In the wake of the death of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Republic’s intricate and often enigmatic governing structure has appointed Ayatollah Alireza Arafi, a staunchly radical cleric, to its interim leadership council. This decision, announced on Saturday, underscores the ongoing influence of hardline elements within Iran’s political landscape.

Ben Sabti, a specialist on Iranian affairs with the Institute of National Security Studies in Israel, commented on Arafi’s emergence as a significant figure in the past few years. Sabti noted, “His name was brought up in the last two or three years. He is not a kind of politician but is part of exporting the revolution from the propaganda side.” The exportation of its revolutionary Shiite ideology has been a cornerstone of Iran’s Islamic Republic since its inception in 1979, aiming to inspire similar radical Islamist movements worldwide.

Jason Brodsky, who serves as the policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran, remarked to Fox News Digital, “He’s been marinating in Khomeinist ideology his entire career. Khomeinism is a threat to U.S. interests.” Such ideology, initially propagated by the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in 1979, remains deeply antagonistic, with “Death to America” serving as a symbolic mantra of its vision.

Ayatollah Alireza Arafi’s longstanding opposition to both the U.S. and Israel has been documented extensively, including in a report by United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI). Arafi has been vocally critical, once declaring, “America will take its wish for Iran to abandon production of military hardware to the grave.” Furthermore, during a 2019 Friday prayer sermon, he boldly stated, “We will stay with our imam and leader to the end, when we humiliate [global] arrogance. Together with the Sayyed of the resistance, we say: Oh great leader of the world of Islam, we will be with you until the end, when the arrogant people in the world are defeated, and Israel is erased.”

As Iranians navigate this turbulent period, images of women passing electoral posters of Ayatollah Alireza Arafi in Tehran capture a moment of transition and uncertainty in the heart of the nation’s capital.

According to a UANI report, Arafi has long been agitating against the U.S. and Israel. “America will take its wish for Iran to abandon production of military hardware to the grave,” he is quoted as saying, and in a 2019 Friday prayer sermon he announced, “We will stay with our imam and leader to the end, when we humiliate [global] arrogance. Together with the Sayyed of the resistance, we say: Oh great leader of the world of Islam, we will be with you until the end, when the arrogant people in the world are defeated, and Israel is erased.”

Brodsky continued, “The fact that Iran’s system elevated Alireza Arafi to membership on the interim leadership council is a signal that he could be a leading candidate to replace Ali Khamenei as supreme leader. 

Arafi is also being watched in Washington. In an interview with Fox News Digital on Sunday, Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, described Arafi as “”a very hard-line cleric.”

Arafi promised “death” to protesters who knock over the turbans of Iranian Islamic clerics, according to UANI. (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images/NCRI)

He noted, “Arafi has been promoted through the ranks — heading Iran’s seminary, leading Al-Mustafa University, and serving as a member of the Guardian Council and Assembly of Experts. Additionally, he has been Friday prayer leader of Qom, which is the center of the Iranian clergy. This provides him with religious, educational and government experience to replace Khamenei as supreme leader.”

According to UANI, Arafi promised “death” to protesters who knock over the turbans of Iranian Islamic clerics. “Those who attack the turbans of the clergy should know that the turban will become their shroud,” Arafi said.

Brodsky added, “Arafi helped make Al-Mustafa University into a training ground and recruiting center for the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps]. Al-Mustafa University was later sanctioned by the U.S. government under counterterrorism authorities. A weakness in his candidacy to replace Khamenei is that he has never been a core member of the military-security establishment in Iran and has never led a branch of the Islamic Republic’s government apparatus.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i, the head of the judiciary, and Alireza Arafi, right, deputy chairman of the Assembly of Experts, attend the meeting of the interim leadership council in an unknown location in Iran, March 1, 2026. (Handout via Reuters)

“He is also not a Sayyid. [sign of high respect for people of lineage from the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Shiite tradition.] But his serving on an interim leadership council will expose him to foreign policy and security issues to a greater extent, and position him as a formidable contender. Alireza Arafi is an indoctrinated follower of Khomeinism and spearheaded an effort to further Islamize Iran’s university and seminary system,” he said.

According to Iran Wire, an independent Iranian diaspora news outlet, “Alireza Arafi is a prominent hardline cleric, a member of the Guardian Council and the head of Iran’s seminaries, positions that place him at the center of the country’s religious establishment. His selection matters because the third member of the Temporary Leadership Council must be a theologian chosen by the Expediency Discernment Council — and Arafi is widely seen as a staunch loyalist to the core ideology of the Islamic Republic.”

On March 1, 2026, in Sana’a, Yemen. pro-Iran protesters brandish billboards depicting the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei at a rally held to condemn the U.S.-Israel aerial attacks on Iran. (Mohammed Hamoud/Getty Images)

Mardo Soghom, a veteran journalist and Iran expert, told Fox News Digital, “What I can say at this point is that there is no unified government with sufficient control over the country. The foreign minister admits the IRGC is on its own. Arafi would never have the authority or the control Khamenei had. It is a compromise candidate whom the IRGC can control and is not a threat to two factions.”

Mariam Memarsadeghi, senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and founder and director of the Cyrus Forum for Iran’s Future, told Fox News Digital, “The regime or what remains of it is no different from a terrorist group. Now that the U.S. and Israel are bombing the U.S. and Israel, every leader the terror group chooses will be rightly eliminated. The Iranian people are elated. All decent human beings who believe in freedom should be elated.”

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