Despite Pledges Against Hereditary Succession... Who Is Moztaba Khamenei, Succeeding His Father? [US-Iran War]

On the 8th (local time), Moztaba Khamenei was appointed as one of the top three supreme leaders of Iran. Photo by AFP Yonhap News

원본보기 아이콘

Moztaba Khamenei, 56, who has been elected as one of Iran's top three supreme leaders, is known as a hardliner within Iran's foreign policy establishment. He has taken an even stronger stance in defending Iran's system than his father, Ali Khamenei, and has maintained a confrontational approach toward the United States and other Western countries.

Born in 1969, Moztaba is the second son of Khamenei and was born in Mashhad, one of the holiest sites for Shia Islam in Iran. Influenced by his family from a young age, he received training as a Shia cleric.

After graduating from high school, Moztaba joined the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in 1987 and fought in the Iran-Iraq War, which lasted from 1981 to 1988. During his time on the battlefield, he built connections with key IRGC figures.

Moztaba has never held any official position in the Iranian government. Before becoming a supreme leader, his only official religious title was Hojjatoleslam, which is one rank below Ayatollah, the highest Shia cleric in Iran. Until recently, he taught students in the religious city of Qom.

However, he is believed to have exerted significant behind-the-scenes influence for decades by assisting his father and maintaining close ties with key individuals in Iran's intelligence and security agencies. According to CNN, Moztaba played an active role in helping hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad win the 2005 Iranian presidential election. He is also known to have mobilized the IRGC to lead the crackdown on the 2009 anti-government protests. The IRGC strongly supported his selection as the next supreme leader. Upon his election, the IRGC immediately issued a statement pledging allegiance to the new supreme leader.

However, the inheritance of the supreme leadership from father to son could draw criticism from both the Iranian political sphere and the clerical community. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which overthrew the Pahlavi dynasty, Iran has fundamentally prohibited hereditary succession. For this reason, the first supreme leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, did not appoint his own son as his successor. Ali Khamenei, Moztaba’s father, also stated during his lifetime that he opposed his son becoming his successor.

© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.