Iran Picks Khamenei’s Son as Next Leader

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1:27IBM. J.P. Morgan Chase Bank N.A. Member FDIC. Copyright 2026. J.P. Morgan Chase and Company. Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio. News. You're listening to Bloomberg Businessweek with Carol Masser and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio. We've talked about the ongoing, of course, U.S. war in Iran. We've had the president certainly out there on social about different things when it comes to the Strait of Hormuz. We did kind of kick off our day noting, thanks to the defense secretary, that the U.S. said it's conducting its most intense day of strikes yet while Iran shows no appetite for truth. I want to just point out that there was a Bloomberg opinion piece that really caught our attention.

2:15It was by our Mark Champion. And it got into how President Trump doesn't know his enemy in Iran. And that's a problem. him. His point is that the appointment of Moshe Taba Khamenei, a supreme leader, represents regime consolidation, making any transition to a less confrontational Iran or secular democracy still less likely than it was before. So we wanted to see what our next guest has to say about this. He lived in Iran. I believe he was born in Iran. He was in Tehran specifically. It's great to have back with us Alex Vatanka. He is senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. He specializes in Iran, and he joins us from Washington, D.C.

2:56Alex, it is great to have you back with us. We've been thinking about engaging with you once again. Does President Trump really understand his enemy, his new enemy, perhaps, in Iran as our marked champion rights? It's great to be with you. Look, I mean, the new Supreme Leader is 56 years of age. He has pretty much lived his entire life, you know, in the Islamic Republic, the system of which his father led for 36 years. We don't really know much about him in terms of his worldview. We know much about his father's worldview. We know it was one that was essentially about repression at home and confronting the outside world, particularly the United States and Israel.

3:44But, you know, the big question here is what would Mosh Taba Khamenei decide to do? And more importantly, because I think it's really important to remember, Mastab Khamenei got this job because there's a consensus, particularly in the Revolutionary Guards, to give him this role. He didn't sort of force himself onto the role. He doesn't have the political base in society to do that. He was given this role on a silver platter, essentially the way his father got it back in 1989. The question is, what is it that the Revolutionary Guards want to do? Because they must have a hard look at their society.

4:19Yes, they are fighting this fight with the U.S. and Israel, but they also have an extremely angry Iranian population that could come out in the streets at any moment. So that would be a two-front war. And again, they have to make a decision with the death of Ali Khamenei. Is the arrival of Mojtabu Khamenei that symbolic moment where you decide to go in a different direction once this war has come to an end? Or do they double down and stay the course the way Ali Khamenei wanted it to be? Because that's a very high-risk strategy, strategy, if that's the one they choose to go for. I know you mentioned that it's a bit unclear as to how much continuity we should expect between his father and him in terms of worldviews.

4:59But I'm curious, just how important is this next leader for the Iranian people? I have to point out that this idea of a supreme leader is man-made. It was created in 1979. There only been two other so-called supreme leaders Khomeini and then followed by Khamenei and now we have this Khamenei the second so three supreme leaders in a country that really doesn't have much of a you know precedent for such a role so the role essentially in many ways is going to be one where in the individual the occupant of that office could shape it it takes time to shape it You know, there's nothing in the constitution or the sort of culture or history of the country that tells us that role has to go in a certain direction.

5:49So, for example, just to give you an idea, Mustafa Khamenei could, as I said earlier, decide to stay with his father's legacy and sort of continue down that path, which would be a high risk strategy since his father essentially failed on all fronts. Or he could decide, you know what, I'm 56 years old. My people, they want me gone. They want the system gone. the only chance I might have now that I'm being bombed by the Americans and Israelis is look to my own people and at least seek another mandate. And to get that mandate, you've got to go in a very different direction because Islamism essentially failed as a model of governance in Iran.

6:24Nobody believes in militant Islamism except the hardcore elements that support the regime. So here's an opportunity for not just Mushtaba himself only, but the revolutionic guards, which essentially is the state within the state. They're the ones who are not just running the military operations right now against the US and Israel with, you know, firing those ballistic missiles and drones, but they actually have political power, so much so that they essentially gave this job to Munchtaba. So we have to wait and see. I think what the regime wants to do is to first see if they can get a good deal from the United States.

6:56What does that mean? That means what they call a permanent ceasefire. That's what they're asking for. Let's see if Donald Trump, the president of the United States, is going to give him something that looks like permanent ceasefire. If they achieve that, then they have to turn around and look their own people in the eye and see what kind of a deal they can reach with them. Again, it could be one of accommodating the grievances of the people, or it could be one of mass killing, like we saw a few weeks ago, when they massacred tens of thousands of their own people. So that's a decision, ultimately, these post-Ali Khamenei leaders have to make.

7:27And I have no way of knowing which way they're going to go. But I can tell you this, they have never been under so much pressure as they are today. Alex, just got about a minute left here. It almost sounds to me that perhaps Donald Trump, the president, was right in doing this, especially if it gets Iran on a path where more people in that country actually benefit. You know, one would hope so. I don't think anybody's going to miss Ali Khamenei. Nobody's going to miss the Islamic Republic. It's really impossible to defend the islamist system in iran in terms of a system but it's early days to say if if this system is going to collapse you know as i said you could have in a worst case scenario this system surviving and actually coming out the other end more uh hardened and more determined to if you will confront the united states and israel i hope that's not the case right but it is a scenario for us to keep in mind the longer this goes on just 30 seconds here is it more likely that we have created a bigger enemy or not necessarily?

8:30Not necessarily. They could come out of this in terms of a shock to the system and realize, you know what? As a country, we just can't keep doing this anymore. For 47 years, they've done it. Maybe it's time for them to rethink their strategy in terms of both U.S. and Israel and focus on development of the country of Iran from within. This is exactly what the people of Iran want. As we say every day, I feel like every hour, every minute, You know, so many different ways that all of this could play out, and there's just lots of questions. Alex, thank you again. Glad we could get some time once again.

8:58Alex Katanka, he's Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute specializing in Iran, joining us from the nation's capital.

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