Some observers argue that Mojtaba Khamenei’s election as Iran’s third supreme leader may open the way for de-escalation with the United States. This view is wrong. His selection leads in the opposite direction. It does not show moderation. Rather, it shows continuity, but under much harder and more dangerous conditions. Mojtaba is likely to make the Islamic Republic’s regional and foreign policy even more aggressive. His political character, his long relationship with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and the way he came to power all suggest a more radical Islamic Republic, if the regime survives.

The first reason is clear. Mojtaba Khamenei is not an outsider who suddenly took power during a chaotic moment. He is the product of the most hardline networks of the Islamic Republic, and he has worked at the centre of them for many years. Mojtaba has minimal exposure to the West, apart from an alleged trip to London to seek a cure for infertility problems. He also takes office with less experience in international politics than his father: Ali Khamenei travelled abroad during his time as president of the Islamic Republic, before he became supreme leader in 1989. Mojtaba, however, has until now always remained behind the curtain of the Office of the Supreme Leader.

What we do know is that Khamenei the younger is a deeply conservative cleric with close ties to senior ayatollahs and the IRGC. He built influence gradually inside the security apparatus and within the economic empire connected to it. In practice, he worked as his father’s gatekeeper and almost like a mini supreme leader. The US Treasury sanctioned him in 2019 because it saw him as someone acting on behalf of the supreme leader and helping the regime’s domestic repression and foreign adventurism.

However, Mojtaba’s role is not only that of a loyal devotee to the system. He also helped shape the system into what it is today. Since the 2000s, Mojtaba has been an important behind-the-scenes actor in strengthening the Iranian regime’s hardline camp. For years, many Iranian political insiders and outside observers have connected his name to interference in elite politics, noting how he cultivated the radical hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president and continued to support him during the repression that followed his disputed 2009 re-election. Former Speaker of Parliament Mehdi Karroubi accused Ali Khamenei of building an unaccountable deep state dominated by the Revolutionary Guards and of suppressing real political representation. This was exactly the political environment in which Mojtaba became more powerful. In Iran, his image was not built through religious scholarship or public popularity but through his nepotistic connection to the inner circles of a regime defined by coercion, control and ideological discipline.

That is why the argument that Mojtaba may now choose the path of concessions fundamentally misunderstands both the man and the institution he now leads. A supreme leader in the middle of a war cannot survive by looking weak in front of his hardline base. Mojtaba’s power depends less on popular legitimacy and more on the loyalty of the IRGC, the Basij, intelligence institutions, and hardline clerical circles. His selection keeps the hardliners fully in control, and many people see it as the IRGC’s preferred outcome. This alone should make clear that his rise is not a sign of flexibility but of greater aggressiveness.

The second reason for scepticism is even more important. Mojtaba did not come to power after a normal succession process. He became supreme leader only after the United States and Israel killed his father, mother, wife, sister, and other family members. Under such conditions, expecting him to move toward reconciliation is as politically naive as it is unrealistic. Of course, personal trauma does not always make leaders reckless, but in revolutionary regimes under siege, such losses usually produce more extremism. In any case, many believe that Mojtaba is more hardline than his father and will have revenge on his mind.

This personal factor is important because, in the Islamic Republic, ideology and emotion usually strengthen each other. Ali Khamenei built his worldview around the axis of resistance, martyrdom and hostility toward the United States and the destruction of Israel. After his death, this worldview will not disappear. It will become even more sacred inside the regime. The regime has already described Ali Khamenei as a martyr imam and compared him to Imam Ali, the main Shiite symbol of sacrifice and resistance. Mojtaba now inherits not only the office of supreme leader, but also this sanctified language of martyrdom and demands from his father’s supporters that his death be avenged. This makes compromise more difficult. Any serious concession to Washington after such events would be seen by the regime’s core supporters as a betrayal of both blood and ideology.

Tellingly, multiple reports suggest that Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Secretary Ali Larijani opposed Mojtaba’s candidacy. That raises questions as to the future of Larijani, whom western officials view as more pragmatic, under Mojtaba Khamenei’s supreme leadership. After all, every major position, such as the secretary, has in practice required the blessing of the Office of the Supreme Leader and the secretary has also doubled as a personal representative of the supreme leader on the SNSC.

Meanwhile, the big winners of Mojtaba’s selection are the remaining members of the Habib Circle, a hardline military-security patronage network that he courted for years, as well as the ambitious Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, whose protection by the system and rise has been fuelled by his close association with Mojtaba.

Those who still hope for moderation also ignore Mojtaba’s strategic thinking and political background. He is not expected to dismantle the network of regional militias, stop the nuclear project, or rethink Iran’s military doctrine. On the contrary, his career suggests that he has been deeply invested in exactly these pillars of regime survival. Now, as the supreme leader, he has ultimate authority over foreign policy, the armed forces, and the nuclear programme. Learning from the last few months, he may move beyond the path his father followed and take Iran from nuclear threshold status toward an actual bomb.

The next generation of the IRGC includes officers whose careers were forged on the battlefields of the Middle East, particularly Syria. They saw Iran rise as a regional power after those interventions and have watched in frustration as the system lost its ability to deter Iran’s adversaries since 2023. Those voices will form a core part of Mojtaba’s constituency and seek to rebuild what, in their view, was lost under Ali Khamenei’s later years as supreme leader, viewing an approach of ‘no peace, but no war’ as a faulty policy. In the present conditions, when the regime feels existential pressure, the logic of the system points toward more use of proxies, more missile development, more repression and more nuclear escalation.

In short, Mojtaba Khamenei’s rise should not be misunderstood as a transition that may create diplomatic opportunity. He is a son of the system, one of the engineers of its hardline direction, and now the heir of a bloody logic of revenge. The idea that such a person will bring peace with the United States is wishful thinking. His leadership is much more likely to produce a more repressive Iran inside the country and a more dangerous Iran in the region and beyond.