Iran's supreme leader names his potential successors from a bunker, fearing an attack by Israel or the US.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has reportedly named three potential successors from a bunker where he is holed up in case he is killed in an Israeli or US attack, The New York Times reported Saturday.
Ali Khamenei is 86 years old. Photo: AFP
The newspaper, citing three Iranian officials familiar with the situation, said Khamenei, who has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution , had instructed his country's Assembly of Experts, the clerical body responsible for appointing the supreme leader, to quickly choose his successor from among three senior clerics he had proposed.
Ayatollah Khamenei's son, Mojtaba, also a cleric and close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who had been rumored to be a favorite, is not among the candidates, according to sources.
Succession within the Islamic Republic is a delicate and thorny process , but the ayatollah wants to ensure a swift and orderly transition to preserve his legacy amid the war with Israel, the paper adds.
The Supreme Leader is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and heads the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. He is also the highest religious authority of Shiism, the majority branch of Islam in Iran.
In 1989, Khamenei succeeded Ruhollah Khomeini after his death. Photo: Getty Images
“Iran’s top priority is the preservation of the state,” Vali Nasr, an Iran expert and professor of international affairs at Johns Hopkins University, told the New York Times. “Everything is calculated and pragmatic.”
According to The New York Times , senior Iranian officials are also making preparations "for a wide range of outcomes" as the war escalates and considering that the United States could intervene militarily in the conflict, according to the Iranian officials, who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the ayatollah's plans.
The direct conflict between Israel and Iran— the most serious between the two to date —began on June 13, following the Israeli bombing of nuclear and military facilities in Iran. Since then, the two countries have exchanged a series of airstrikes.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that killing Khamenei would "end the conflict," while US President Donald Trump claimed to know the Supreme Leader's whereabouts, although he ruled out killing him "for now."
Lebanese Hezbollah supporters wave Palestinian and Iranian flags. Photo: AFP
On Friday, Trump explained that within two weeks, he will decide whether his country will join the Israeli attacks, with the goal of preventing the Islamic Republic from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
If the United States were to join the fight with Israel, the risk would increase significantly, as it possesses a massive 30,000-pound bomb capable of penetrating the mountain where Iran has built its largest nuclear enrichment facility, Fordo.
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