NPR:

Jackie Northam

In the aftermath of the 12-day war in June between Israel and Iran, questions have arisen about Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He is 86 years old and was a potential Israeli target during the conflict, leading to speculation about who might succeed him.

There has only been one previous time when Iran went through a process of naming a new supreme leader — in 1989, when Khamenei was chosen to succeed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the towering figurehead behind the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Now, nearly four decades on, that process is once again unfolding, says Vali Nasr, an Iran expert at Johns Hopkins University and the author of Iran's Grand Strategy: A Political History.

"Everything in Iran in the past four or five years has really been about succession," he says.

Khamenei has periodically handed names of potential successors to the so-called Assembly of Experts, a group of roughly 80 clerics who decide the next leader — though, in effect, serve as a rubber stamp for whatever the supreme leader wishes. Nasr says after the recent war with Israel and the U.S. bombing of key Iranian nuclear sites, the selection of a successor has become more urgent.

U.S. strikes 3 nuclear sites in Iran, in major regional conflict escalation
"I think in the interest of preservation of the state and ensuring its continuity, [Khamenei] created contingency plans to make a transfer of power much more smooth and quick," he says.

Speculation over who may succeed Khamenei veers from hardliners like his 55-year-old son Mojtaba Khamenei and 52-year-old Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini, to past reform-minded presidents such as Hassan Rouhani and Mohammad Khatami.

Afshan Ostovar, an Iran expert at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., says Khamenei has good reasons not to tip his hand as to who may succeed him.

"Khamenei is going to lose status because he's going to have a successor," he says, adding that the successor is likely going to be a target for political attacks.  "So, the longer that successor is known, the longer opponents are going to have to sort of tarnish his brand."

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