The most probable direct successor to supreme leader Ali Khamenei is president Ebrahim Raisi. The most probable indirect successor is the leader’s son (and potential fourth leader of Iran) Mojataba Khatami. The ultraloyalist jurist Sadeq Larijani might become the ninth president of Iran, unless the „undecided“ grand-son (of Khomeni) Hassan Khomeni commence its own political carreer. The two underdogs (a) councillor and ex-president Hassan Rouhani and (b) councillor and theologian Mohsen Araki may not climb higher in the irano-political hierarchy.

I believe if Raisi will become supreme leader of Iran he will turn the regime once more into a kind of inquisition-dictatorship backed by the military like he did as a judge in 1988 during the times of mass executions. It is also very important to note that Raisi may become the first ayatollah (high ranking cleric in shia islam) with an A-bomb; the islamic republic of Iran tends to imperialism and once it finishes to build atomic weapons, its ambitions will grow and at the same time put the middle-east into chaos. Can Iran bear one more radical islamist as supreme leader or will the islamist clerics be remouved from pover by monarchists, a military junta or more democratically elected leaders ?

November 4th, 2023.