2 months ago
1
“I guarantee everyone that we volition not forgo vengeance for the humor of your martyrs,” Ayatollah Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei, Iran’s caller ‘Leader of the Revolution’ (Rahbar Enghelab), said connected March 12, successful his archetypal nationalist remark aft his elevation to the country’s astir almighty office. “The vengeance we person successful caput is not constricted to the martyrdom of the large person of the Revolution,” the 56-year-old cleric said, referring to the assassination of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, connected February 28 by a U.S.-Israeli associated strike. “Rather, each subordinate of the federation who is martyred by the force constitutes an autarkic taxable successful the record of vengeance,” helium said successful a connection issued successful Farsi.
The younger Khamenei was astatine Ali Khamenei’s residence successful Tehran erstwhile it was struck connected the archetypal time of the ongoing war. He mislaid his father, who had been Iran’s rahbar for 37 years, arsenic good arsenic his parent and his wife, on with different apical officials of the Islamic Republic. “He [Mojtaba] was there, and helium was injured successful his legs and manus and arm... successful the bombardment,” Iran’s Ambassador to Cyprus, Alireza Salarian, aboriginal said. Yousef Pezeshkian, lad of President Masoud Pezeshkian, wrote successful a societal media station connected March 11 that Mojtaba was injured “but harmless and sound”.
A wounded antheral who mislaid his parents and woman and was elected the ‘Supreme Leader’ of a federation nether onslaught from the world’s astir almighty state and its closest ally, Mojtaba Khamenei present faces a uncommon situation his predecessors ne'er confronted — to past the tempest and sphere the republic.
War and faith
Born successful 1969 successful the Shia beatified metropolis of Mashhad, Mojtaba grew up successful the Shah’s Iran. His begetter was 1 of the figureheads of the clerical absorption towards Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In the years earlier the 1979 revolution, Ali Khamenei, on with Abbas Vaez-Tabasi and Sayyed Abdolkarim Hasheminejad, 2 different clerics, formed a enactment assembly to organise protests and governmental activities successful Mashhad against the Shah’s rule. After the revolution, Ali Khamenei became a Deputy Defence Minister successful the revolutionary government. Hasheminejad was assassinated successful 1981. Vaez-Tabasi would spell connected to clasp cardinal positions successful the clerical constitution of the republic until his decease successful 2016.
Mojtaba, who was 9 astatine the clip of the revolution, moved to Tehran with his family. He attended Alavi High School, a salient backstage spiritual schoolhouse successful cardinal Tehran. In 1987, astatine 17, Mojtaba joined the equipped forces to combat the warfare against Iraq. According to an authoritative documentary of his life, helium served during the warfare “as a elemental Basij”. The Basij, a paramilitary unpaid organisation, is 1 of the cardinal branches of the Islamic Republic’s information apparatus.
Ayatollah Khomeini accepted a ceasefire with Iraq successful 1988, which helium compared to “drinking poison”. After his decease successful 1989, Ali Khamenei was chosen arsenic the 2nd rahbar. Mojtaba started his spiritual studies successful Qom aft the war. One of his aboriginal teachers was Sayyed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, who would aboriginal go Iran’s judiciary chief. In 1999, helium went backmost to Qom for precocious theological studies. In the metropolis of seminaries, helium joined the ranks of clerics on with Mesbah Yazdi, a scholar, ‘principalist’ (hardliner) and a subordinate of the Assembly of Experts (from 1999 to 2016); and Ayatollah Lotfollah Safi Golpayegani, the archetypal Secretary-General of the Guardian Council successful the 1980s. By 2004, Mojtaba started teaching ‘Kharij-e Feqh’ (advanced jurisprudence), according to the authoritative biography. He was “regarded arsenic the prof of 1 of the astir crowded high-level seminary classes.” It says helium is fluent successful Farsi, Arabic and English and has completed specialised studies successful science and psychoanalysis.
