As the White House confirmed on Sunday, the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran has contacted the US requesting talks. The list of potential successors to replace Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike on Saturday, includes his son and former advisers.
Since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979, led by the fervently anti-American Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, this will be only the second time that a new supreme leader has been elected.
Khamenei’s potential successors include a list of hardline anti-Western extremists who, like Khamenei, are determined to destroy Israel and continue the Islamic revolution.
Ali Larijani warned Trump that US interference would “destroy American interests” after the president’s protest comments. (Str/Xinhua via Getty Images)
Ali Larijani
A possible successor is regime loyalist Ali Larijani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, who allegedly carried out Khamenei’s plan to massacre more than 30,000 Iranians who protested against his regime in January.
On Saturday, he threatened a response in a statement to
In January, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). sanctioned Larijani as one of “the architects of the Iranian regime’s brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters.” 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 parliament of the Islamic Republic and, like Khamenei, has been involved in Holocaust denial. Larijani was also commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), a US-EU designated terrorist organization.
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Mohammed-Javad Larijani
The Secretary General of the Supreme Council for Human Rights of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mohammad-Javad Larijani, attends a meeting with foreign ambassadors to Iran in the capital Tehran on June 24, 2019. (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 Supreme Council for Human Rights.
A close adviser to the late supreme leader, he has defended stoning for adultery, saying it protects “family values” as part of Islamic law.
Mojataba Khamenei
File photo shows Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, attending a demonstration marking Jerusalem Day in Tehran. (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Another replacement for Khamenei could be his second son, Mojtaba, who works closely with the IRGC. The first Trump administration sanctioned him in 2019.
Under Treasury sanctions, the Supreme Leader delegated some of his leadership responsibilities to Mojataba Khamenei, who worked closely with the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) as well as the Basij Resistance Force (Basij) to further his father’s destabilizing regional ambitions and oppressive domestic objectives.
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Iran International reported that the IRGC is looking for a quick replacement for Khamenei. Iran’s Islamic system calls for an elected body of 88 senior clerics – the Assembly of Experts – to select the next leader.
Iranian worshipers raise their hands in a sign of unity with Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during an anti-Israel rally to condemn Israel’s attacks on Iran, in central Tehran, Iran, on June 20, 2025. (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Alireza Arafi
Cleric and lawyer Alireza Arafi, 67, who is part of a three-member interim leadership council to govern Iran, could also be Khamenei’s successor.
According to the US group United Against a Nuclear Iran, Arafi promised “death” to protesters who topple the turbans of Iranian Muslim clerics. “Those who attack the turbans of the clergy should know that the turban will become their shroud,” Arafi said.
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People watch as smoke rises on the horizon after an explosion in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (AP Photo) (AP photo)
Ayatollah Mohammed-Mehdi Mirbagheri
The extremist Ayatollah Mohammad-Mehdi Mirbagheri is also a candidate to replace Khamenei. Mirbagheri advocates fighting and conquering ‘infidels’.
Mirbagheri has quoted Iran’s first Supreme Leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, stating that a “new culture based on Islam in the world” would mean “hardship, martyrdom and hunger” and that the 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 spiritual successor to Khamenei under discussion 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 leadership standards.
United against a nuclear Iran, Ayatollah Seyyed Hashem Hosseini ranked Bushehri, born in 1956 in Bardkhun, Bushehr, as a second-tier candidate to replace Khamenei.
Cars burn in a street during a protest against the collapse of the currency in Tehran, Iran, January 8, 2026. (Stringer/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS)
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“Bushehr is a powerful figure in Iran’s religious and academic fields. He began his theological training in Bushehr before moving to Qom to continue 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 shortcomings that exist in this regard in the West,” which would prevent the “enemy [the West]” to “not even have the chance to challenge us [Iran].”
Iranian analyst Sabti, born in Tehran, said: “I don’t think Israel and the US should let them choose the next leader.” He compared the successor system to Hamas, when Israel eliminates a Hamas terrorist leader and he is quickly replaced by a new leader.
TEHRAN, IRAN – FEBRUARY 28: Smoke rises over the city center after an Israeli army launches the second wave of airstrikes on Iran on February 28, 2026. (Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“There is a need to ‘prevent the next leader from being elected,’ he said. ‘Maybe we can eliminate the next one before he is even elected.’
He said it is important to “break the system” to prevent the continuation of terrorism. “It is bad for the Arab countries and Israel if the regime remains the same” in Iran.
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Sabti said the regime can continue to build up its illegal nuclear weapons program, ballistic missiles and sponsoring terrorism, adding that it is better to dissolve the regime and “establish a new system.”
He concluded that regime change requires “talking to the people,” and “maybe it’s time for them to come out and make the good revolution.”
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