Mojtaba Khamenei’s elevation as Iran’s new supreme leader was announced

When Mojtaba Khamenei’s elevation as Iran’s new supreme leader was announced, many observers treated it chiefly as a confirmation of a new hardliner order in Tehran. Subsequent rumours about his injury or even death, sparked by his disappearance from public view, have fuelled speculations of what that may mean for the Iranian regime. What many analyses fail to register is that the power consolidation under way in Iran is structural rather than personal. What the war has reinforced is a broader regime of securitised rule whose logic exceeds any one successor. This process will continue with or without Mojtaba Khamenei at the helm.