The White House announced on Sunday that Iranian leaders have reached out to the United States, seeking to initiate discussions. This comes in the wake of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death on Saturday, which resulted from an Israeli airstrike. Among those considered as potential successors are Khamenei’s son and former advisors.
This marks only the second occasion since the 1979 founding of the Islamic Republic, under the leadership of the vehemently anti-American Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, that a new supreme leader will be appointed.
The candidates poised to succeed Khamenei are largely hardline figures, known for their staunch anti-Western views. Like Khamenei, they are committed to the eradication of Israel and the continuation of the Islamic revolution’s influence beyond Iran’s borders.
Ali Larijani, a prominent regime loyalist and the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, is one of the leading contenders. He is noted for executing Khamenei’s directive earlier this year to suppress protests against the regime, resulting in the deaths of over 30,000 Iranians.
Ali Larijani
On Saturday, Larijani issued a stern warning via social media, proclaiming, “We will make the Zionist criminals and the vile Americans regret it.” He further declared, “The brave soldiers and the great nation of Iran will deliver an unforgettable lesson to the hell-bound oppressors of the international order.”
On Saturday, he threatened a response in a statement on X on Saturday, writing, “We will make the Zionist criminals and the vile Americans regret it,” adding, “The brave soldiers and the great nation of Iran will deliver an unforgettable lesson to the hell-bound oppressors of the international order.”
In January, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Larijani as one of “the architects of the Iranian regime’s brutal crackdown on peaceful demonstrators.” The statement added, “Larijani was one of the first Iranian leaders to call for violence in response to the legitimate demands of the Iranian people.”
Ali Larijani, addresses a press conference in Tehran, Iran. (Henghameh Fahimi/AFP via Getty Images)
Larijani was the president of the Islamic Republic’s parliament and, like Khamenei, has engaged in Holocaust denial. Larijani was also a commander for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a U.S. and EU-designated terrorist organization.
Beni Sabti, an Iran expert at the Institute of National Security Studies in Israel, questioned reports claiming that Larijani is favorite to be the next supreme leader. He told Fox News Digital, “Larijani is not a cleric, but he can help some of the candidates who are clerics behind the curtains, such as his brother, Mohammad-Javad Larijani, who was head of the judiciary.”
Mohammad-Javad Larijani
The secretary general of the High Council for Human Rights of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mohammad-Javad Larijani, attends a meeting with foreign ambassadors in Iran, on June 24, 2019, in the capital Tehran. (Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)
Mohammad-Javad Larijani has called for the destruction of Israel and denied the Holocaust. He was previously secretary general of Iran’s high council for human rights.
As a close adviser to the late supreme leader, he has defended stoning for adultery, declaring it protects “family values” as part of Islamic law.
Mojataba Khamenei
File photo shows Mojtaba Khamenei, son of Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, attending a demonstration to mark Jerusalem day in Tehran. (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Another replacement for Khamenei might be his second son, Mojtaba, who works closely with IRGC. The first Trump administration sanctioned him in 2019.
According to the Treasury Department sanction designation, “The Supreme Leader has delegated a part of his leadership responsibilities to Mojataba Khamenei, who worked closely with the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) and also the Basij Resistance Force (Basij) to advance his father’s destabilizing regional ambitions and oppressive domestic objectives.”
Iran International reported that the IRGC seeks a rapid-fire replacement for Khamenei. The Islamic system in Iran prescribes an elected body of 88 senior clerics—the Assembly of Experts—to select the next leader.
Iranian worshippers hold up their hands as signs of unity with Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during an anti-Israeli rally to condemn Israel’s attacks on Iran, in downtown Tehran, Iran, on June 20, 2025. (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Alireza Arafi
The cleric and jurist Alireza Arafi, 67, who is part of a three-person temporary leadership council to run Iran might also be the successor to Khamenei.
According to the U.S.group United Against a Nuclear Iran, 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.
People watch as smoke rises on the skyline after an explosion in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026.(AP Photo) (AP Photo)
Ayatollah Mohammad-Mehdi Mirbagheri
The extremist Ayatollah Mohammad-Mehdi Mirbagheri is also a contender to replace Khamenei. Mirbagheri argues for fighting and overcoming “infidels.”
Mirbagheri has quoted Iran’s first Supreme Leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, declaring that a “new culture based on Islam in the world” would mean “hardship, martyrdom and hunger” and that Iranian people had “voluntarily chosen” to embrace this activity, according to Iran International. Mirbagheri’s theological credentials position him as a natural replacement for Khamenei.
Other names
Another clerical successor to Khamenei being discussed is Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. He is the custodian of the Khomeini mausoleum and, at 53 is young by the Islamic Republic’s standards for leadership.
United Against a Nuclear Iran ranked Ayatollah Seyyed Hashem Hosseini Bushehri, who was born in 1956 in Bardkhun, Bushehr, a second tier candidate to replace Khamenei.
Cars burn in a street during a protest over the collapse of the currency’s value in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 8, 2026. (Stringer/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS)
“Bushehr, is a powerful figure in Iran’s religious and academic spheres. He embarked on his theological education in Bushehr before moving to Qom to further his studies.
According to UANI, In 2024, Bushehri urged Iranian women to “address issues such as the status of women’s rights in Western societies and the flaws that exist in this area in the West,” which would prevent the “enemy [the West]” to “not even have a chance to challenges us [Iran].”
Iran analyst, Sabti, who was born in Tehran, said, “I don’t think that Israel and the U.S. should allow them to choose the next leader.” He compared the successor system to Hamas when Israel eliminates a Hamas terrorist leader, and he is swiftly replaced with a new leader.
TEHRAN, IRAN – FEBRUARY 28: Smoke rises over the city center after an Israeli army launches 2nd wave of airstrikes on Iran on Feb. 28, 2026. (Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“There is a need to “prevent the next leader from being chosen,” he said. “Maybe we can eliminate the next one even before he is chosen.”
He said it is important to “break the system” to prevent the continuation of terrorism. “It is bad for Arab countries and Israel if the regime remains the same” in Iran.
Sabti said the regime can continue to build its illicit nuclear weapons program, ballistic missiles and sponsor terrorism, adding it is better to dissolve the regime and “bring in a new system.
He concluded that regime change requires “talking to the people,” and, “maybe it is time for them to come out and make the good revolution.”
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