Even though Mojtaba ne'er held a law position, helium emerged arsenic a cardinal pillar of Iran’s clerical constitution and an state of the information helping during the agelong play of his father’s reign. “Ayatollah Mojtaba maintained beardown ties with figures associated with the Axis of Resistance,” reads a illustration of the cleric connected Press TV’s website. He was precise adjacent to Qassem Soleimani, the charismatic Quds Force commandant who was assassinated by the U.S. successful January 2020 successful Baghdad. Soleimani, who coordinated with Iran’s non-state allies successful West Asia, was 1 of the cardinal architects of the ‘axis of resistance’ strategy.
In November 2019, erstwhile the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions connected Mojtaba, 1 of the reasons it listed was the younger Khamenei’s adjacent ties with the Quds Force and Basij. “Mojtaba Khamenei, the 2nd lad of the Supreme Leader, is designated contiguous for representing the Supreme Leader successful an authoritative capableness contempt ne'er being elected oregon appointed to a authorities position. The Supreme Leader has delegated a portion of his enactment responsibilities to Mojtaba Khamenei, who worked intimately with the commandant of the IRGC-Quds Force [who astatine that clip was headed by Soleimani] and besides Basij to beforehand his father’s destabilising determination ambitions and oppressive home objectives,” work the Treasury statement.
Mojtaba maintained adjacent ties with some Basij and IRGC from the precocious 1980s. A biography connected PBS claimed that Mojtaba was a person of Saeed Emami, a Deputy Intelligence Minister and 1 of the astir almighty information commissars successful Iran successful the 1990s. Emami was accused of moving decease squads that hunted down anti-revolutionary units overseas (the alleged ‘chain murders’ of the 1990s). Brigadier Gen. Sayyed Mohammad Hejazi, a seasoned of the Iran-Iraq warfare and a erstwhile Basij commander, was besides considered a adjacent adjutant of Mojtaba. These relationships helped him support his power implicit the IRGC, Quds Force, Basij and quality networks implicit the years.
He had besides faced allegations of meddling successful the governmental process — thing the Supreme Leader’s Office had always, astatine slightest publicly, stayed distant from. In 2005, Mahdi Karroubi, a erstwhile talker of Majles and a reformist campaigner successful the 2005 statesmanlike election, wrote to Ali Khamenei, saying Mojtaba had interfered successful the elections and supported and campaigned for 1 campaigner (he was referring to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad). Ali Khamenei rejected the accusations. In 2009, aft the disputed elections sparked protests successful Iran, Basij cracked down connected the demonstrations. Mojtaba had backed Ahmadinejad’s reelection.
In caller years, helium had been wide rumoured arsenic a imaginable successor to his father. An Ayatollah who chopped his teeth successful the Iran-Iraq war, a teacher from Qom who effortlessly navigates the powerfulness corridors of Iran’s theocracy, subject establishment, and fractious polity, Mojtaba, who ever mostly avoided planetary media attention, was seen by galore arsenic a earthy candidate. Yet, the halfway thought of the Islamic gyration was explicitly opposed to dynastic rule. Hereditary succession was “sinister”, “evil” and “invalid”, which had “no spot successful Islam,” Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, laminitis of the Islamic Republic, erstwhile wrote. Ali Khamenei himself had ne'er publically suggested that Mojtaba could win him.
But successful a infinitesimal of crisis, members of Iran’s 88-member Assembly of Experts, the clerical assemblage that chooses the Supreme Leader, picked Mojtaba, sending a wide connection of continuity and defiance. After sidesplitting Ali Khamenei, U.S. President Donald Trump had said Mojtaba would not beryllium acceptable to him and that helium should beryllium progressive successful the enactment of the caller Supreme Leader. After his appointment, Mojtaba vowed revenge, saying the warfare would not beryllium implicit unless capable force humor was shed. “He would onslaught the [enemy] lines heroically,” says a commandant successful the authoritative documentary astir the rahbar.
