extensive formal powers, but lacks the automatic authority enjoyed by his father. Khamenei was injured in the airstrike that killed his father, and his appointment was followed by a prolonged absence from public view, raising confusion over his fate.
The system that kept Iran functioning despite this decapitation was not accidental. The Islamic Republic built a complex power structure with layered institutions buttressed by a shared commitment to the survival of the theocratic system rather than relying on a small number of individuals. The architects of the 1979 revolution had learned from history: a state built on one person collapses when that person dies. Iran built a state built on many.
The most visible centre of gravity now is the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. After the killing of Ali Khamenei and installation of Mojtaba Khamenei, the Guards have assumed an even more central role in strategic decision-making, with a "mosaic" organisational structure with a line of replacements already named for each commander, and every unit able to operate independently according to set plans. This redundancy was by design. Despite the successive deaths of Iranian leaders during the 2026 Iran war, analysts noted the IRGC's constant activity and increasing influence within Iran's political structure under Khamenei.
The killing of the late Khamenei's main adviser Ali Larijani was a real blow to the ruling authorities given his extensive experience, his ability to operate between Iran's different power centres and his skills negotiating with the outside world, while other capable, experienced political figures remain but the more prominent ones likely to step into the shoes of Larijani and other assassinated individuals may be more hardline than those who have been killed.
Several figures retain significant influence. Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, a former Revolutionary Guards commander, Tehran mayor and failed presidential candidate, may be the biggest political heavyweight still alive and has been increasingly vocal over recent weeks, setting out Iran's stance as the war has developed and was said by an Israeli official and a source familiar with the matter to have been negotiating with the U.S. over recent days. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has been parliament speaker since 2020 and is a conservative former commander of the Revolutionary Guard.
The question is not whether Iran will hold together. That seems assured in the immediate term. The question is what shape the regime will take. The system shows structural stability taking precedence over scholarly merit. Analysts have generally seen Mojtaba as more open to developing a nuclear weapons program than his father, opposing his father's fatwa against nuclear weapons, and he is considered among the most hardline of the Iranian principlists.
The Islamic Republic was born from a revolution that promised to break with the despotism of the Shah. Its first constitution required the Supreme Leader to be a person of exceptional religious learning. The 1989 constitutional amendment, originally made to accommodate Ali Khamenei, effectively separated religious rank from political office. Today, emphasis is placed less on Ijtihad and more on maslahat-e-nezam, the principle of prioritising the state's interests, with the system now prioritizing the leader's social and political insight and their command over the security forces, especially the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
For Australians watching Iran's internal dynamics, the implications are regional. A hardline succession under Mojtaba may signal little appetite for negotiation with the West in the short term. But the regime's survival also depends on managing an exhausted population and a fractured military command. Either way, predictions of Iranian collapse have been premature. The system that emerged from 1979 was built to survive crises like this, and it is surviving.