Trump says Iran wants to talk but who will lead after Khamenei?

As the White House confirmed on Sunday, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s leadership has contacted the U.S. asking for talks. The list of potential successors to replace Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on Saturday by an Israeli airstrike, includes his son and former advisers. 

Since the establishment in 1979 of the Islamic Republic, led by the fiery anti-American Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, this will be only the second time that a new supreme leader has been selected. 

The potential successors to Khamenei include a list of hard-line anti-Western extremists who, like Khamenei, are set on the destruction of Israel and the continued export of the Islamic revolution.

Ali Larijani

One possible successor is regime loyalist Ali Larijani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, who reportedly implemented Khamenei’s plan to massacre over 30,000 Iranians who protested against his regime in January.

On Saturday, he threatened a response in a statement on X on Saturday, writing, ‘We will make the Zionist criminals and the vile Americans regret it,’ adding, ‘The brave soldiers and the great nation of Iran will deliver an unforgettable lesson to the hell-bound oppressors of the international order.’

In January, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Larijani as one of ‘the architects of the Iranian regime’s brutal crackdown on peaceful demonstrators.’ The statement added, ‘Larijani was one of the first Iranian leaders to call for violence in response to the legitimate demands of the Iranian people.’

Larijani was the president of the Islamic Republic’s parliament and, like Khamenei, has engaged in Holocaust denial. Larijani was also a commander for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a U.S. and EU-designated terrorist organization.

Beni Sabti, an Iran expert at the Institute of National Security Studies in Israel, questioned reports claiming that Larijani is favorite to be the next supreme leader. He told Fox News Digital, ‘Larijani is not a cleric, but he can help some of the candidates who are clerics behind the curtains, such as his brother, Mohammad-Javad Larijani, who was head of the judiciary.’ 

Mohammad-Javad Larijani

Mohammad-Javad Larijani has called for the destruction of Israel and denied the Holocaust. He was previously secretary general of Iran’s high council for human rights. 

As a close adviser to the late supreme leader, he has defended stoning for adultery, declaring it protects ‘family values’ as part of Islamic law. 

Mojataba Khamenei

Another replacement for Khamenei might be his second son, Mojtaba, who works closely with IRGC. The first Trump administration sanctioned him in 2019. 

According to the Treasury Department sanction designation, ‘The Supreme Leader has delegated a part of his leadership responsibilities to Mojataba Khamenei, who worked closely with the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) and also the Basij Resistance Force (Basij) to advance his father’s destabilizing regional ambitions and oppressive domestic objectives.’ 

Iran International reported that the IRGC seeks a rapid-fire replacement for Khamenei. The Islamic system in Iran prescribes an elected body of 88 senior clerics—the Assembly of Experts—to select the next leader.

Alireza Arafi

The cleric and jurist Alireza Arafi, 67, who is part of a three-person temporary leadership council to run Iran might also be the successor to Khamenei.

According to the U.S.group United Against a Nuclear Iran, Arafi promised ‘death’ to protesters who knock over the turbans of Iranian Islamic clerics. ‘Those who attack the turbans of the clergy should know that the turban will become their shroud,’ Arafi said. 

Ayatollah Mohammad-Mehdi Mirbagheri 

The extremist Ayatollah Mohammad-Mehdi Mirbagheri is also a contender to replace Khamenei. Mirbagheri argues for fighting and overcoming ‘infidels.’ 

Mirbagheri has quoted Iran’s first Supreme Leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, declaring that a ‘new culture based on Islam in the world’ would mean ‘hardship, martyrdom and hunger’ and that Iranian people had ‘voluntarily chosen’ to embrace this activity, according to Iran International. Mirbagheri’s theological credentials position him as a natural replacement for Khamenei.

Other names

Another clerical successor to Khamenei being discussed is Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. He is the custodian of the Khomeini mausoleum and, at 53 is young by the Islamic Republic’s standards for leadership.

United Against a Nuclear Iran ranked Ayatollah Seyyed Hashem Hosseini Bushehri, who was born in 1956 in Bardkhun, Bushehr, a second tier candidate to replace Khamenei.

‘Bushehr, is a powerful figure in Iran’s religious and academic spheres. He embarked on his theological education in Bushehr before moving to Qom to further his studies. 

According to UANI, In 2024, Bushehri urged Iranian women to ‘address issues such as the status of women’s rights in Western societies and the flaws that exist in this area in the West,’ which would prevent the ‘enemy [the West]’ to ‘not even have a chance to challenges us [Iran].’

Iran analyst, Sabti, who was born in Tehran, said, ‘I don’t think that Israel and the U.S. should allow them to choose the next leader.’ He compared the successor system to Hamas when Israel eliminates a Hamas terrorist leader, and he is swiftly replaced with a new leader. 

‘There is a need to ‘prevent the next leader from being chosen,’ he said. ‘Maybe we can eliminate the next one even before he is chosen.’ 

He said it is important to ‘break the system’ to prevent the continuation of terrorism. ‘It is bad for Arab countries and Israel if the regime remains the same’ in Iran.  

Sabti said the regime can continue to build its illicit nuclear weapons program, ballistic missiles and sponsor terrorism, adding it is better to dissolve the regime and ‘bring in a new system. 

He concluded that regime change requires ‘talking to the people,’ and, ‘maybe it is time for them to come out and make the good revolution.’