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The Islamic Republic of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei has declared that Iran “isn’t a nation that surrenders”:
Those very words from Khamenei are reflected in the regime’s move to survive, as it now seeks likely candidates to succeed Khamenei. “Iranian officials consider removing Ali Khamenei in plot to replace supreme leader – report,” Jerusalem Post, June 22, 2025:
Iranian officials are considering removing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the Supreme Leader of Iran after the country endured airstrikes by Israel and the United States, two sources involved in the discussions told The Atlantic in a report published on Sunday.
The plot to replace the supreme leader is being planned by a group of businessmen, military and political figures, and relatives and high-ranking clerics, the report said.
“Ours is just one idea,” a source told The Atlantic. “Tehran is now full of such plots. They are also talking to Europeans about the future of Iran. Everybody knows Khamenei’s days are numbered. Even if he stays in office, he won’t have actual power.”…
Discussion about Khamenei’s ill health, ability to rule and whom his successor would be were happening well before the recent escalation, pointing to a likely longstanding determination by the regime to install a successor. A few days ago, The Atlantic reported about an inside plot to remove Khamenei as the Supreme Leader after the debilitating airstrikes by Israel and the US. The plotters, comprised of businessmen, military and political figures, and high-ranking clerics “agreed that a leadership committee consisting of a few high-ranking officials would take over running the country and negotiate a deal with the United States to stop the Israeli attacks.” Of course Iran must never be trusted to make any lasting deal; it only manipulates to buy time.
As a regime now plunged into chaos, the specter of the 1979 Revolution is revisiting Iran. On one side is Iran’s Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who says that a transition plan is in place if Khamenei falls; and on the other side are the mullahs and their loyalists seeking to rescue the Shia regime from falling.
At the top of the list are the offspring of the two supreme leaders: Ayatollah Khamenei’s 56-year-old son Mojtaba Khamenei, and Hassan Khomeini, the 53-year-old grandson of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the architect of the Islamic revolution in Iran.
Meanwhile, in the latest development, speaker of Iran’s Parliament (Majlis) Mohammad Qalibaf, along with other Majlis members, announced–amid cheers of “Death to America”–a new Bill a bill to suspend regime cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency and install a new policy of “nuclear ambiguity”. This announcement coincides with a military campaign and an intensified security crackdown on dissidents with mass arrests and executions.
Israel has made it clear that the aim of the strikes was not regime change, but to eliminate Iran’s nuclear threat. As it stands, regime change is likely, but in what direction is a mystery. While dissidents are fighting inside and outside of Iran in hopes of Pahlavi’s rise in a new dawn for Iran, the Islamic Republic of Iran is fierely fighting back, using all powers at its disposal, to rescue dreams of a globally dominant Shia state.