Leadership transitions in dictatorships can signal upheaval – for better or worse – and in Iran that moment has now arrived. The death of the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, in a US airstrike on Tehran on February 28 marks the most consequential rupture in the Islamic Republic’s political system since 1989.
Unlike the managed transition that followed the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (who led the country from the 1979 revolution for ten years, after which Khamenei took over) things are different. This succession will take place amid acute domestic unrest, economic crisis and unprecedented external military pressure. What follows now will have far-reaching consequences.
In the end it was an act of war rather than revolution or old age that ended Khamenei’s rule. But it had been clear for some time that, like other ageing dictators, he could not continue indefinitely. Until recently, the question of succession focused on the likelihood of preferred individuals rising to take his place, including Khamenei’s son Mojtaba or the now-deceased former president, Ebrahim Raisi.
